4 Elements

great game, and easy to play

REVIEW #87 4 Elements ---------- At the time of this review, this engaging casual game has been delisted on Steam. That's a shame, because I've had a lot of fun with this one. It combines drawing-based, tile-matching gameplay with some visual puzzles and spot-the-difference minigames. A well-implemented timer keeps the game moving at a decent pace, and there's a pretty decent (albeit slightly overly generous) hint system to help out especially with visual puzzles. Music and sounds are pretty good, even if a little uneven in volume level. The graphics aren't the most polished, and the options are sparse, but the game still looks good overall, and I usually find myself so engrossed in gameplay that I don't notice any visual quality discrepancies. The only major complaint that I do have is that how this game's camera automatically focuses on certain parts of the game board can mess you up at times, and I wish that there was a way to manually move your view to where you want. There were one or two occasions where I lost a round because I couldn't make matches in time in an area that was outside of my viewpoint. While annoying, it's thankfully been more than rare enough for me to play around the issue without complaint. It's a little short, but I find myself returning to 4 Elements every year or two, and I think that says something. It's not perfect, but it's still a well-crafted and fun game. If this should ever be available in a bundle or any other form, I recommend that casual game fans check this out.