Alrighty, first ever MasterPieces brand puzzle. I was expecting a budget brand but this puzzle seriously overdelivered. This is another one I picked up from Puzzle Warehouse on sale. Who doesn’t love a cutaway diagram?

The box comes sealed with clear round stickers, which unfortunately do not remove cleanly. So slice through and then leave them alone unless you want sticky residue.

The box design is decent, but could definitely be improved. The cover looks good–but as a matter of personal preference I think the title should have more prominence.

The * * BONUS POSTER INCLUDED * * across the bottom seems a bit passe. Apart from low-quality bargain brands, posters are basically standard in any puzzle over 500 pieces. Something like “Includes Poster” tastefully informs anyone who might want to know for sure there’s a poster inside. But using double stars and the word “BONUS” in all caps to brag about something that every puzzle company does….I don’t know, it feels cheap.

The sides of the box, again, look good but could be improved. The zoomed in image on the side is a good start but then they plopped a tiny inset of the full image over it. Why? It manages to look cluttered while also not including the title or dimensions of the puzzle. Everything has this feel as though they got 70% of the way to a great design, said “meh, looks good enough to me!” and moved on.

And seriously, the side with all the fine print is a hot mess. Chunks of text scattered everywhere. Nothing looks aligned to anything else.

The back looks pretty okay. It is kind of cluttered, but they have put all the text in French as well (do they sell a lot of puzzles in Canada, maybe?) so I’ll cut some slack.

Then. You open the lid.

Why? Just why? This looks so tacky. Just, so tacky. Gah. This packaging gives off bargain basement vibes. Bragging about including a poster, the not-quite-there box design, and then this giant web address and an advertisement for more products (which themselves look like dollar store products).

Why does this bother me? Not because I hate a bargain. It bothers me because the puzzle itself is legit! The actual pieces themselves are excellent quality but the packaging is just muttering, “don’t expect too much here”, the whole way through. This company is selling itself short, for reals.

This is a 1000 piece puzzle that retails for $14.99 and has beautiful pieces. Varied piece shape, bright colors, a respectably matte finish, very minimal cutting distortion on the back, smooth cut edges, and piece thickness identical to a Ravensburger.

Even has zero puzzle dust. I mean, come on!

The puzzle itself was joy to do. I did a major pre-sort for this one. On my first run through I sorted out the edge pieces as well as piles for pink, purple, blue, orange, green and red. That was probably 65% of the pieces that were sorted up front. The easiest parts to piece were probably the brick roofs and, surprisingly, the cars and the road.

I’d say this is a easy-ish puzzle, maybe a 4 on the 1000-piece scale of difficulty. The columns interrupting the blocks of color and the walls full of little shelves mean it’s not one that you might blow through non-stop, but it shouldn’t require sorting by shape or abandoning an entire section that’s just got you stumped.

Wait! Don’t forget the * * BONUS POSTER * *

Teasing aside, I am so impressed with the quality of this puzzle. I only had one or two false fits. The pieces fit together softly, they stay where they belong but don’t cling so tightly that it’s hard to disassemble. Not a single piece with lift or production damage. Every piece was 100% punched cleanly.

I am a total convert, not only is the price absolutely right, but the piece quality is spot on. I’d buy from this brand again without hesitation.