Millie (Switch) - Review

Millie is available now on the Nintendo Switch and is priced at £4.49.

There are a lot of games on the Nintendo Switch eShop that started life as a mobile game. Millie was originally released on mobile and Steam a few years back for a little less money up front but a fair few micro transactions once you got stuck in.

I hadn't really heard of it until it came to the Switch store. I was intrigued. I'm almost 30 and so I spent much of my teen years playing Snake on my Nokia 3310. No phone since has ever been as loved. Millie looked enough like Snake to pique my interest, so I fired off an email and got to playing it the minute the code came through.

Millie isn't a Snake clone. It's actually more like what would happen if Snake and Pac-Man had a baby in that you do grow as you eat pellets but the pellets are spread around a maze-like level a la Pac-Man. And these maze-like levels can be incredibly tough to get around when you get bigger every time you eat.

There are 100 levels that are spread through three environments and the first few left me feeling pretty confident. I was doing alright. But then the levels suddenly seemed to get a lot bigger and it was a hell of a lot tougher to not keep smacking Millie's head into her butt. I had to give up on my perfectionist preferences pretty soon. Until then I had been getting every last pellet and not bumping Millie into herself at all, but I soon began moving to the exit the minute it became open and after I had quit out a couple of times because I had made Millie headbutt herself, again, I gave up on that too and accepted the time penalty that came with it humbly. Ish.

You do get some items that will help you along the way, but I tried to stay away from them for as long as possible. It's not possible to for long though. Well, I guess it probably is, but I don't know how much fun you'd have. As I mentioned before, the mobile version had micro-transactions built in. These micro-transactions included things like scissors that cut a little bit off Millie (ouch!), and clocks that allow you to rewind slightly after you've got yourself into yet another pickle. Luckily for us Switch players these are bought with the stars you earn in game, rather than real money. I did find it annoying though that after using some of them in a level only to have to restart it anyway, I lost what I had used. I was kinda expecting that you'd get them back if you failed the level after using them.

Millie is a fun little game, but wow does it test your patience. It would have even the most seasoned of gamers moaning with frustration, especially in the later levels. Kids might enjoy the first few levels they would definitely tire of how tough it is a little later on.