Guest Review by Super Bad Advice
Forgive me, reader, but I will now ruin Snipperclips for you by saying this: I can’t stop referring to it as ‘Nippleclips’. And now, I bet you won’t be able to either.
Now that formality is out of the way, Nipplecl… – sorry, Snipperclips – is one of the handful of downloadable titles that accompanied the launch of Nintendo’s Switch.
But let’s face it: with the all-conquering Zelda out it’s not so much being overshadowed as shoved under an obese blue whale with the words ‘IGNORE EVERYTHING BENEATH ME’ painted on it.
This is a shame, because Snipperclips is about as Nintendo as they come: a quirky, clever, original idea that is simple to grasp but deviously tricky on later levels. Plus, it can be played equally well by one or several players, depending on how many JoyCons/friends you have (multiplayer is the most fun – and by "the most fun" I of course mean "inevitably leads to arguments").
Forgive me, reader, but I will now ruin Snipperclips for you by saying this: I can’t stop referring to it as ‘Nippleclips’. And now, I bet you won’t be able to either.
Now that formality is out of the way, Nipplecl… – sorry, Snipperclips – is one of the handful of downloadable titles that accompanied the launch of Nintendo’s Switch.
But let’s face it: with the all-conquering Zelda out it’s not so much being overshadowed as shoved under an obese blue whale with the words ‘IGNORE EVERYTHING BENEATH ME’ painted on it.
This is a shame, because Snipperclips is about as Nintendo as they come: a quirky, clever, original idea that is simple to grasp but deviously tricky on later levels. Plus, it can be played equally well by one or several players, depending on how many JoyCons/friends you have (multiplayer is the most fun – and by "the most fun" I of course mean "inevitably leads to arguments").
NUBBIN
You play as a sort of nubbin thing that looks like a filled-in U-bend on legs, and you can duck, jump and rotate yourself around 180 degrees like a literal loose cannon.
Your co-player, or just you - if you’re hideously unpopular - plays another plumbing-resembling thingy identical in all but colour. Between you, you have to team up to solve logic puzzles to progress.
This can involve giving each other a leg up up to press buttons, cooperating to get a ball in a hole, pop balloons, or make yourselves fit a template shape shown onscreen.
Sometimes this is as simple as just walking over and rotating your little guy to the right angle to bodge yourself into the required nook, but other times you’ll need to do some topiary work.
This is where the titular snipping and clipping, and the unique idea core to the game, comes in. Wherever your character overlaps with the other character, you can hack that bit of their body away to change their shape (fear not, squeamish types: this is a cartoony game, so this dismemberment is rendered in a comical way rather than as a blood and gore fest).
This lets you create hooks, steps, scoops, pointy bits, bucket shapes and the like. And if you mess up, another button press will restore you to your fully turgid form.
You play as a sort of nubbin thing that looks like a filled-in U-bend on legs, and you can duck, jump and rotate yourself around 180 degrees like a literal loose cannon.
Your co-player, or just you - if you’re hideously unpopular - plays another plumbing-resembling thingy identical in all but colour. Between you, you have to team up to solve logic puzzles to progress.
This can involve giving each other a leg up up to press buttons, cooperating to get a ball in a hole, pop balloons, or make yourselves fit a template shape shown onscreen.
Sometimes this is as simple as just walking over and rotating your little guy to the right angle to bodge yourself into the required nook, but other times you’ll need to do some topiary work.
This is where the titular snipping and clipping, and the unique idea core to the game, comes in. Wherever your character overlaps with the other character, you can hack that bit of their body away to change their shape (fear not, squeamish types: this is a cartoony game, so this dismemberment is rendered in a comical way rather than as a blood and gore fest).
This lets you create hooks, steps, scoops, pointy bits, bucket shapes and the like. And if you mess up, another button press will restore you to your fully turgid form.
MIKE AND THE MECHANICS-WISE
That’s pretty much it mechanics-wise, but what ensues is much local multiplayer hilarity as you attempt to bludgeon yourselves into ever more tortured polygons to solve the increasingly mind-grating puzzles.
Or more accurately, what will occur is that when you get stuck and start bickering about the solution one of you will get annoyed and start chopping away at the other’s body out of spite, and it’ll degenerate into an absurd papercraft-style massacre.
Admittedly, Snipperclips is unlikely to set the world alight. But if Digi2000 did ‘proper’ scores then this would be the most solid 8 out of 10 game imaginable. It’s cheap, cheerful, colourful fun and a lot of laughs are to be had. It’s also an ideal showcase for the Switch’s multiplayer-with-your-chums-anywhere party piece.
If you fancy a quick break from Hyrulian shrine detecting, or – like me – you’ve managed to ‘tame’ the world’s least cooperative horse and are momentarily fed up of its inability to walk in a straight line, this is the ideal change of scene and pace.
So please, sir – don’t overlook it just because Mr Link is in town, fannying about doing wheelies on his new BMX. Just remember: be careful not to invite your friends over for a quick game of Nippleclips, as someone is almost certainly going to end up at best confused and, at worst, lewdly dressed and thoroughly disappointed.
SUMMARY: Classic Nintendo - a quietly brilliant launch title.
SCORE: Three-and-a-half nips out of five nips.
That’s pretty much it mechanics-wise, but what ensues is much local multiplayer hilarity as you attempt to bludgeon yourselves into ever more tortured polygons to solve the increasingly mind-grating puzzles.
Or more accurately, what will occur is that when you get stuck and start bickering about the solution one of you will get annoyed and start chopping away at the other’s body out of spite, and it’ll degenerate into an absurd papercraft-style massacre.
Admittedly, Snipperclips is unlikely to set the world alight. But if Digi2000 did ‘proper’ scores then this would be the most solid 8 out of 10 game imaginable. It’s cheap, cheerful, colourful fun and a lot of laughs are to be had. It’s also an ideal showcase for the Switch’s multiplayer-with-your-chums-anywhere party piece.
If you fancy a quick break from Hyrulian shrine detecting, or – like me – you’ve managed to ‘tame’ the world’s least cooperative horse and are momentarily fed up of its inability to walk in a straight line, this is the ideal change of scene and pace.
So please, sir – don’t overlook it just because Mr Link is in town, fannying about doing wheelies on his new BMX. Just remember: be careful not to invite your friends over for a quick game of Nippleclips, as someone is almost certainly going to end up at best confused and, at worst, lewdly dressed and thoroughly disappointed.
SUMMARY: Classic Nintendo - a quietly brilliant launch title.
SCORE: Three-and-a-half nips out of five nips.
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