Molecano Switch Game Review

Molecano is what I call “Mordie Bait,” an inventive puzzle game that takes well worn ideas and twists them into something new. Plus, its cute! When I saw Molecano on the E-Shop, I knew I had to play it, so I tracked down the guy who made it and got a review key! So here I am. Will this get a Must Play? Honestly, no. It is certainly inventive, mixing a standard “arrange letters into words” puzzles, with Scrabble. The issue is, the game is rather monotonous after awhile. Seeing as this is a mobile transplant, Molecano was designed for short bursts of a few puzzles at a time. Also it crashes on occasion, and sometimes I can’t select a letter for some reason.

In Molecano, you play a very cute mole(or a few dozen other cute characters) who must find food in a volcano. The goal of each level is to eat all the food. You do this by making word bridges with letters, scrabble style. Make a word, put it on the map horizontal or vertical. Then make another word that connects to the first word and so on. The challenge is you only have six words to do it in. Fortunately, you get a free six-letter word hint by pressing Y. That still doesn’t mean much depending on the food placement. On some levels in Molecano, you’ll really have to pick your brain to find the right word out of the letters to get the food. Finally, If you make a five or six letter word, you get coins, which are used to unlock new characters.

Molecano falling into lava!

There is a slight lack of technical polish in Molecano. I crashed twice when trying to delete a misspelled word, although I have informed the developer of this. Also sometimes, I can’t select a letter for some reason. I’ll select the first letter, but can’t select the second, which is really annoying. Now, as I alluded to, the game does get monotonous fast, being really slow to unlock new challenges, like pre-put letter blocks. I found them on level 63 and 64. then they vanished again. Also, coin collection is slow, so unlocking another character will take pretty long time, as they are 200 coins each.

Don’t get me wrong, I really do like Molecano. I think it is a wonderful, inventive puzzle game. Just it shows its mobile roots in being designed for short play bursts and not long sustained sessions. Being a mobile transplant does not necessarily hurt a game, like in the case of Smashy Road. Here though, it does to an certain extent. In Smashy Road, you go in knowing its a score-chasing simple arcade game. Here, I expected more from it. Therefore, I will Recommend Molecano with an 8 back-end score. This is best played in short bursts for maximum satisfaction. However, with over 500 puzzles, you’ll be at this for a long time.

Overall: Molecano is a very inventive word game best played in the short bursts for maximum satisfaction.

Verdict: Recommended

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