Nintendo Switch Critic Reviews

Picklock’s journey ends after thirteen levels, which is unfortunate because I enjoyed my time with him. He might not have…stolen…my heart, but he did keep me busy for a few fun hours. If you enjoy strategy or heist games, or amorality, then Picklock is certainly worth your time.

Picklock's central gimmick is good idea that occasionally works well, and as a brief indie puzzle game it could be a good way to distract oneself for a few hours. However, its control issues do hamper how enjoyable it is, meaning that the game more often than not might be a little too exasperating for some.

Picklock isn’t a bad game, and - despite some localization woes - is actually packed with some great ideas. They just don’t quite make the connection for me, at least not on Nintendo Switch.

Picklock is a very simple game, and there's nothing wrong with that. The problem, however, is that other than a memorable jazz-heavy soundtrack, there's very little where Picklock excels. Its gameplay experience, while not a complete failure, is hindered by camera errors, occasional bugs, and not very intuitive controls, as well as by a poor translation job. There are plenty of examples of simple games that provide very fun experiences but alas, Picklock does not do enough to reach that threshold.

Picklock has the foundation of a good experience. There are brief moments of actual fun spread throughout, but these are in spite of the game's quirks, not because of it. The awkward controls remove any possible precision, and the sloppy, typo-ridden presentation makes these flaws hard to overlook. With a bit more polish, Picklock could have been a very good stealth title, but as it exists now, players are better off picking a different lock.

Picklock has a good game hidden within it. But unfortunately, it’s hidden well among the poor control scheme and localization. The parts of the game I enjoyed, like the music and light comedy of the story, lead me to think that this game could have been a good addition to the stealth genre. But fittingly, this is a game that will likely fly under the radar.

It’s too bad that the gameplay is so poor, because in the right hands Picklock could have been fun — albeit for a very short amount of time, given there are only about a dozen levels here. It’s got a decent sense of humour, as evidenced by the visual gags you’ll find here and there. It’s also got a fun voxel-art style, and an enjoyably jazzy soundtrack. Games are a lot more than their aesthetics, obviously, but fun graphics and music can go a long way towards making them worthwhile. Not in Picklock’s case though. It doesn’t matter if it looks and sounds this good when it also plays this poorly.