Thanks to Rainy Frog for the review code

Title: Animated Jigsaws: Japanese Women
System: Nintendo Switch (eShop)
Price: $9.99
Release Date: 10/04/2018

Presentation

A few months ago, I reviewed the Japanese Scenery edition of Animated Jigsaws, and mentioned how I wouldn’t mind seeing the other two entries come over to the Switch. Well, several months later, and my wish is granted, as this one is themed around Japanese Women.

So, like with Scenery, this game consists of around ten jigsaw puzzles that are animated as you put them together with the touch screen, only this time it consists of Japanese women going about a usual day, heading on a walk or just hanging out with friends. The background music is a bit different this time around, but the included tracks still work well at being relaxing tracks to solve the puzzles to.

Gameplay

Gameplay is literally, no exaggeration, 100% the exact same as in Japanese Scenery. Just with a new coat of paint and the aforementioned subject change. Thus, I won’t repeat myself since pretty much everything, from the puzzle sizes, the controls being better in handheld mode, and even some aspects of the UI are things I talked about previously, so they apply here just as they would in Scenery. It’s a bit of a weird thing to basically “re-review” a game that’s little more than a new set of levels, so this will be brief.

The one major thing to note is that this game actually added three free puzzles via an update in November. This means that there’s a chance that this game could maybe get even more additional puzzles in the future, and the same may go for Scenery (and a port of Animals, if that happens) if the developers feel like it. While the game’s included puzzles are fine and they each have three difficulties, (save for one of the new puzzles, due to it being invisible on the selection screen) more wouldn’t hurt.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Animated Jigsaws: Japanese Women is yet another fun Jigsaw title for the Switch eShop. It gets the job done well and is just as fun to control as Scenery, but being so similar to the other game also leads to the fact that the game feels exactly like your typical DLC pack. It makes me wonder if a combined “Animated Jigsaws” app with each of the puzzle packs being DLC would have been a better alternate than just releasing what’s practically the same game with a different set of levels. Regardless of which Jigsaw game you pick up, they’re both fun timewasters, but little more.

I give Animated Jigsaws: Japanese Women a 7 out of 10.