Murder by Numbers

 Switch
User Score
7.5

Generally favorable reviews- based on 31 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 19 out of 31
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 31
  3. Negative: 6 out of 31
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  1. Hav0k
    Jul 4, 2020
    3
    I WANT to give this a solid 8 out of 10 for great music, fun (if predictable) stories similar to something you'd see in Phoenix Wright, and great art design.

    Unfortunately, in the third case there is apparently an easily missable puzzle. If you miss completing it, you're locked out of unlocking additional puzzles (and story content) without replaying the entire case. This is several    I WANT to give this a solid 8 out of 10 for great music, fun (if predictable) stories similar to something you'd see in Phoenix Wright, and great art design.

    Unfortunately, in the third case there is apparently an easily missable puzzle. If you miss completing it, you're locked out of unlocking additional puzzles (and story content) without replaying the entire case. This is several hours of repetitive work. Some quick searches reveal people have been complaining about this since March, and it's July and they've not done anything to fix this.

    Very disappointing I can't rate this higher, but in such a straight-forward game that clearly mimics something like Phoenix Wright in it's design, this is inexcusable design.    … Expand
  2. sinetic
    Mar 15, 2020
    4
    Just a picross game with irrelevant text arround it. This game doesnt give you any reason to read the story. Theres no mystery, no clues to find. You can finish the game skipping all dialog with the max rating. Artstyle is Ok tho.
  3. lemoche
    Jan 6, 2021
    3
    It's ok if you like the presentation to be a detective game similar to the phoenix wright franchise with picross puzzles thrown in I guess it's fine... but if you mainly want to play picross all the dialog and navigating and searching where the next puzzle is becomes quite annoying pretty fast.
    If you want a story attached to your picross puzzling, picross lord of nazarick handles this    It's ok if you like the presentation to be a detective game similar to the phoenix wright franchise with picross puzzles thrown in I guess it's fine... but if you mainly want to play picross all the dialog and navigating and searching where the next puzzle is becomes quite annoying pretty fast.
    If you want a story attached to your picross puzzling, picross lord of nazarick handles this way better in my opinion. just puzzling away with a bit of story every few successful solved puzzles.
    Also the story here doesn't seem to over that much anyway, so not that great of a reason to play this either.
    the only real upside I have here for me is that I like the art style very much.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

90
#90 Best Switch Game of 2020

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
78

Generally favorable reviews - based on 17 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 17
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 17
  3. Negative: 0 out of 17
  1. Nintendo Force Magazine
    Apr 28, 2021
    85
    Murder by Numbers is a winning blend of two genres never previously mixed. [Issue #49 – November/December 2020, p. 21]
  2. Nintendo Insider
    Apr 13, 2020
    90
    Murder by Numbers is a weird and wonderful recipe that successfully merges nanogram puzzles with some light detective mechanics and an entertaining murder mystery-style visual novel. The end result is a truly original experience and one that takes an otherwise straightforward puzzle-type and moves it in an exciting and surprising new direction.
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  3. GameSkinny
    Apr 8, 2020
    90
    Murder by Numbers is an exquisite detective puzzler with wonderful writing, gorgeous graphics, and masterful music.
    Read full review
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