The Long Gate bills itself as “…a challenging and elaborate puzzle game with puzzles based on real world physics and circuits.” If any of those words frighten you, stay away, as its elaborate level setup and first-person point of view complicate things even further. But if you’re within its target audience, it could be one of the most rewarding logic puzzle games you’ve played in quite some time.
The Long Gate took the fun parts of my Computer Science degree and mashed it back in with the tedious stuff. The puzzles are good, the world built around them is fantastic, but the marriage of the two is one destined for divorce. This type of first-person puzzler just doesn't work for me. Keep the First Person to the Shooters, and keep the puzzlers top down. I commend the attempt and vision of the game, but for me it was a combination doomed to fail.
The Long Gate succeeds in providing the most challenging – and often satisfying – puzzle experience I’ve played on the Switch, but that comes at the cost of accessibility for those of us who aren’t geniuses.
This is an engaging puzzle adventure game whilst also being one of the most daunting I’ve ever played. Would I champion a little bit more accessibility? Absolutely, as I feel there is the potential here for not only a great puzzle game but a real learning experience. At the same time, it is impossible to ignore that the Switch version itself is highly let down by this particular port. While I firmly believe that there is value in The Long Gate, it is hard to recommend the Switch be the place you play it. It's unfortunate as there doesn’t appear to be any reason the Switch version should run this badly. The Switch is an excellent platform for this type of game; unfortunately, the same engineering effort that went into the puzzle design doesn’t appear to have made it to the port itself.