It seems a fairly obvious thing: turn gorgeous artwork of Hatsune Miku and her vocaloid friends into jigsaw puzzles, put some Miku music on loop, and you’ve got a recipe for something great. Hatsune Miku Jigsaw Puzzle is exactly what it says on the box, and that’s all it needs to be.
The art itself is gorgeous. There’s a wide array of styles across the game’s 39 puzzles: chibi group shots, pixel art, bright and cheerful cartoon-style portraits, moody digital paintings, and some pieces that are nothing short of ethereal. Miku herself is, unsurprisingly, the star of the show, with a variety of different designs and outfits, but the rest of the Crypton family all get their moment in the spotlight, with a few solo pieces each.
More than just a random selection of vocaloid art, the collection feels curated specifically for this jigsaw puzzle format. Even in the more “simple”, flat-coloured images, there’s a lot of detail and definition that goes a long way in helping to piece together each puzzle, to the point that I rarely find myself looking at the reference picture (though that option is always there). The way the lines, colours, and little details flow from one piece to the next is almost always enough to solve the puzzle with, which makes for a far more enjoyable and satisfying experience.
Hatsune Miku Jigsaw Puzzle lacks some of the more convenient tools you often find in other digital jigsaw games, like the options to highlight edge pieces, and there’s limited play space for building separate segments. The absence of touchscreen support is biggest shortcoming—the button controls are decent, but they can never match being able to just “pick up” a puzzle piece and drag it into place with your finger. Some harder difficulties wouldn’t go amiss, either, whether through bigger puzzles (300 pieces is the biggest) or options like rotated pieces.
On the other hand, the overall presentation puts it in a class of its own. The user interface is smooth, intuitive, and exudes the same bright, cheerful energy as Miku and her friends. Each time you start up the game, you can also choose a character to sit in the corner of the screen and bring a sense of personality into something that most games treat as entirely utilitarian. Naturally, music plays an important role, too, with a small but well-chosen selection of vocaloid tracks that provide a mellow, relaxed atmosphere for solving puzzles in.
Even without some bells and whistles, Hatsune Miku Jigsaw Puzzle still stands out as one of the better jigsaw games on Switch. A careful choice of images that fit the jigsaw format well and the sheer beauty of the artwork involved make the puzzles a joy to solve, and that’s only heightened by pristine presentation and the cheerful energy that Miku and her friends always brings with them.
Hatsune Miku Jigsaw Puzzle
Developer: Crypton Future Media
Publisher: Crypton Future Media
Genre: Jigsaw puzzle
Platforms: Nintendo Switch (reviewed)
Release date: 24 March 2022