Candy Crush Saga Review

The average lifespan of a game app on my iPhone is about two weeks. The especially horrendous ones get kicked off within the first hours of being downloaded. Candy Crush Saga is one of those special apps that has secured a permanent place on my iPhone. The variety of challenges and unique gameplay make this seemingly typical Bejeweled clone fiendishly addictive, though like all free-to-play games, it has its flaws.

Your sugarcoated journey begins with ten simple levels – the first six each begin with tutorials that can be skipped. The basic concept for each level is simple: match three or more identical candies vertically or horizontally and you score points – just like Bejeweled. Combining four candies, five candies or matching six candies in an ‘L’ will create special candies that have the power to clear an abundant amount of candies from your board – just like Bejeweled. That’s about where the similarities stop.

Candy Crush Saga separates itself from Bejeweled through its various puzzle types. Clearing jelly blocks through candy combos, bringing certain items down to the bottom of the board and the basic get-this-many-points time challenge are the most frequent types. By mixing these up, the game doesn’t feel too repetitive since each type has its own rules and limitations. 

As you progress, each level becomes more challenging and they take a surprising amount of thought. Because most levels only permit a certain amount of moves, completing a level without a bit of strategy and luck can be difficult. If you can’t figure out a move, the game will highlight a move for you automatically. If there are no moves left on the board, the game will automatically reshuffle the candies. Even with these helpful characteristics it’s easy to get stuck for days on a difficult puzzle. At that point you have a few options: keep playing the level until you finally beat it, buy upgrades to help you complete the level or, if you are lucky enough, your Facebook friends may send you a few extra moves.

Being connected to Facebook is detrimental to your free success. Though the game can be played without being connected to Facebook, to get past level 35 you must receive three tickets from your friends or you have to buy them. The downside to this is that you have to ask your friends for these tickets. In other free-to-play games, there is typically a filter between your normal Facebook friends and your friends who play the game. Candy Crush Saga does not have this feature, meaning that you must know exactly who plays the game to send effective requests – a surprising misfire for this games otherwise well thought out Facebook connectivity features.

Your friends can also send you extra hearts that serve as lives. Your hearts are lost when you fail to complete a level but you regenerate a new heart every 20 minutes or you can accept them as gifts from friends. You can have a maximum of five hearts. Recovering these hearts isn’t usually an issue since this game is meant to play while you are on the go. In addition to hearts, friends can send three extra moves to players who have been stuck on a level upon booting up the game – an easy way to goad your Facebook friends who have given up the game to get back on. 

If you are connected through Facebook, you can continue playing your candy adventure on your computer through the Facebook app – Candy Crush Saga’s original home – and will even be rewarded for doing so. However, the game looks and functions much better on the touch interface of a tablet or smartphone as opposed to clicking around with a mouse. The mobile version also looks better. The layout is cleaner and the candy shinier, tastier if you will.

When it comes to the narrative, it gets sour. The mini-stories you encounter after every 10 to 15 levels serve as nice divisions, but the game fails to identify why you are on this journey and who any of the characters are. A simple scene at the start of the game or even before Toffette/Tiffi - her name is different on two official webpages for the game - takes off after level 10 for her journey would have sufficed, or simply taking out the girl altogether. Even though this is a puzzle game, the lack of an introduction for the prominent characters is irritating.

For a free-to-play game, Candy Crush Saga is solid. Though the narrative is weak and the game heavily depends on Facebook connectivity, it works. The charming theme, addictively unique levels and the constant expansion of the game makes it an app worth having.


8/10