Tabletop Gallery Review

Tabletop Gallery Wii U Review Screen 1

It’s been a while since I have reviewed a Wii U Eshop game; my 3DS has been getting the most attention for sure. While I do enjoy the games on the Wii U Eshop, in general I feel there is always more choice on the 3DS Eshop. It can also be true to say that the quality of the indie games are in fact better on the 3DS Eshop, while not always true, in general there has been more pleasant surprises on the 3DS Eshop for me, more disappointment on the Wii U Eshop too actually.

The game I am looking at today is a recent release for the Wii U Eshop; it is also three games in one apparently. Three games for the price point would be considered good value overall as usual, depending on quality, here is the kicker, is the quality here to make this purchase worthwhile?

Tabletop Gallery Wii U Review Screen 2

To me, not really, let me lay out why exactly. Firstly I will take a look at everything overall, the music and graphics are fine although abstract in that there is no real reference point to anything in general. This in turn suits the gameplay of each game, which are abstract in their forms as they are. They are however straight forward, just not explained well. If I were to compare this to another game, you could compare it to a lot of free to play mobile games, however the main thing it brings to mind is Touchmaster, yes that DS port of old arcade bar games that you got in the nineties, only with less games and less enjoyment.

The first game of the three is Poker Dice Future, this is like basically you press a button to draw random numbers, match the numbers you draw up like a poker hand to get two pairs, three pairs and so forth. You gather as much as possible to get more points through banking the hands in certain chips on the screen, those chips have five slots, if you have no slots to fill from the hand you have you lose a place to fill on the screen making you lose on your overalls score at the end. Man I explained that horrible, but it sets out how I feel about it, it is abstract random, okay and boring.

Tabletop Gallery Wii U Review Screen 3

The second game Shut the Box is actually better, you start with three lines of cards with numbers on them (from one to nine) basically you roll two dice and can take away the numbers that add up to or that is actually that number. To illustrate it better, say I roll an eleven, I can take away all the cards in different combinations at the same time if I roll a six I can take away the six card or a combination of lesser number cards that add to a six. Yes you need to think tactically to see which ones to take and such, but again after a while it becomes the same thing again, I will say this is a bit more compulsive than the last game. The last game is Toss and Go, a dice tossing and colour matching game, it feels the most random to me, tossing dice until you have the right result. It’s fine, just random, not explained well and not great fun.

Overall I don’t want to be too down on these games, they are cheap and simple, and will maybe scratch and itch for someone somewhere. I thought it was okay but not really worth your time if you are a discriminating gamer, fair play to the developer for making it and making it cheap, also the thought has been put in to it is unique, I just didn’t enjoy it all too much myself.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Nintendo Wii U code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.

Subscribe to our mailing list

Get the latest game reviews, news, features, and more straight to your inbox