mobile port of a puzzle quest knockoff. a voiced but not subtitled intro starts the game (every single time) with 'hold mouse to skip' on top. good, no tapping, I thought. then the splash screen appeared with 'tap to play', but the mandatory tutorial reverted back to clicking. the game's nothing if not inconsistent.
13 heroes to choose from, just a different avatar and backstory. your character has health, attack and mana, recovered by matching their respective colors. matching and even not matching but selecting a single tile moves the hero on the board as much as you want (there's bread to buy on mobile). fight enemies and bosses and grab chests that open instantly, unlike on mobile. still too much clicking to do, same for rewards, gets tiresome fast. respec is free but reassigning dozens of points by dragging them one by one to the desired location is even worse, though you won't do it all that often. bigger matches create power-ups that remove a bunch of tiles and deal elemental damage. there's a counter and an arrow to indicate how powerful the result will be and which direction(s) it will take care of. nice touch.
the town has various places to visit. check enemy info if you already encountered them, manage inventory (can be done while on a level too), research spells, buy stuff, etc. inspected items are compared to equipped ones. the tutorial mentions a speed up option for spells that must be remnant from the mobile version, as it's also instant here. lots of gear to find and use, having 5/10/etc. of the same item lets you upgrade them for cash. identical items stack and inventory space is unlimited but better inventory sorting would've been necessary. now it's a weapon/armor/jewelry/all filter with highest level items on top.
[b]typical mobile dev mistake to bind everything to left click[/b], be it holding to inspect an enemy (clicking attacks) or moving the camera around (only as long as you're still on-screen). right click does nothing, meaning [b]the current selection can't be canceled without retracing all the steps[/b]. can't zoom in/out with the wheel but the map icon in the corner brings up a bird's-eye view. sadly, can't play that way and with a filter on it it's hard to find whatever you're looking for. the wheel scrolls where it has to but [b]no tooltips, naturally, nor keyboard support[/b]. the character sheet is handy but without tooltips there's no way to tell what the 20 (TWENTY!) icons on the top are. some are debuffs, got blinded once but couldn't tell when it would disappear.
there are 61 levels, unlocked one at a time, divided into various locations. each place needs a certain amount of stars to unlock but even then levels have to be completed in order. reaching the exit is enough unless it's a boss and it's not the usual 3-star system based on points, but each stage has a bunch of quests, do those to get stars and with them some rewards. quests mention if they have to be done in one go, otherwise feel free to replay the level a few times and get x of something, then leave without finishing the whole thing again.
good enough pixel graphics, non-annoying sfx, repetitive music. with timers completely and tapping partially removed, along with other mobile ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, and everything full screen and widescreen, it's not the worst port. resolutions and windowed mode got patched in, no volume settings though, only separate toggles for the way too loud audio. a few language options as well. didn't notice many typos and text display is instant and silent.
generic and repetitive for sure, just like puzzle quest, but might scratch a certain itch with tempered expectations, just like puzzle quest. there's even pvp multiplayer, unlocks at lvl20, haven't tried it. I was contemplating giving it a thumbs up depending on the rest of the game, but turns out I'll never see it. the end of the first area with constant mob and web spawns already took a while, but the ant queen in the desert with 4 nests spawning enemies every few turns was too much. level 16, only a quarter of the way through.
not gonna grind the previous, already mostly perfected and trivial levels for more xp, cash (item upgrades become really pricey fast) and random loot, especially with a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ tornado reshuffling the board every few turns, removing special tiles, and enemies that take forever to kill for quests or simply to progress on a level.
