It definitely feels like, after the runaway success of 2024’s Balatro, everyone has been taking their turn to transform something that feels like it shouldn’t work into a roguelike, a point that couldn’t be better made than by looking at the recently released Raccoin, a roguelike-focused coin pushing game. We’ve certainly come a long way in this genre since the action-adventure heavy days.
So, what’s next then? Did someone say Scrabble?
Almost as unexpected as its melding of roguelikes and wordplay is the fact that the game’s developer, MindFuel Games, is a new studio involving GoldenEye and TimeSplitters legends Steve Ellis and David Doak. Not necessarily relevant to this review, but a rather surprising and interesting fact, nonetheless.
Anyways, Beyond Words plays out like a game of Scrabble, players trying to create words on a gridded board using a random assortment of lettered tiles. The longer the word, generally the more points you earn… or at least you’d think that the case, as you’ll see in a moment. You see, where Scrabble would rely purely on your ability to build words with the random letters handed your way against an opponent doing the very same, Beyond Words isn’t as straightforward as making the longest word with the most difficult combination of letters (Quixotry, for example, scoring you major points).
Played across nine rounds, each will task you with scoring a certain number of points in a limited number of moves. The number of letters you use (along with the letters themselves) will determine the points and multiplier you achieve. Successfully hit your target score and you’ll earn coins, which you can spend in a store between rounds. These will dish out Power Cards, boosters and upgrades. Upgrades will follow you until the very end, these offering special perks such as raising the scores of the tiles on your rack every move or offering even more choice in the store. Boosters, meanwhile, are one-time use extras, these offering everything from multipliers to your tiles, adding entirely new tiles, raising the level (and thus point value) of words of a certain length and more. These can be played right away or at a more opportune time in a round.
Power Cards will easily be the most important, these boosting your scores in often significant ways by using certain words at certain times. Just like Balatro’s Jokers, you are able to hold five of these at any one time, their order even impacting your score. You’ll have cards that reward you for using the letters in the word ZOMBIE, or add an extra five to your multiplier every time you spell a five-letter word or grant you an additional 12 to your multiplier with a 1 in 12 chance your Power Cards break every turn. With so many of these cards in the game, you’ll constantly find yourself discovering new abilities and bonuses to combine and experiment. Just like Balatro, happening across the perfect quintet and watching as they all work together harmoniously and send your scoring into the hundreds of thousands is a true rush.
Bosses break things up every three rounds, these adding a nasty little twist into the mix, such as limiting you to a single length of word for a round or giving a random letter on your rack a negative score. Beyond Words presents the player with around 40 different grids, each of these offering a unique layout with obstacles and perks to try to work your wording toward. These nine rounded challenges are perfect to hop into, especially in handheld and provide plenty of replayability.
Beyond Words doesn’t quite meet the dizzying heights set out by Balatro, though. For one, I absolutely despised the timed challenges, these pressuring every turn with a countdown, often forcing me to play overly simple and low-scoring words. Granted, wordplay is not my strong suit, but I feel Beyond Words is the kind of game that demands the extra time. We aren’t selecting cards to make hands here after all. We’re creating words from jumbles of random letters.
I will also say the general difficulty of the game can sometimes be a little off-putting. Where failing in Balatro never felt overly punishing, since you could always see where you went wrong or how you might improve, Beyond Words had me constantly asking myself if I was simply not good enough to hit a gold or even silver medal. For all its difficulties, Balatro was always about the same lineup of hands, all you were doing was trying to stack the odds in your favour. With Beyond Words, it’s as much about point boosting as it is creativity with words. I’d often count myself lucky I even made it to bronze. For word gurus, this likely won’t be an issue, but for those who struggle when watching Countdown, note this game can be tough. Lastly, Beyond Words simply lacks the same pacing and flow of Balatro, bringing rounds to a standstill as I stare at the screen, hoping for a word to leap out. Of course, that’s to be expected with a word game, but as a result, it makes the game less inviting and exciting at times as Balatro.
As much as I hate to simply refer to Balatro in this review, it’s sort of impossible not to, since Beyond Words essentially copies so many ideas from that game and applies them to words instead of Poker. Everything from the round-based structure to the upgrading of certain word lengths to the Power Cards (essentially Beyond Words’ equivalent of Jokers) is ripped straight from the poker-based roguelike, and sure, it’s easy to be cynical and call this a mere copycat of sorts but you’d be ignoring the fact that Beyond Words is a really fun game in its own right.
Quite simply, if you like word games and you loved Balatro, then Beyond Words is pretty much a no-brainer since… well, it’s essentially Balatro Scrabble Edition. While it might lack the same momentum and flow as the 2024 hit and prove especially tough if you’re not too hot with word crafting (like this guy), it doesn’t detract from what is an addictive and enjoyable roguelike with a twist.
Version Tested: Nintendo Switch
Review Copy Provided by PQube
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