When it comes to strategy games on the Switch, I’d say it has been a mixed bag as a total genre. One of the issues has been a concentration of specific styles of games like deckbuilders, which feel like they’ve sort of dominated the space and not left as much room for other subgenres overall. One particular flavor I don’t recall having seen too often has been more in the direction of a board game style. There have been a few, even of pretty well-known games, but on the whole they haven’t felt like they’ve converted to the digital space very successfully, usually having the same features and art but losing some of the essence of the experience in the process. 

Unfortunately, I’d say that feels like what has happened with Overboss, a game that’s comparatively simpler than its peers on its face, but does at least appear to have great nuance once you start playing. In terms of play, you’ll have the option for tackling a version of the game solo, or some local multiplayer. I applaud the attempt to make solo play interesting by implementing targeted goals for you to meet, so at least you don’t need anyone else to try to enjoy the experience, but more often than not success feels more random than earned. On the multiplayer side I wouldn’t consider local play terribly ideal in the first place, given if everyone is already present it would seem to be far better to simply play the real game. That said, it is playable, but the pacing is absolutely slower and more cumbersome compared to the board game, so it suffers.

Throw in the fact that there’s a stab at a tutorial included to try to bring people up to speed, but that fails to adequately prepare newcomers, and this seems to be a package unlikely to make almost anyone truly happy. People with the board game already would seem better served sticking with it, and I think it fails to make an adequate case for attracting newcomers to it as well. You can tell there’s a good game to be had with it, this just doesn’t feel like it competes very effectively with its real world counterpart.