Today, it’s time to look at another casual game from PopCap. In the past, I used this game to learn new English words. So yeah. It’s a very nostalgic game for me. In any case, it’s time to take a quick look at it. For the people who are new to my blog and don’t know what this series is, well… In this series, I take a look at a game where I can’t write a full review on. In that case, I write a short article about it with the positives and negatives and my conclusion. So, yeah. It’s time to take a look at this game. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on this article and/or the game in the comment section down below.
Positives
While the story is really basic, it does work. The fact that there is a story in this game is a positive in itself. It’s even better that it doesn’t take itself seriously.
The humor in this game from the menu options and the explanation of certain things gives this game an enjoyable charm.
This game works with alt+tab, it’s slow to switch, but it doesn’t crash like a few other casual games I played.
The gameplay is where this game shines the most. You have a 4×4 square filled with letters. With those letters, you have to make a word. Depending on the length and the letters used… You harm your opponent. Your opponent doesn’t use the letters and attacks. The special attacks some enemies can use are interesting and mix up the gameplay.
You can get stunned (loose a turn), letters can get cracked (do less damage), you can get poisoned (slowly lose health) among a few other things.
When you defeat a boss, you get a treasure that gives you certain buffs. But you can only take three in each level.
There are some different mini-games and a different game mode, but I won’t spoil that one.
Also, this game can be rather difficult and isn’t that short. These are two big positives for this game.
When you mouse over certain things, like your health bar or the minimap, you can be useful information. This doesn’t clutter the screen and makes for a very nice looking game.
Negatives
This game isn’t widescreen. So, on modern monitors, this game will have black edges. It’s pretty bad on my 24- inch screen. While this doesn’t bother everybody, it’s distracting for me.
Something that might be the direct result of that is, that some textures don’t look good on widescreen monitors.
This game would be a lot better if there was a sort of dictionary in-game. Since I’m not a native English speaker, I know for a fact that I look over so many words.
Some enemies sometimes spam their stunning attacks making you loose turn after turn. This frustrated me many times.
Conclusion
This game is a very polished game. If PopCap releases a patch to make this game look better on bigger screens and add a dictionary, I would consider this game as a perfect casual adventure game.
While the spamming of special attacks is a negative thing, I don’t think they should remove it. Since it adds to the challenge of this game. That would make the game even better.
I have almost beaten this game, so I’m looking forward to playing the sequel. I’m quite curious how it holds up to the original.
Score: 90/100
In any case, I think I said everything that I wanted to say about this game. Give this game a chance, since it’s very nicely made. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to meet you in another article, but until then… a happy Easter and until the next time! Have a great rest of your day and game on!
NekoJonez's Gaming Blog 