Snipperclips: Cut It Out, Together! Review

This article first appeared on USgamer, a partner publication of VG247. Some content, such as this article, has been migrated to VG247 for posterity after USgamer's closure - but it has not been edited or further vetted by the VG247 team.

Hidden behind The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Shovel Knight, and other titles on the Nintendo eShop is an unassuming little puzzle game. Published by Nintendo, Snipperclips: Cut It Out, Together! is the surprising gem of the entire lineup, standing up to other, more established names.

Snipperclips places you in 2D boots of Snip and Clip, two characters made of paper. When the characters overlap, a tap of a button will cut that overlap section off of the character on the bottom. Through careful rotation and snipping, you have to cut your pair of characters into different shapes and use those shapes to complete different tasks. These tasks include dunking a basketball, fitting into dotted line shapes, helping eggs get to where they need to go, or simply collecting fish.

I say "you" in the previous section because Snipperclips can be played alone, switching back-and-forth between both characters. That's not where the magic happens though. As the full title suggests, Snipperclips is a game that wants you to play with your friends, family, or significant other. Taking a Joy-Con in each hand, two players can tackle the puzzles together.

There's no time limit and no failure state. Even if you screw up, all of the puzzles reset immediately and you can regrow your cut forms by holding down a button. Snipperclips encourages a pair of players to work together and figure out how to move forward with animosity. Some puzzles just require cutting yourself in certain shapes, while others need a certain degree of timing or placement on the screen. They all feel fairly intuitive once you figure out the point, it's just a matter of determining how to execute what you need to do.

Snipperclips is a joy to play with a loved one or friend. An absolute blast where two people are working together towards a common goal. There's a sense of fun and elation when you complete a hard puzzle together, with smiles and high fives. It requires solid communication and eventually, your pair of players will fall into a sort of quick understanding of what each of your needs to do. If Mario Party is about destroying relationships, Snipperclips is about bringing them together.

This is extended by the four-player mode, which makes Snipperclips into a great party game. Four players, all working together to complete puzzles. Or more likely, just dicking around. Four-players can also tackle the competitive Hoops, Hockey, and Dojo games, which are basketball, air hockey, and a rough fighting game respectively. Despite their inclusion, puzzle mode is where the real Snipperclips magic is at. Even if you have more than four players, Snipperclips is the kind of game where the audience participates, yelling out puzzle solutions or providing shape ideas.

If Snipperclips falters, it's because there are only 45 puzzles to work with in 1-2 player mode, comprised of 15 challenges across three worlds. There's another 20 levels built for groups, but that's it. You can finish the entire thing in one afternoon and there's no course creator or DLC to extend the life of the game. There's also no Pro Controller support, with Snipperclips requiring an additional set of Joy-Cons to play four-player mode.

Other than those issues, Snipperclips is all joy and no con. If you're looking to show off the power of the Nintendo Switch, Snipperclips is an excellent companion to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It's a game that brings people closer together, all around that tiny Switch screen, wherever you want to play. It's the kind of game Nintendo needed for this launch, so I'm glad it's there.

I just want more levels.