[b][u]This game was reviewed using Version 1.0.4. Your experience on other versions may vary.[/u][/b]
[h3][b][u]Short Answer:[/u][/b][/h3] A [i]Suika[/i]-style merge puzzle game with the added twist of a roguelike-ish leveling and item system, plus a few extra game modes to reduce or compound the chaos. The physics are a little janky and the English translations aren't always the best, but I found it surprisingly fun given that I normally don't like this genre of puzzle game.
[h3][b][u]Long Answer:[/u][/b][/h3] I'll be blunt right out the gate and say that I don't really care much for the [i]Suika[/i]-style merge puzzle game genre. I played a little bit of the original [i]Suika Game[/i] when it first got popular and quickly decided that it just wasn't my cup of tea; and the staggering amount of [i]Suika[/i] clones that have popped up in my Steam recommendation algorithm since then hasn't done much to change my opinion. When a review copy of [i]Hot Pot Game[/i]—another [i]Suika[/i]-style merge puzzle game—landed in my inbox, I almost declined it on the spot because I figured it would just be more of the same; but I opened the store page and saw that it had a free demo, and decided that I should at least give that a fair chance if nothing else. I'm glad I did, because it only took about five minutes for that demo to turn my opinion around.
In case you somehow landed here and don't already know how these games work, the gist is that you drop pieces of food into a pot to earn points with the goal of getting as high of a score as you can without your food overflowing out of the pot. If two of the same food touch, they combine into a different, larger piece of food; so two potatoes will become a shrimp, two shrimp will become a tomato, two tomatoes become a carrot, so on and so forth until matching two of the largest food (a giant crab in this case) clears it from the pot entirely. Larger merges mean more points, and while I'm not the type to usually care about high scores in my games, points are also used as part of the gimmick that sets [i]Hot Pot Game[/i] apart: a roguelike-adjacent leveling and item system.
Scoring points will fill an EXP bar at the bottom of your screen, and each time that bar fills up, you get to choose one item from a random selection of three. These have a whole bunch of effects that can subtly or drastically impact the game such as adjusting the position and size of food, upgrading or deleting food, tweaking certain game mechanics (e.g. instant or automatic food drops), and probably way more that I still haven't seen yet. What's interesting is that these items aren't just some icons on the user interface, they're a part of the play environment just like the food you're dropping—items have their own mini pot off to the side that can be filled and overflow (though you don't game over if this happens, you just lose items that fall out), certain items can target other items, and both food and items can wind up in each others' pots under the right circumstances. I just saw the as a funny quirk at first, but it adds a certain layer of strategy to picking and using your items, and I was still finding surprising new interactions between food and items while I was [strike]procrastinating[/strike] re-examining the game while writing this review.
On a slightly less positive note, the actual physics that drive the gameplay are a little funky, and I'm honestly not sure how much of that is supposed to be intentional. You're going to run into a lot of moments where objects don't land or merge like you expect them to because they got stuck on just a few pixels of the object next to them; or you'll have moments where things that are supposed to move just don't (e.g. when using an item that pushes food in the pot) and things that aren't spontaneously do. Admittedly, this didn't cause me any real problems while I was playing, and one could argue that this sort of thing is meant to be part of the fun in games like this; so take that half-hearted complaint for what you will.
Another big selling point is that this game features multiple game modes. You have the "Standard" mode that plays like I described above, while the rest iterate on that mode in some fashion:
[list]
[*][u]No Item[/u] is, as the name implies, the Standard mode's merge puzzle gameplay but without the items—so it's just like playing every other [i]Suika[/i] clone, basically. Given that the items are what makes this game interesting to me, I didn't play this one beyond a quick test run.
[*][u]Abnormality[/u] adds another layer of randomness by introducing special events, both helpful and harmful, that occur after every 10-15 drops. A mix of cryptic descriptions and questionable English translations often make it difficult to gauge what exactly these abnormalities are going to do when you first encounter them; but much like the funky physics, one could argue that this is also part of the fun. This one is tied with Standard for me as both the mode I've put the most time into and the mode I had the most fun messing around with.
[*][u]Chestnut[/u] adds a new hazard in the form of little spiky chestnuts that fall into the pot on a set timer. One will disappear every time you merge foods, but the chestnuts can't be merged themselves, so you'll need to work quickly before they clog up the pot. It's not as drastic of a change as some of the other game modes, but it makes for a nice change of pace if you're getting bored of Standard but don't want something radically different. Speaking of radically different,
[*][u]Magnet[/u] is by far the most unique game mode, removing the pot entirely and replacing it with a rotating magnet in the middle of the screen that also serves the new center of gravity for everything—items included, now devoid of their own container. It's a fun novelty, but it really highlights the janky physics and turns most items into more of a hazard than a boon, so it's not a mode I was itching to put a lot of time into.
[*][u]Magnet NoItem[/u] is, again, exactly what the name implies; and it's a mode I just opted not to play since I didn't like the two modes it's combining here.
[/list]
The extra game modes are hit or miss for me, but I was surprised by how many times I've found myself popping back in a quick round or two of the modes I did like given how quickly I've dismissed similar games in the past—my runtime is longer than Steam says it is and I don't know why it's not showing correctly, so you'll just have to take my word for it. I don't think that this is a game I'll dump a hundred hours into or anything, but it got me to engage with a genre that I normally don't enjoy playing, and I feel like that's got to be worth something.
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