The entire human race has been turned into zombies, and it’s up to a group of animals to save the day.  It may sound like a dark premise, but Boost Beast is actually a very cute match-3 puzzle game.  Oh no, not another review of one of those kinds of games, you might say.  But this one’s a bit different, as it’s available to download on the Nintendo Switch!

Gameplay is very similar to other match-3 puzzlers like Candy Crush or Bejeweled.  Matching different colored animal heads also made me think of Zoo Keeper (which my mom still plays to this day on her DS).  Boost Beast feels so much like it could’ve been a mobile game that I checked to see if it was on the App Store.  It wasn’t, but while looking for screenshots for the Switch version, I came across some mobile version screens of Boost Beast, so maybe it was on the App Store at some point.

In each level, at the top of the screen are waves of zombies that you must defeat by matching animal heads.  If the zombies are gray, any color animal can defeat them.  But if the zombies are a certain color, only that color of animal will defeat them.  Like other match-3 games, match more than three to get power-ups.  And sometimes you must match colors to free animals from cages on the playfield, as well as get rid of skulls that can make the zombies invincible.  If you’re in a pinch, you can press the L button to use a Boost Beast (although they just look like different wizards).  They’ll either drop a power-up or reshuffle the field.  I imagine that in the mobile game, you had to pay for the power-ups, but here, you’ll have to wait a while before using them again.  Only problem with the Boost Beasts is that they don’t tell you what each of them do.

When you play the game on a TV screen, you’ll use a cursor to move the animal heads around to match them.  It works fine that way, but players who are used to using touch screens to play these kinds of games may find it a bit clunky at first.  Luckily, if you undock the Switch and play it in portable mode, you can use the touch screen to play.  Only problem is that while it’s pretty visible on the TV, on the Switch screen the playfield is tee-tiny!  I wish they would’ve had different screen viewing options, especially since the playfield only takes up about a third of the screen!  But other than that, this is still a pretty fun and addictive match-3 puzzler, and you don’t have to deal with that free-to-play junk since it’s on the Switch!

Kid Factor:

Boost Beast is rated E for Everyone with an ESRB descriptor of Mild Fantasy Violence.  Even though the game has zombies in it, both the zombies and animals are very cute, so the game isn’t scary at all.  When animals and zombies fight, they just run into each other and fly off the screen when defeated, so the game is hardly violent.  Reading skill is helpful for some of the text, but not necessary just to play.  If you have kids who want to play match-3 puzzle games on mobile, but you’re not comfortable with them being exposed to in-game purchase and ads, Boost Beast on the Switch is a good compromise.

Tags: Game Reviews