“Who knew detective work involved so much running.” – Lucy van Pelt.

Snoopy & The Great Mystery Club almost lives up to its name. If you’re a Peanuts fan, the “Good Mystery Club” deserves to find its way to your Nintendo Switch 2. Perhaps the biggest mystery is how I missed this game when it first released on the original Switch five months ago.

While Snoopy is the title star, the Peanuts gang is all here: Charlie Brown, Sally, Pigpen, Schroeder, Franklin, Peppermint Patty, and more. There are even obscure characters like Shermy thrown into the mix, all skillfully voiced. My favorite character is Lucy, who calls the game out on things holding it from greatness, but I’ll elaborate on this later. Kids come and go from the club depending on where you’re at in each case. 

As the club is limited to the Peanuts friend circle, the mysteries can only be so involved. I was hoping the individual cases might end up having plot threads loosely connected à la Layton’s Mystery Journey, but nope. It’s okay, though. I wasn’t expecting anything heavy. The lighthearted mysteries work well and are enjoyable, allowing the cast to truly display “heartwarming friendships” in a way other games fail to.

What I did expect, or at least ended up hoping for, was a bit more gameplay variety. Snoopy’s puzzling almost ends up playing second fiddle. There’s a lot of backtracking around the admittedly charming open world (town) as you deliver lost items to characters (sometimes multiple requesters) over and over again. When Lucy makes comments like “Good grief! Can’t anyone hold onto anything around here?” and “I thought this was a mystery club, not a courier service,” I couldn’t help but smile.

The town goes a long way towards making the fetch quests work, at least initially. Exploring the detailed and well-sized neighborhood, I couldn’t help but be charmed. It started at the school, where I could pop into multiple classrooms, the cafeteria, the playground, and beyond. Later, it expanded to the forest, additional town buildings, and even a campground. The map is helpful (almost to a fault), and there’s a quick travel system unlockable via various bus stops. The whole atmosphere made me feel like a kid again, and I enjoyed watching the town transform from pumpkin-lined streets in the autumn until the school bus took me to summer camp. If only more buildings were accessible, with even more collectibles, but maybe that’s something for a sequel.

Speaking of collectibles, The Great Mystery Club has a few. They can almost distract you from the main cases, as I recall Marcie’s reminder, “Don’t forget, we’re still in the middle of an investigation.” There are marbles (used for some puzzles and as an unlockable currency), full-color Sunday comics, and “yellow bird friends” (fan favorite Woodstock’s pals), of which you need eight to unlock the last chapter. Most of these you’ll find in the course of exploration and experimenting with Snoopy’s costumes. 

Each Snoopy “persona” that comes when our protagonist beagle dons a new outfit grants an ability: digging with a shovel, searching with a metal detector, and more. It doesn’t spare him from what he calls “the worst game of fetch ever,” but these do make backtracking feel somewhat purposeful. Although there are times when the puzzles seem silly. Using a leaf blower is fun, but telling me the Peanuts gang won’t go through the Pumpkin Patch because of a tiny pile of leaves? Please. They’d easily walk through them without a second thought.

The puzzles are pretty easy. This is a game made for “the young and the young at heart!” Should you ever get stuck, a buggy Linus will give you a clue if you talk to him from a very specific location. Some of the minigames can get a bit trickier (Schroeder’s piano rhythm and later football-kicking minigames come to mind), but these are exceptions. The challenges range from cute to quirky to busywork. To quote Lucy yet again, “Why do these kids have so much trouble holding onto keys.”

One of the biggest issues in Snoopy & The Great Mystery Club stems from beating it; you can’t return to your save file. While it warns you of this, it makes no in-game sense. I had only found 17 of 20 comics, and imagined I could freely move about and explore locations to find the last three, but no. Adding insult to injury, I found out that this choice was widely criticized at the game’s initial release. How it escaped developer notice the first time, never mind again months later, is frustrating. Expanded playtesting would probably help. I beat this game in seven leisurely-paced hours, cleanly wrapped and satisfied, but probably could’ve added another 90 minutes or so if additional exploration were possible.

If you played this game on the Switch already, you may wonder what this Switch 2 version offers. It’s available on the eShop or physically, but only as a game-key card release. From what I gathered, there’s an obvious bump in resolution and textures. The framerate is supposedly improved as well, but I’m no authority on that. Load times were nothing of consequence, thankfully.

This game has optional DLC (Joe Cool Fun Pack) available as a standalone purchase for $14.99 (not recommended) or $10 more via a Deluxe Edition, which is slightly more reasonable. The content isn’t too compelling, though. You get one new outfit for Snoopy, who spends most of the game in puzzle-specific outfits anyway. There are four new minigames, divided between the Red Baron and the soapbox racer. Lastly, there are 75 new comics, but inexplicably, you can’t zoom in on these. I’d take a pass or (if you’re a Peanuts enthusiast) wait for a sale.

Snoopy & The Great Mystery Club has its issues. That said, the Peanuts fan in me could often overlook them. The charm and feeling of childhood innocence that this game offers carries much weight. The formula is a winner and is only a few changes away from being outstanding. I hope to see it return in an expanded sequel, perhaps with difficulty options, and definitely a bit more polish. Don’t let this game fall victim to the Kite-Eating Tree.