Among the most represented general genres in the indie space on Switch, if you’re a puzzle fan the good news is that there are likely many good titles you can find, even for a budget price, to satisfy your puzzling itch. That said, there are absolutely some styles of puzzle play that are less common than others, and in the case of Power Sink it manages to stand out with its third-person perspective and more adventurous style of play. By moving to a 3-dimensional view with plenty of verticality and even some platforming, there’s no doubt that it pretty well stands alone in delivering a unique perspective on puzzle play for the Switch.

On a general level, the objectives are simple: You’ll need to move between different platforms, looking to activate switches and other spots through a number of means in the interests of restoring power. In general the game does do a fair job of letting you get oriented with specific elements in their easier form at first, but from there it doesn’t hesitate to start throwing new challenges at you involving them that will require you to make some leaps of faith, or at least work things out through trial and error. As an example, some switches are activated when you drop a ball into them, and shortly after being introduced to them you’ll need to work out that some platforms will have a spot where the ball could fall through them once the force field for them is deactivated. 

It’s these sorts of puzzles that you’ll need to contend with, and in a variety of combinations, which can make the degree of challenge ramp up pretty quickly at times. One real issue though is that as the stages get to be bigger and more complex if you make some sort of mistake along the way you could find yourself sort of trapped, with the option of either starting over from scratch or perhaps circling all the way back around to the critical area you messed up with. The fact that once you restore power you’ll need to return to the capsule you started from is usually the biggest contributor to this problem, especially since the power needs to remain on for you to be able to return to it and move to the next level. 

Sometimes this can make specific stages overstay their welcome and get tedious as you work out the details while honestly not having the best means of troubleshooting what you need to change since things get pretty spread out. Another more minor risk, but something that seems needlessly problematic, is that the platforming can be tricky when it comes to camera angles and being able to judge where you are in space. Specifically when you need to jump onto moving platforms that are higher than you, this can be an odd challenge, and frustrating at times, but at least there are usually checkpoints positioned close enough by to make dying less painful. All in all it’s at least refreshingly different, mixing together puzzles and a bit of platforming adventure, I just wish that some of its implementations were a little cleaner.