…………………………………………………

Super Scribblenauts Game Review

Super Scribblenauts is a 2010 puzzle video game developed by 5^th Cell for the Nintendo DS. It’s another flawed, but highly entertaining puzzle game.

When the first ‘Scribblenauts’ was released back in 2009, it was praised for its brilliant premise, but criticized for its troublesome execution. The sequel was released a year later and it garnered stronger reviews because of better controls and more variety, but in my opinion the two games are pretty much of the same quality as both are quite flawed in their own right.

………………………………………………….

I would have to agree with the critics that the controls for this sequel were better, but then again I did not find the original as clunky as others did, so ultimately this wasn’t as huge of an improvement as most would say. And as for the lack of variety, it is also present here, but in different ways.

Once again, you have to input words on the floating keyboard and use the creatures or objects to successfully complete each level. The only meaningful difference to the core gameplay this time around was the addition of adjectives. The original only included nouns as the possible words to input while this sequel also gives you the option to input adjectives, but this was done for better and for worse.

My problem with this adjectival system was that it led to so many overly abstract levels that again children would be better at solving than adults. At times, the game would require of you to input the exact adjective that the creators had in mind for that certain level, which made the experience frustrating. Thankfully, the addition of the hints significantly helped me out when I was stuck solving the more difficult and/or obscure puzzles.

………………………………………………….

What worked in Super Scribblenauts was the decision to get rid of the split between more action-oriented and puzzle levels from the original. Here, all levels are mixed in together, which made every new adventure exciting as you don’t know what you are going into. And those more action-focused levels were better this time around and not as difficult.

Another great choice was the tackling of the most powerful words that broke the previous game. Here, they were significantly underpowered. For instance, the black hole was an instant solution in the original and I abused the hell out of it. But here, when you type in a black hole, it sucks you in along with everything else, instantly killing you in the process. It was excellent that they made you use as many different objects as possible to complete the levels. And the system to repeat levels with new words not previously used was also a great touch.

Super Scribblenauts looked and sounded the same as the original, which bothered me as it felt unoriginal and uninspired that way. The level design is consistently strong, but the decision to feature just 120 puzzles was a problematic one as the original was twice the length as this sequel. It was polished for sure, but it lacked variety and it certainly felt too short given that it had fewer puzzles and little stuff to do after the main campaign.

………………………………………………….