The original Candy Crush Saga debuted all the way back in April 2012, captivating the gaming industry with its easily accessible interface and addictive gameplay. Candy Crush Soda Saga and Candy Crush Jelly Saga both added their own unique touches to the base formula that made their forerunner such a huge success, providing developer and publisher King with two worthy — if not wholly groundbreaking — expansions into the universe of the candy kingdom. And now Candy Crush Friends Saga, King’s newest foray into the puzzler genre, takes aim at the top of the charts by implementing its own variations to the iconic, award-winning gameplay that hit the public six years ago.
There’s no denying that Candy Crush Friends Saga feels a lot like its three predecessors. At its core, Candy Crush Friends Saga is a level-based, match-three puzzler with a theme that should entice anyone who loves candy and sweets. It possesses simple controls and an extremely polished interface, which coalesce to allow players to dive right in and start crushing candy immediately.
The levels in Candy Crush Friends Saga vary widely in terms of difficulty. The levels are grouped by environments in the candy kingdom, with those at the beginning of a given location being easier than the those towards its end. King’s levels encourage players to be creative, as matching candies in unusual ways can score lots of points. For instance, players are given bonuses if they can match four or five same-colored candies together, form a two-by-two box of the same-colored candy, or create specific patterns of same-colored candy. Instead of having players focus solely on getting as high a score as possible, the levels bequeath to gamers specific goals such as to free octopuses, find animals, spread jam, dunk cookies, and collect hearts hidden within a level’s board.
The most notable difference between Candy Crush Friends Saga and King’s other puzzlers can be found in the levels themselves. For the first time in the Candy Crush universe, players collect ‘friends’ that can assist them as they progress through the game’s 380 levels. Players start off the game with Tiffi, a young, pig-tailled girl in love with red fish candy. Crushing 10 pieces of red candy triggers Tiffi’s power, which is to turn three pieces of normal red candy into red candy fish. Additional characters with different skillsets exist, naturally making the choice of which friend to enter a level with a strategic decision. The characters were all rendered in 3D very well, and their admittedly awkward dance moves and personalities at the end of levels can be endearing.
Players can also customize the friends they collect. Each character has a multiplicity of additional skins that can be unlocked through gift boxes. This process, in which different clothes are unlocked by acquiring a certain amount of a given icon, is strikingly similar to the mechanism that Kiloo and SYBO Games incorporated in their endless runner Subway Surfers that enabled their characters to don different sets of clothing. The gift boxes (which players can acquire by beating a certain level, logging on for the first time in a day, or by spending actual money) can also allow players to unlock additional friends and power-ups.
In all, Candy Crush Friends Saga introduces some worthy new elements to the Candy Crush franchise. However, it hews too close to its source material to be truly innovative. While prohibiting the game from rivaling Candy Crush Saga in terms of appeal, this fact does make Candy Crush Friends Saga a worthwhile play for anyone looking for a more polished and up-to-date version of their favorite puzzler.
Rating: 8/10
Check Out the CANDY CRUSH FRIENDS SAGA Release Trailer:
Candy Crush Friends Saga is available via Google Play and the App Store.
Android Review
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Overall Score - 8/108/10
I'm a recent graduate of Columbia University. Gaming has been a passion of mine my entire life; I enjoy everything from RPGs and FPSs to stealth and narrative-driven games. I love the deeply immersive quality that good video games inherently possess, and am looking forward to highlighting games worthy of acclaim. When I'm not studying or reading, you can catch me playing games like Uncharted, Dishonored, The Witcher 3, and Far Cry.
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