Fin and the Ancient Mystery review for Nintendo Switch

I haven?t counted them all, but I?d estimate there are probably several hundred platformers on the Switch. I?m not exaggerating or being facetious or anything here (there are about 3,700 games listed for the Switch on Nintendo?s site as of this writing, and as someone who scours the release lists every week, it seems safe to say there are at least a few new platformers every week), but simply stating a matter of fact.

Consequently, for a 2D platformer to stand out, it has to do something really special, something unique that makes it stand out from all the others.

Fin and the Ancient Mystery does not.

Don?t get me wrong, I?ve played much, much worse than this game. It?s competently made. It looks nice enough. It controls as you?d expect it to. It?s not broken, Basically, it does pretty much everything you?d expect from a 2D platformer.

But it doesn?t do anything more than that, and that?s where the problem is. The story is your typical ?Save the world from the evil force? that you?d find everywhere else. The controls are exactly what you?d expect them to be: you jump, you double-jump, you have a sword, and you can fire magic. The levels are super-generic: there?s your forest level, your desert level, your underground level, your Hell level, and so on. The enemies are wholly forgettable, apart from the fact they respawn a little quickly.

Basically, if you?ve ever played any 2D platformer at any point in your life, you?ll know exactly what to expect from Fin and the Ancient Mystery. As I said, you could do a lot worse than this one, but given the sheer number of alternatives on the Switch alone, there?s really no reason why you?d want to pick this one specifically.

Silesia Games provided us with a Fin and the Ancient Mystery Switch code for review purposes.