Is Match'n Three Fun For Me?
I am not super familiar with the match-3 game mechanic. I have not played Candy Crush or any games of that ilk. I've put some time into 10000000 and poked a bit at the sequel, You Must Build a Boat, but that about it. I am not sure how I came across Legends of Fae, but it had very favorable reviews, ended up in my Steam wishlist and most likely purchased on a sale of some sort.
Legends of Fae is a hybrid game, mixing story, match-3 and battle mechanics. You have a grid of colored balls, each matching to one of four elements (and a couple of extra types as well), that as you match fill up meters on the side. At a certain level on the meter you can use the element to make an attack on the monsters that you have encountered on the top screen. At the basic level it's simple to work out.
They mix in a couple of other game play mechanics, such as purple balls can/need to be matched to walk from one encounter to the next and for dodging attacks. There are grey swirly balls that need to be matched to earn gems that clear status effects (more on this later). As the game goes on from level to level you earn upgrades that allow the elements to be used in other ways (like healing) or combine multiple elements for special effects.
Initially I ran into issues with the game at a technical level, it was like the game was running in slow motion every time I did anything. Being an a few years old (2011) and a smaller title there was not a lot to help out with this issue. After attempting to run it in various Windows compatibility modes I finally had to just set it to run in administrative mode and that cleared up the issue. Turns out that it's a known problem for some GameMaker engine games. Not a huge deal but was frustrating.
The game start out fairly easy with a fairy tale story about a girl who has a missing uncle, finds a magic lantern (the device which you use to match-3) and can talk to elemental spirits. Early levels do a good job of introducing the mechanics....but as someone who is not good at match-3 style games I found it ramping up the difficulty rather fast and started to have to repeat levels or battles much more often. Much of this had to do with the various status effects the enemies start piling on. These are things like poison (continuously drops you health and messes up some of your elemental balls), petrify (makes some of your balls immovable) and blindness (makes all your balls "invisible" except for the status swirls). At the first introduction to these effects you can make a gem and remove them but as the game goes on you end up in situations where multiple effects are being piled on at the same time and you just don't have the means to remove them before they get out of control. Again a lot of this may have something to do with my lacking skill in "seeing" available matches.
This was really starting to cramp the fun I was having with the game. Where I finally bailed was about 16 or so levels in when after completing the previous level I was presented with three levels to choose from to advance to next, but upon completing the one I chose it had a story reason (you picked the wrong way) and sent me back to chose again. So I picked a different level and again it was the "wrong way" and I was sent back. I figured I was just unlucky and picked the right one last - but upon it's completion I was sent back. Confused I attempted it again only to be sent back. I tried all three choices again one at a time and still no luck. Each ended with "this is the wrong way" and sent me back. I has no luck finding a walk through that was of any help so I decided to be done with Legends of the Fae (for now?).
I have no idea how far I was into the game (I assume not to far as they were still introducing game play mechanics) but after having the experience soured by early overwhelming difficulty and repetitive game play I can't say I really want to play more of Legends of the Fae. It might just be my personal lack of experience with match-3 game that hindered it from being the game for me that review-wise seemed to have resonated with others.
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