Candy Crush Jelly Saga
Mobile
Nostalgia Factor:
This is a game that's been sitting ignored on my phone for years and years now. I used to be obsessed with Candy Crush and its spinoff, Candy Crush Soda Saga. When I saw they were coming out with a new game called Jelly Saga, I downloaded it right away. I probably played the game for a good half a year or so before I returned to the other Candy Crush games. I turned my back on this one and have only played it sparingly since.
According to Wikipedia, Jelly Saga was released in 2015. If I downloaded this right when it first came out, that means it has been on my phone for, jeez, eight years now. I've probably turned it on and played it only ten times or so in the last five years. Since it is sitting on my phone taking up space, I figured I'd give the game one last chance before deleting it from my phone forever. There's a reason I haven't been playing it, though. I didn't enjoy it as much as the other Candy Crushes.
Would my memories indeed be correct, and this is a Candy Crush game to forget? Or would I find that it is not as bad as I remember it? Let's find out.
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Story:
There is no story for this game. You simply swipe your way through a series of puzzles where you move candy shapes around on a board. Your goal is to complete whatever the task is for the stage and move onto the next one. As I mentioned before, this game came out in 2015. It's possible they tried to shoehorn in some hokey storyline when the game first started. It was a long time ago so I don't remember. They do often have little between-stages conversations in these types of games. I can't remember. Never fear: if there was a story, it was absolutely nothing of consequence.
Gameplay:
If you've played the other Candy Crush games, you should have at least a basic understanding of how this game works. I've already reviewed two Candy Crush games in the series, so I am not going to break down the details. Instead, I'll explain what sets this game apart from the others.
This game is focused around its jelly mechanic, as you can probably tell by the name. Most stages, the goal is to spread the jelly to every square on the board. All you have to do is make a matching piece over a jelly tile, and it spreads the jelly to every square the piece you made was touching. If you use a striped candy or a bomb, it spreads across every piece on the board that the explosion or beam touches. There are many variant stages in the game, though, such as stages where you have to break apart the ice to free the worms below it. Other stages have you line up rows of orange candies, which fills a meter that drops monkeys on your screen. You have to lower these monkeys below a certain line on the bottom of the screen. I can only imagine how much sense this makes to someone who has never played this game before. Probably sounds like a bunch of gibberish.
Unlike Soda Saga and regular Candy Crush, the game doesn't seem to do a lot of the "fun events" where you can win power ups and boosters. As a result, I often found my interest in the game straying because I'd get stuck on a difficult stage and then not have any items to help me.
Speaking of difficult stages, this brings me to my main gripe with this game: its head-to-head battles. These are stages where you have to square off against a computer controlled opponent. You have to try and spread your purple jelly across the whole board, and your opponent has to try to spread their green. Whoever spreads it across the whole board first wins.
I quickly grew to detest these stages. The fact that you have to sit there and wait for someone else to make a turn is very annoying. To make matters worse, when you create a special candy with your move, you get to go again. The computer is very good at making these combos, and can often string together multiple turns in a row. I didn't download this game so I could sit there and watch someone else play.
These stages can often be very challenging. It often seems like the computer starts with an unfair advantage of some kind. And they seem to get all the best of luck. These stages drove me away from this game. I hated them.
Somewhere in the gap between when I stopped playing and now, they did improve the game's speed. I remember this being one of the slower Candy Crush titles, which was another reason I didn't like it. It seems to be a bit faster moving now. The overall gameplay feels more like the original Candy Crush or Soda Saga than it ever did before. I think they are doing more special events now, too. I'm glad they didn't give up on this game, like I did. They kept improving on it and making it faster and better. Good job, King.
I totally thought this game would suck when I picked it back up again, but I found myself playing it more than I expected to. I even enjoyed the Jelly Queen stages more than I remembered in the past. Now I am questioning whether I want to delete it from my phone or not.
Graphics:
It's a good looking game, everything you'd expect from a Candy Crush title. Bright colors, fun shapes and designs. Imaginative characters. There is always something fun and eye catching to look at. The candy shapes are perfect. I like the color of the jelly.
This whole game is like you were playing Tetris, and Candy Land puked all over it.
Sound:
I mainly play with the sound muted, but this game has some fun, catchy music. The sound effects are quality, too. Really, you can't knock the music or the sound effects for any Candy Crush game. They set the tone of the game and help present it in the exact way King wants it to be presented.
Overall:
There is no denying that this is the weakest Candy Crush title. Well, at least of the ones that I've played. Its painful "versus" battles and its slower pace really made me stay away from the game for a very, very long time. I'm a little conflicted because now that I come back to the game, I find much that I didn't enjoy before has been fixed. Everything feels so much more up to pace with the other Candy Crush games now. Last time I played it, however long ago that was, it seemed like they didn't really care about this game anymore. If King didn't care about it, why should I?
I'm going to grade this game based on my overall experience of it. It started out okay. It got old quick. I didn't like it for a very long time. And now I like it again. But will I stick with it? I don't know. The days of me being obsessed with mobile games and playing them constantly has been over for a while now. I still dabble, but nowhere near like I used to. This is a decent game, sure, but when I am in the mood to play mobile games, I'll probably continue to pick something else over this.
Is this a good game? It sure is. It didn't used to be, but it is.
Is it a must-have for your phone? Not really.
THE GRADE:
B-
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