Gelly Break review for Nintendo Switch

I?m not usually one to complain about a game being too short. With the size of my backlog, I almost always welcome the chance to knock a game off my list in an hour or two.

And yet, even with my appetite for short games, I have to say this: Gelly Break is absurdly short, and doubly so when you factor in its $20 price tag.

I get that it?s designed to be played with two people, and that by playing it solo I probably missed out on some content. But even still: solo this game is only 6 levels, all of which can be beaten in less than ten minutes each. Even if I had played with someone else, and I?d worked with this theoretical second player to unlock the harder levels, that?s still only another 5 levels I could have finished. Those 6 (or 11) levels could have been the greatest gaming experiences of all time, and it still would?ve been difficult to recommend Gelly Break.

That said, what makes Gelly Break disappointing is that what is here is pretty good. This is an isometric platformer where you (and a partner, if you have one) hop from platform to platform, switching colours to match the ground beneath you and shooting enemies as they appear. The six levels here are all distinct from each other, and they do a good job of introducing new skills and new challenges as the game moves forward.

But again, the whole thing can be beaten in under an hour. The challenges and skills are over before you even have a chance to process they?re there, let alone see what they can do. There?s a lot going on in Gelly Break that makes me suspect it could?ve been fleshed out even further, but at this length and this price, it makes it very hard to recommend the game.

EuroVideo Medien provided us with a Gelly Break Switch code for review purposes.