Tadpole Treble Encore is a strange and wonderful rhythm game developed and published by BitFinity. The game originally started on Steam and the Wii U, and it has now arrived on the Nintendo Switch. Tadpole Treble Encore stars a tadpole named Baton, who is separated from her mother after being gobbled up by a seagull.
Baton escapes from the gullet of her captor, but she's trapped miles away from home. It's up to the player to guide Baton home while avoiding predators and hazards. The layout of the stages is based on sheet music, with Baton able to move between the spaces used by different notes. The object of each stage is to reach the end while dodging hazards, grabbing collectibles, and striking structures with Baton's tail for extra points.
Tadpole Treble Encore is a rhythm-action game, and the individual notes in each song are represented by hazards on the stage. The gameplay in Tadpole Treble Encore seems simple, but it quickly becomes devilishly tricky. The number of enemies and collectibles soon ramps up, and every stage becomes a mad dash for survival. Baton can only take a few hits before dying, but she can build up a Treble Charge for temporary bouts of invincibility, which is helpful for surviving the harder parts in each stage. The story mode of Tadpole Treble Encore is extremely charming, but it only lasts for a couple of hours. The runtime is padded out by the number of unlockables that can be found in each stage, requiring multiple run-throughs in order to see everything. It doesn't take long to 100% Tadpole Treble Encore, but bear in mind that it's also a budget price game.
A musical game lives or dies by its soundtrack, and Tadpole Treble Encore has an amazing OST. A particular standout was the 8-bit stage inspired by Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt, which has its own chiptune song. The cartoon visuals also match the tone of the game perfectly and they're a joy to behold. Tadpole Treble Encore was made by the creators of the webcomic Brawl in the Family, and the character designs will be instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with that series.
One of the best parts of Tadpole Treble Encore is the Composition mode, which allows players to create levels by applying musical notes to a blank stage. The design is meant to emulate the music maker in Mario Paint, and there are a lot of options in terms of musical instruments and stage hazards. The Composition mode can be slow to use when playing with a controller, but using the touchscreen on the Switch is faster and smooth, too. The player will need some knowledge of how sheet music works to recreate songs they're familiar with, and it took Screen Rant quite a few attempts to nail the timing on the intro for "The Boys Are Back in Town."
The main issue with the Switch version of Tadpole Treble Encore is that it's no longer possible to share stages with other players. In the Steam/Wii U versions of the game, it's possible to save created levels as QR codes and share them with other players. This feature is absent from the Switch port, which is a major omission from the game. We reached out to the developers, and they confirmed that this feature was missing from the Switch version of the game. They're currently looking into a solution, but have nothing to announce at this time.
It can take a long time to build a stage, even for people who know what they're doing, and the process can become tiresome. Taking the stage sharing option out of Tadpole Treble Encore is like removing stage sharing from Mario Maker, and it's a major blow to the overall appeal of the game, which is a shame given the overall quality of the port.
The Switch port of Tadpole Treble Encore has some new content to make up for the loss of a key feature, such as a new level and unlockables, but it doesn't quite smooth over the lack of stage sharing. Despite this, Tadpole Treble Encore is still a very good game, especially for its price point. The soundtrack is stellar, the aesthetics are bursting with charm, and the gameplay is both fast and engaging. Tadpole Treble Encore isn't a lengthy experience, but it's definitely a worthwhile one, especially for fans of the rhythm game genre.
Tadpole Treble Encore will be released for Nintendo Switch on January 21, 2021. A digital code was provided to Screen Rant for the purposes of this review.