Some games are pretty mysterious with their titles, and some, like Swap This!, make it pretty easy to guess what they’re about. As the title dares you to do, this is a game all about swapping things, fish in this example. Your job is to break said fish out of their icy prisons and let them taste sweet freedom once again. And hey, since this is a Switch game, you can do it with your fingertips!
Swap This! includes four game modes: Minute Match, Wave Mode, Fish Fight, and Puzzles. While you’ll be using the same controls in each game – tapping one fishcicle and then another to swap them, attempting to create chains of at least four of the same color to make them all break free – each mode has a different overall goal. Minute Match has you gaining as many points as you can in a minute, and Wave Mode tasks you with freeing a certain amount of fish within a time limit. You’ll get bonus points for every second remaining and then another wave of fish to free, but this time the goal will be even higher, and the cycle repeats until you fail. Puzzles, are, well… puzzles: you’ll be presented with a specific layout and challenged to remove all the fish in as few moves as possible, receiving either a small, medium, or large amount of gold (not currency of any sort) depending on how many moves you use.
Finally, my favorite mode of all is Fish Fight, where you fight against a giant, hungry fish that wants a tasty frozen treat: the sweet, innocent fish you’re working to save! Each time you free fish they’ll dive down to attack their ascending fish, knocking them down. Between each assault it’ll slowly work its way up to the surface, and once it reaches the top it’s lunch time for the hungry fish! You’ll need to free as many fish as quickly as you can to battle it off, and if you manage to knock it all the way to the bottom you’ll get a bonus and a new, more ferocious foe.
As you play each mode you’ll also unlock power-ups that can add more time, freeze urchins so you can move them around (urchins are typically immobile and can’t be matched), and even slow time so that you can set up huge combos easier. Combos not only give you extra points, big enough combos can also award additional power-ups and cleave off sections of the ice, causing even more fish to become free.
If I could sum up Swap This! in just one word it would be polish. Swap This! has a regular price of just over $1, and $1 console games usually have that price for a (very bad) reason. While Swap This! is a small game, it still has great sound effects, music, graphics, and animations. I typically mute a game as soon as I’ve gotten a feel for the music, but I thoroughly enjoyed it here. It compliments the adorable art perfectly, and the HD Rumble is terrific as well.
Swap This! is an easy buy for puzzle-lovers, parents, and anyone who loves beating their own high scores. The modes range from laid back to clutch-your-Switch-and-swap-like-a-maniac, so regardless of your mood you’ll have something to play. I don’t normally let price affect my opinion of something since eventually every game becomes affordable, but I’ve bought sodas that cost more and drank in less time than a Minute Match lasts.
Swap This! is available for Nintendo Switch.
A review code was provided for this review.