Snoopy & The Great Mystery Club review

Let's be real: licensed games often suck. Developer GameMill has also been behind several of those stinkers. That might cause some to spurn Snoopy & The Great Mystery Club given the pedigree (or assumed lack thereof) of the maker, but I'd request you give it a chance. After getting a chance to play through it, I've found a delightful game that rises above its basic construction, a charming romp through the nose of Snoopy.

Everything begins as Snoopy wakes up to find his breakfast is missing. You just can't get going without a good bite of kibble, ya know? With this issue needing to be solved, Snoopy breaks out his finest Sherlock Holmes garb, pulls in the services of Charlie Brown, and goes off on... well, an easy to decipher case.

Throughout your time with Snoopy & The Great Mystery Club, don't expect an in-depth story. It's roughly as intricate as the comics ⁠– you'll get a few panels out of it, but it's surface-level at best. While I admittedly didn't go in with high expectations, I wouldn't have minded a little more complexity. There is a short section at the end of the chapters where you present your evidence and choose four of eight pieces that make your case stick, and it's not hard to get it right quickly. This is as deep as it gets; I wanted to see this expounded upon.

Where this game does its best work is in its depiction of the Peanuts world, along with it being an open-world you can explore. The little town they all live in is quaint and has a "pulled from the comics" mood to it. Although not densely populated or brimming with life, the atmosphere and art style created by the locations does enough to make you feel at home in their corner of the world. Whether on a trip to the football field, school, auditorium, or even Lucy's psychiatrist stand, Snoopy & The Great Mystery Club does a great job of pulling you here.

There are a lot of awesome tidbits brought in for Snoopy lovers as well. Snoopy calls Charlie Brown "the round-headed kid" all the time. Pigpen is surrounded by his signature dust clouds. Marcie refers to Peppermint Patty as "sir". We even get a look at the Kite-Eating Tree! I appreciate the Easter eggs, and I'm also surprised at a fully voice-acted cast for the children, all who sound exactly like I feel the characters should.

Snoopy is your main character in this adventure, and adventure you shall... a lot. The Great Mystery Club tends to be on the move constantly, and even with decent fast travel via bus stops, you get tired of it. A lot of the missions boil down to going to this place, finding a McGuffin, taking it to someone, them needing something else, going to that spot, finding someone else who knows where the current quest item is, but will only help you if you get something for them, and so on. It does get monotonous, although the team does break it up with a couple of mini-games along the way... even though those can get equally repetitive.

They're also broken up by clever abilities Snoopy earns as you progress. After you initially don your detective cap, which allows you to find clues and follow footprints in your environment by highlighting them, you'll need more gear to move forward. Eventually, you'll come across things like a leaf blower to move things out of the way, or a shovel to dig up dirt piles that could harbor new clues or quest items. Nothing here is revolutionary, but swapping between Snoopy outfits to use these abilities is a treat.

As mentioned before, mini-games are your other true mechanic. These generally involve the gang, however, giving you some time with the full Peanut gallery. Charlie Brown can throw a few strikes, Peppermint Patty will kick a few field goals, and Schroeder will play the piano, all in the interest of helping complete your task at hand. For instance, the gang couldn't reach an electric panel to turn the lights back on, and Peppermint Patty kicked a football and hit the switch into place. How she did that in the dark and didn't cause an electrical fire beats me, but it was still a nice touch to bring that mini-games into the story at hand.

Even enjoying those little tasks, I hated the mini-games that featured motion controls: Franklin's soapbox car races and The Red Baron flying challenges. I had a few technical issues with the game recognizing my normal inputs at first, so I was forced into using said motion controls, and I failed constantly. There is no way to turn them off in the options, with only a sensitivity slider, so this got old fast. Thankfully my thumbsticks worked in the back half, keeping me from chucking my Switch across the room in anger.

I know I'm not the target audience for this game, so I have to make this clear: this is a fantastic choice for your kids. Not only is Snoopy & The Great Mystery Club clean in content, but I love that it's somewhat of a great introduction to RPG mechanics. Again, it's surface-level, but in playing this game, your kids can learn how to play more complicated ones down the line.