Vandals Review for Nintendo Switch

Are you a daredevil? Enjoy the heartracing excitement of nearly avoiding trouble? Love spray painting, sneaking around, and solving puzzles? Then Vandals is the game for you. Tour the most famous cities in the world and tag walls ask you come by them. But Beware, the coppers are right around the corner. Use you super stealthing skills to avoid them before they catch you and throw you in the big house!

The street art and stealth game is created by French artist, Cosmografik, developed by Novelab, and produced by AGAT Films Ex Nihilo and Arte France. When looking into Cosmografik Studios, there is not much about it, but the artist shows immense talent in several different medium. Vandals has been released on Android, iOS, Steam (PC/ Mac), and now the Nintendo Switch.

Street art is very popular all over the world and starting to become a true art amongst the masses. I never really knew about street art until I researched a little after playing the game. The inspirations from real artists from the 1960’s up to today play a major role in the game and it’s a unique concept to bring to life.

From a first glance, I thought this game was going to be a mashup of Jet Set Radio and Metal Gear Solid. I assumed the street art aspect was taken from Jet Set Radio and the sneak and stealth mechanic being from the Metal Gear Solid series. Unfortunately, my predictions were a tad bit off as Vandals is a completely different experience. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that. This game focuses more on the puzzle solving function of today’s games. It’s not a bad way to go since you can play a few levels, solve some puzzles, go do something else. People are busy these day. I personally do not like straight forward puzzle games. I tend to be more attracted to games with the puzzles integrated into a storyline, but I found Vandals to be enjoyably frustrating for the time I played.

Some things I enjoyed about the game were level design, world selector, influence, and soundtrack. The levels, while simplistic, were easy to navigate and allowed the character to utilize items to distract the officers such as throwing a bottle ad whistling. A great design was applied to the world/level selector. Since you’re a street artist, the game takes you to some of the world’s greatest cities to experience this type of artwork. For example, you start out in an world based off New York City and to select each of the levels, you move along a subway map. I really loved this since when I think of street art and graffiti I think of subways, tunnels, and brick walls. This feature was charming to experience as it is a fresh look that I have not seen used before. The influence from street artist throughout history played a big role in Vandals. You end up learning something new and get to try your hand at tagging a wall each level. To top it off, an easy going electronic soundtrack accompanies your adventure.

Of course there were issues I noticed. Each level only had one correct response to the puzzle. While normal, I have grown accustomed to the common day several answers to  the problem gaming style. The cops were annoying and could not respond in the way you wished. The path selection, while you could use the touch screen, D-Pad, or analog stick, was jerky and a bit resistant to complete the task. It’s not much, but certainly it added frustration to the experience.

All around, Vandals is a great casual game with a diverse background and adds a hint of personal creativity into the mix. This game is great for gamers who play in short spurts or those self described puzzle masters. I personally wasn’t the biggest fan, but do not let that deter you from this unique experience.

Key Features:

• 60 different puzzles to solve
• 5 unique original worlds with real life city inspiration
• 40 different street artist inspirations
• 18 achievements
• Ability to create your own masterpiece each level
• Several ways to distract the nosy police

Score 6/10

Check Out the Vandals Video:

Vandals is available via Nintendo Switch, Steam (PC, Mac), iOS and Android.