mishalunchbox's Profile
Stat Summary
- Average Rating:3
- Helpful Votes:44
- Reviews Submitted:5
- First Review:May 11, 2013
- Most Recent Review:October 6, 2014
- Featured reviews0
mishalunchbox's Review History
My Kingdom for the Princess IV
Princesses have a tendency to be kidnapped, and a service for lost royals is in high demand. Start your own Lost Princesses Agency and find your one and only!
Overall rating
1
/
5
8 of 8 found this review helpful
Try it before you buy it!!
PostedOctober 6, 2014
mishalunchbox
Favorite Genre(s):Match 3, Time Management
Fun Factor
1
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
2
/
5
Storyline
3
/
5
I bought this game sight unseen because the first three games are so great. I feel as if i've wasted my money and my time. Here's why.
Pros:
* Beautiful graphics, and you can disable "sliding island" mode, which looks neat but may not be for everyone.
* The sound effects are pleasing, and the narrator does NOT tell you to "hurry up" at the start of every level. Yay!
* You can queue up tasks.
* Beautiful graphics, and you can disable "sliding island" mode, which looks neat but may not be for everyone.
* The sound effects are pleasing, and the narrator does NOT tell you to "hurry up" at the start of every level. Yay!
* You can queue up tasks.
Cons:
* The build and upgrade icons blend in with their buildings, so it's easy to miss seeing something becoming ready.
* Several sound effects seem to be missing, like chopping wood (so you can't tell when it's done without looking), and -- more importantly -- bonus powers becoming available.
* If the level goals are displayed on the game screen, i never did find them. This is especially crippling in light of the next bullet point:
* Major obstacles to be dismantled/collected/whatever take an *unstated* number of attempts to complete. It could be one, it could be three... so you might have enough resources, and you might not...
* Resource piles contain three items that must be retrieved one piece at a time (at one trip each). This is not so bad early on, but by chapter three, you'll spend about the first five minutes of every single level running back and forth to clear the 20 piles of resources in your path. It is unbelievably boring.
* You thought the bats were annoying in previous installments? Wait until you meet the dragonettes. There are dozens of them all at once, they appear in random places on the screen (so you can't track or predict them), and they're the same color as the background. Even if you have the building that shoots at them, your workers will be stuck for a while whenever they show up, because they're too hard to catch manually. If you do try to click them yourself, odds are even higher than they were with the bat that you'll accidentally upgrade something you didn't want to upgrade, and then have to start the level over again. UGH.
* There is little to no strategy involved in the first 2/3 of the game or so. My whole tactic was "clickclickclick on whatever until level is done," and i only missed gold once. By the time i reached a level that required planning (near the end of chapter 4), i was so fed up with running back and forth that i didn't want to try it again to get gold.
* Overall, i'd say this is the worst TM i've ever played.
* The build and upgrade icons blend in with their buildings, so it's easy to miss seeing something becoming ready.
* Several sound effects seem to be missing, like chopping wood (so you can't tell when it's done without looking), and -- more importantly -- bonus powers becoming available.
* If the level goals are displayed on the game screen, i never did find them. This is especially crippling in light of the next bullet point:
* Major obstacles to be dismantled/collected/whatever take an *unstated* number of attempts to complete. It could be one, it could be three... so you might have enough resources, and you might not...
* Resource piles contain three items that must be retrieved one piece at a time (at one trip each). This is not so bad early on, but by chapter three, you'll spend about the first five minutes of every single level running back and forth to clear the 20 piles of resources in your path. It is unbelievably boring.
* You thought the bats were annoying in previous installments? Wait until you meet the dragonettes. There are dozens of them all at once, they appear in random places on the screen (so you can't track or predict them), and they're the same color as the background. Even if you have the building that shoots at them, your workers will be stuck for a while whenever they show up, because they're too hard to catch manually. If you do try to click them yourself, odds are even higher than they were with the bat that you'll accidentally upgrade something you didn't want to upgrade, and then have to start the level over again. UGH.
* There is little to no strategy involved in the first 2/3 of the game or so. My whole tactic was "clickclickclick on whatever until level is done," and i only missed gold once. By the time i reached a level that required planning (near the end of chapter 4), i was so fed up with running back and forth that i didn't want to try it again to get gold.
* Overall, i'd say this is the worst TM i've ever played.
This will be the first game in ages i haven't finished simply because it's phenomenally boring and irritating. I wish i hadn't wasted my money buying it, and my time playing it.
I don't recommend this game.
The Treasures of Montezuma 3
Match tokens to unlock incredible riches in The Treasures of Montezuma 3! With 160 levels to beat, you could be in the jungle for months!
Overall rating
5
/
5
4 of 4 found this review helpful
My go-to game!
PostedJuly 5, 2013
mishalunchbox
Favorite Genre(s):Time Management, Match 3
Fun Factor
5
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
5
/
5
I don't have anything to add to what the others reviewers have said, but i've just written a few 3-star reviews in a row and felt it was time to write a rave; TOM3 was the first game that came to mind to that end.
I've played this one through so many times, i could not even tell you. It's my go-to game when i want to play something but nothing else catches my fancy. Wonderful audio, brilliant animations, addictive gameplay, and fun awards all give it a replay value of about a zillion (if i may hyperbolize). On top of that, the stars you "cash in" for power-ups can be reassigned at any time to different power-ups so you can really customize your experience. And you can skip the minigames, hooray!
Three thumbs up!
I recommend this game!
Ancient Quest of Saqqarah
Descend into the Egyptian sands to find an oasis of puzzles, treasures, and mysteries in this Match 3 dazzler.
Overall rating
3
/
5
6 of 7 found this review helpful
Needs a free-play mode
PostedJuly 5, 2013
mishalunchbox
Favorite Genre(s):Time Management, Match 3
Current Favorite:
The Treasures of Montezuma 3
(32)Fun Factor
4
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
5
/
5
Level of Challenge
4
/
5
Based on the demo, i was convinced i would love this game madly. But after the game and i got to know each other following my purchase, the relationship went a bit south.
I love the variety of puzzles. I love the unique way the tokens orient along lines rather than a grid. I love the stunning graphics and animation, and the satisfying pop-pop-pop sounds as you make matches. Saqqarah has -- at its earliest stages -- the all makings of an awesome game that deserves all five stars and then some.
However.... I really do not care for the mini games at all, and not only are there a LOT of them (one for every four or five M3 boards), there seems to be no way to skip them. I also don't care for the orangutan explaining the same exact basic rules for about a minute and a half at the beginning of each temple. Shut up, monkey, i know!!!!
But the biggest turn-off for me by far were the second and third difficulty levels. They're so riddled with obstacles and so intricately convoluted that my satisfying "pop-pop-pop" slowly evolved into "pop. pop. uh, ummm, ....pop." Which for me is neither satisfying nor fun. And just try coupling these advanced levels with a puzzle you didn't really enjoy all that much the first time through, and you may end up as i did groaning, "can i just be done with this temple now, please?"
And on top of that, near as i can tell, it's not possible to go back and play the fast & fun lower levels without creating a new profile and starting over. For my part, this reduces the replay value of Saqqarah to almost zero. If there were a free play mode, though, that would change dramatically for me. If i were able to choose a puzzle type and just play it (with a less steep increase in obstacles and such), i would be so into this game that i'd give it SIX stars and play it hours at a time. At least until i felt if i had to find another ankh on a stone wall, i might scream.
I don't recommend this game.
Kingdom Chronicles
Rescue the princess, defeat the villain and save your homeland!
Overall rating
2
/
5
10 of 10 found this review helpful
Meh
PostedJune 17, 2013
mishalunchbox
Favorite Genre(s):Match 3, Strategy
Current Favorite:
Westward IV: All Aboard
(27)Fun Factor
2
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
2
/
5
Level of Challenge
3
/
5
Storyline
3
/
5
After playing the demo, i has great hope that this would be a very "Roads of Rome" experience. And it was, to some degree... But in the levels reached later in the game, it seemed like it became 10% strategy, 90% (sometimes frantic) clicking, and that's just not my idea of a good time.
I rated the sound quality "poor" because (on my computer at least) there were practically no sound effects for things like work being done, resources becoming ready, etc. It would have been easier to monitor what was going on if i hadn't had to be looking directly at a worker or building in order to tell what he or it was doing. The almost eerie silence seemed more like a bug than the way the game was intended, so it's probably just my setup.
I don't recommend this game.
NagiQ
After Nagi accidentally hits an old book with his soccer ball, it’s up to him to recover the mystic letters!
Overall rating
4
/
5
16 of 17 found this review helpful
Give this unique game a chance!
PostedMay 11, 2013
mishalunchbox
Favorite Genre(s):Time Management, Puzzle
Fun Factor
4
/
5
Visual/Sound Quality
4
/
5
Level of Challenge
5
/
5
Storyline
3
/
5
I just played the trial, and unlike the previous reviewer, i had no trouble with the interface. As you type your word, it appears on the board attached to your mouse; you move the word into place merely by moving the mouse. To switch between horizontal and vertical orientation, you can press the space bar, or use the button in the bottom right corner of the game screen. Once you've found a legal position for your word, all you do is click!
This game may still be too difficult for children, however. For example, one one very early board, i was expected to come up with a word ending in "Q" (you can reset the board, but in this case, i had to reset it 3 times). Gameplay was challenging enough by the end of my free hour that i'm unsure anyone below junior high/middle school age would be able to get even that far.
The concept of the game is that there are magic letters on the board, and you need to collect them by building words across them. The first one can be put anywhere you like, but all subsequent words must intersect a tile you've already placed on the board. It's a unique dynamic. The only rules are that words must intersect previously played tiles, they must be found in the dictionary, and they must fit on the board. You don't have to worry about creating invalid words out of adjacent letters as you plan your moves; all you need to think about is the validity of the word you're building on this turn, and the legality of the position you're choosing for it. Try it!
I recommend this game!