Azkend 2: The World Beneath

It's definitely fun and worth trying, but gets quite frustrating and punishing at later levels. The gameplay does switch per levels, and there are various Skills / Items that you can combine to better suit your playstyle. Roughly 5 hours playtime for campaign. Then there's some Time Mode and Medal Mode. This is not a game you want to Achievement Hunt in, trust me. Most are very hard to get and will require a blessing by the RNG gods. I really wish the timer was a lot slower, as it's nice to plan out long chains of attacks (There's a Passive Item that extends the timer a little). The RNG in this game will be your biggest enemy.

Pretty mediocre game in match 3 genre. The lightning animation (when you match 6+ tokens) is just way too intrusive and too slow. In later levels tokens are small and it's hard to distiguish them from each other. It's not the easiest match 3 game (if you want to complete the medals game mode) , so it's more advanced than casual game. Which is good. But still. It's just not fun to play overall.

It's not bad; there are many different power-ups that create some variety and strategy in the typical Match 3 game-play loop, so it's not an awful chore to play. Ultimately however, RNG plays far too much of a role in success or failure, and while the main game is eventually beatable (after many tries) the coin challenges eventually become all but impossible. If you're trying for 100% achievement completion, good luck, because as far as I can tell that's the only way to attain several of them. And while it seems nit-picky, the music begins to wear on your sensibilities after not long at all, which, given the play time for the main game (my long play time is due to my vain attempts to earn the medal achievements), means you're going to be ready to throw your speakers out the window before too long.... So, while kinda fun (for awhile), the frustration of the luck-based levels and the insane nature of some of the achievements ultimately makes the fun factor dwindle substantially. At the end of the day, I just can't recommend.

https://youtu.be/fGkm65Pzu8E Matching symbols is a valid core mechanic but without any supporting elements or progression the game shows the full scope of what it has to offer in just the first few minutes.

Good

It’s a tile-matcher game where you drag a path across 3+ similar tiles. There’s a whole story mode, and find the picture scenes between the tile-matching. As you play you unlock additional power-ups and you can switch them. There’s a diverse set of goals, from making a match on top of every tile of the board, to hunting the bugs making their way to the top. I think for the most part it’s an alright game, but it gets harder near the end. And the only way this genre can increase difficulty is to crank up RNG. And RNG is just not fun, it has no agency, your loss is not your fault. The very last level is RNG cancer and it really leaves a sour impression of the rest of the game. There’s plot, but there’s no story or setting. You travel, you fall down into the vril hollow earth, you get out, the end. So, here's Azkend 2 with a story continuing from Azkend 1. Where's Azkend 1 on steam?

Save your money and spend it on a "Real" game.