EQQO

We were pleasantly surprised by EQQO. After a rather lacklustre opening segment, the majority of the game proves itself to be an engaging puzzle title with a surprisingly meaningful narrative to support it. If you’re after a challenge, you might want to look elsewhere, but for its price, EQQO is a lovely, relaxing experience that will keep you playing right to the end.

Designed for ease of play, what the culturally distinctive EQQO lacks in depth, it makes up for with its charming, multilayered allegorical story.

While EQQO has a few shortcomings that are quite apparent, it’s multi-layered, touching story and easy-to-understand puzzle mechanics make this journey worth a look.

EqqO is a short game with a lot of creativity in its design. It's worth checking out for those who want a unique puzzle experience on the Switch, so long as they are aware that there are some issues on the technical side of things that can make things more frustrating than they need to be.

Technical issues and an occasionally awkward player experience take some of the shine off this game, but EQQO nevertheless offers an intimate, poignant, and comforting story that any fan of narrative-driven adventures will appreciate.

The decent presentation of this fairy tale is overshadowed my shallow mechanics.

I give EQQO a lot of credit for keeping things basic and allowing the on-screen action to function without ever having to explain itself too much. Unfortunately, it works that well because there’s really not much of a challenge here. In normal circumstances, that might not be the worst thing in the world: it could allow you to focus on the game’s essentials, and in EQQO’s case, that theoretically means focusing players on its utterly delightful story. Unfortunately, however, the reality is that the most notable thing about EQQO isn’t the story or its characters, it’s the absolutely awful controls. No matter how adorable the game is, or how much love went into it, those controls are really its defining feature, and in this case, they drag everything else down with them.

While the switch version of EQQO is probably not the ideal way to experience this story, it is a cute and small game that is great for someone who is looking to play something in short bursts. Take your time getting adjusted to the controls. If you take on a chapter each night, you will more than get your money out of it. Just don’t go in and expect a full top-down Zelda dungeon experience.

Even though it features nifty puzzles and a strikingly unique narrative, EQQO is held back in this non-VR console release.

EQQO is a really charming, interesting game that unfortunately all comes apart when you get around to actually playing it. The presentation is great, the story is wonderful, and it feels like this interesting little storybook is unfolding right in front of your eyes. It was a game that one will desperately try to like, but it keeps getting in its own way with awkward controls and boring gameplay. It is like sitting down and hearing a beautiful story that the storyteller keeps interrupting to burp every ten seconds, and it becomes harder and harder to focus on the story the longer things go on. It might be good enough for people that play video games primary for their story, or for those looking for a charming presentation, but those that actually want to play a solid game will have to look elsewhere.