Ultimately, the stilted controls, enormous number of brief, similar dungeons, tiresome shuffle gimmick, and overly simple gameplay make AWAY: Shuffle Dungeon a very subpar game. It's boring, repetitive, way too long, and frustrating in the wrong ways. At its best when the action is fast and frantic, it plays like a puzzle game at times, but the setup is akin to Tetris forcing the player to clear forty hectic stages, each only lasting two minutes with lengthy plot sequences in-between.
When the action is slower, AWAY is just another poor dungeon-crawler that would be more fitting as a free flash game on the internet, or a lazy XBLA game costing $10. With so many better options on the DS, like Rocket Slime, Lunar Knights, and the Castlevanias, one would be advised to satisfy a 2D action game craving elsewhere. Either that, or wait until it drops to a price point more aligned with the small amount of creative effort put into it by the developers.
