Late last year, there was a game that came out on Nintendo Switch that caused a buzz on the Internet, or so they say.  Especially in Japan (Suika means watermelon in Japanese), and people were saying it was “Japan’s hardest game” and such.  I tried to get a review code for it when it initially came out, but never got a response.  But a little while later, Nintendo was offering this game as a free limited time download for subscribers, so I decided to check it out then and write a quick review.  I think you can also play this game on some mobile devices and Internet browsers, but it’s reviewed on Switch here.

Gameplay is super simple.  You control a cloud on the top of the screen and can move it left and right.  Press the button to drop a piece of fruit into a bin.  The game is physics based, so your fruit will roll around in the bin.  When two of the same pieces of fruit touch each other, they’ll merge into a bigger kind of fruit and you’ll get points.  So cherries become strawberries, which become grapes, and then mangos to oranges to apples, and so on.  The biggest piece of fruit is a watermelon, and I think the challenge of the game is getting to that point, or trying to match two watermelons, which makes them disappear entirely and you get huge bonuses.  The game is over when a piece of fruit crosses the top line of the bin.  You can then record your daily scores and compare them with an online leaderboard.

I guess the only problem I had with this game is that since it’s physics based, it’s hard to predict sometimes how your fruit will roll.  And sometimes they’ll fly out of the bin enough to cause a Game Over, so it’s not as precise of a puzzle game as say, Tetris or whatnot.  I also kind of wish there was more than one song that played in the background.  I don’t know why the Internet was buzzing about this game for a while, as it just appears like yet another mobile style puzzle game to me.  But the fruit has cute faces on them and it’s still a fairly addicting puzzler that’ll keep you entertained for a few hours at most, so if you see this one on sale, you might want to check it out.

Kid Factor:

Nothing violent or objectionable here.  Reading skill is helpful for the text, but not necessary just to play.  Suika Game is rated E for Everyone.

Tags: Game Reviews