Scribblenauts Showdown

Scribblenauts Showdown is a cookiecutter attempt at bringing back a lost franchise. While the party aspect isn't absolutely terrible, its bland nature made me shrug every time. And sure, the game tries to tie it in to the Scribblenauts franchise, but it misfires to an almost comical degree. This would be more funny if it didn't involve games I used to really love.

When the minigames here lean into the object creation tools (lifted entirely from the old games) there's fun to be had. But not enough of them do. There are so many options available for shallow rhythm-based dance games or Flappy Bird clones that it's disappointing to see them shoe-horned into a franchise that's already sitting on one of the most unique and enjoyable gimmicks there is.

Scribblenauts' charm was always in challenging the players to use their imagination and their diction to come up with fun and original solutions over the obvious or the mundane. While there's still some of that in Scribblenaut Showdown's Sandbox mode, it's too little to truly enjoy and too much focus has been placed on the mediocre party games instead. Even for the low cost, this is a considerably disappointing entry into the series.

It's astonishing that Shiver couldn't conjure up a decent party game from such great source material. [June 2018, p.118]

The content is short on both quantity and quality, some of the minigames are just badly designed, one of its game modes is way too repetitive and dull to provide any fun and the soundtrack adds nothing to the experience. As far as party games are concerned, Scribblenauts Showdown is not worthy of the players' dedication.

One of the most ineffective reboots of recent history, with a game that seems purposefully designed to undermine the unique qualities of the Scribblenauts series.