CyberNEON
5 Pretty environments that don’t distract you while you play.
The rules are simples : align 3 or more tiles of the same icon to cover between 60% and 70% (depending on difficulty) of the tiles with your color. While doing this, an ability charges up. It allows you to drop a bomb on any tile. It colors this tile and the adjacent ones with your color while destroying the icons, making the tiles above fall.
Playing on the same board as another player (AI or real player) is a nice twist leading to unforeseen movements of the tiles. The AI has 3 difficulty settings. Sometimes it doesn’t do anything for 10 seconds then does several combos in rapid successions.
– Real player with 3.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Match 3 PvP Games.
too little content for what it’s worth.
-game has 5 stages which are all the same. only background differs. no gameplay variety there.
-only 1 ability (bomb) that detonates 5 tiles in a plus shape. could use more tbh.
-no online pvp (not that there would be players anyway) so doesnt really matter i guess.
-AI are….weird. all ai difficulties are like the same thing; equally dumb.
i got bored after 5 mins.
other match 3 games like wish, mirror and whatever else are better cause they give an incentive for you to keep playing, iykwim.
– Real player with 0.3 hrs in game
Terminal squad: Sentinel
A great concept of piloting a mech and fighting an alien horde through match three gameplay. You get a squadron of ‘J’s (every member of your eight woman team has a name that starts with the letter ‘J’) and must battle constantly spawning swarms of aggressive alien critters. I like the concept. The game is simple and puts you into the action right away. You level up, improve and configure each member of your troop independently. Every tenth level you will face an alien boss who will drop a new module which you can slot into your mech giving you either new or improved abilities. As you advance the levels the aliens will not only increase in strength and numbers but also hazards which affect the match three board (such as blocking sections of it).
– Real player with 58.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Match 3 RPG Games.
Good game, freezes sometimes when you run out of moves, but just a simple restart solves that issue.
– Real player with 15.2 hrs in game
Puzzle Quest: Galactrix
Puzzle Quest Galactrix (PQG) definitely has its strengths and weaknesses, but for people who enjoy puzzle games it works out to the good.
On the positive side: the core puzzle game has easily-grasped rules that allow you to become more effective as you learn how to plan multiple moves ahead. The head-to-head puzzles have a few variations (the most annoying of which is the time-pressure variant, but more on that in a moment). There is a very lightweight story wrapped around it, nothing movie-worthy or anything like that, but it does give context. The soundtrack is also better than one might think; generic adventure-orchestra, but well done for that. I also find it to be stable for a game of its age, with a crash happening maybe once per 30 game hours. It frequently auto-saves, so even if it does go boom you don’t lose more than a few minutes of progress. You also can retry any engagement that you lose without penalty, so even if you lose a given game, no big deal.
– Real player with 84.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Match 3 RPG Games.
Developed by Infinite Interactive and published by D3Publisher Of America Inc., Puzzle Quest: Galactrix is yet another puzzle roleplaying game in Infinites steadily growing stable of quality match 3 titles. The wonderful thing about this game, however, that sets it apart from the other Puzzle Quest titles is that this one does not take place in a fantasy setting. No dragons, no swords and no magic. Galactrix instead is set far into the future and deals with aliens, lasers and technology. You take on the role of a rogue M.R.I. pilot scouring the galaxy in your spaceship trying to uncover clues in an intergalactic mystery that will affect the fate of the entire universe.
– Real player with 47.9 hrs in game
Metacell: Genesis ARCADE
Metacell: Genesis turns Puzzle Bobble on its head and creates a wonderfully polished Arcade game that will have you frantically scanning the board for the next color match to keep your combo going.
The soundtrack is stellar, packing a lot of intensity. The art is precise, and does a good job of keeping cells visually separate through both iconography and color.
When reaching the later levels of the game, I feel like there could be more potential for comeback outside of bomb usage and the powerup that clears all of one color. If you fall too far behind around level 70+, all you can really do is stand there and lose all your lives. It might be cool if getting hit had a bomb effect? That’d open up the option to take hits on purpose at different parts of the board to try and find your footing again.
– Real player with 21.3 hrs in game
This game brings back a lot of memories playing arcade shooter games where you’re trying to get/keep the highscore in the entire arcade. It’s fun and is definitely one of those games I can play to pass the time or put down whenever I need to do something or take a break, but I can definitely get addicted and sucked in trying to go for the number 1 spot.
The game seems simple at first but progresses well once you’ve broken past level 20. The thing I wish it showed though would be my current score played along with my highscore or even a scoreboard of my personal runs, because I don’t always pay attention to my score or level when I get further and further into the levels. The personal run scores would be nice to have for local play with friends to see where they stand too.
– Real player with 13.4 hrs in game
Matchy Star
Matchy Star is a twist on the classic match 3 game style where players must collect matches based on the ships’ pre-set path. A vast galaxy to explore, all the way from Star Base to the legendary Xanadu with 46 levels throughout 11 systems, and colorful little stars derping all over the place. The game includes 30 items with a hundred different stat boosts to collect for your bubbly and swanky ships: Zippy, Skippy, and Bob. They’re fancy and special, so they need their proper swag.
Zippy, Skippy, and Bob are not alone! They have the help of 7 rocket surgeon stars, supporting them along the way: Matchy Star, Spacey Galaxy, Speedy Sputnik, Doctor UFO, Guru Moon, and Pirate Planet. These familiar faces are from Matchy’s Kooky Cookies and MatchyGotchy, and they are coming back to the rescue.
Help Matchy Star complete all these puzzle challenges and make it all the way to Xanadu, because last time he was there he forgot his wallet. It is time to get your Matchy on!
Meet The Ships
To reach Xanadu, Matchy Star has taken up the help of his three most efficient ships: Zippy, Skippy and Bob. The three ships must meticulously follow their flight plan based on the available path, extending their range with the help of the stars they collect along the way. In order to move forward, you must match as many stars as possible in the ship’s flight path. The faster you string gigantic matches together the better.
Zippy is the largest and slowest ship, but he makes up for it by baking the best cookies ever. Skippy is mid-sized and goes second, holding the record for eating the most cookies under a minute. Bob is the smallest and fastest, and for some unknown reason he likes burnt cookies. However quirky their relationship with cookies might be, they all agree in their love of wearing items that helps them improve their stats. Get yourself a crown, a monocle, a beard and a sword! Turn your ship into the most stylish cool kid in the galaxy.
You can collect special power ups too, which provide important help to your space exploring efficiency. The number of victory stars you collect throughout each level determines their power level including: gem score bonuses, speed regulation, fuel consumption and buffer alerts. Advanced levels can get a bit difficult, so items and power ups can make a difference.
If you enjoyed MatchyGotchy and Matchy’s Kooky Cookies, then we invite you come along with Matchy Star once more into the game that gave birth to this new colorful world.
Matchy Star is an original game by Silverware Games bringing a world of cuteness, random silliness, and interactive fun. We welcome you in this journey along with us, and invite you to make yourself comfortable and enjoy the fun.
Thank you for playing! You are what keeps Matchyverse alive ~☆
Super Star Path
An incredibly short sort of color-match puzzle on one hand and a SHMUP on the other. Whenever a boss is reached it’s almost as if the puzzle section never existed because of how much of a reflex-incentive game it suddenly becomes. It’s even mentioned on the Steam store page that it’s short and that it’s “more puzzle than SHMUP”.
There’s more control over the movement with a controller than there is using a keyboard. Can’t rebind the controls but instead they only give you 3 keyboard control schemes and only 2 controller schemes. I’ve got more problems with the 2 controller schemes because all that they use and switch around are (A) and (B) which does “Action” and “Cancel” with “Action” being the “Fire” button when in-game. For a game where you can shoot as fast as you press the button I always figured to put that on the left face button (X) but I don’t even get a choice on that matter.
– Real player with 6.0 hrs in game
For those who want a quick review, there’s a tl;dr at the end if you don’t wanna read all this.
Super Star Path is a half-puzzle, half-danmaku bullet hell game. It inverts the traditional bullet hell formula in that the levels themselves are just as hard, if not harder, than the boss fight at the end, but for different reasons. Having said that, there is only one fixed difficulty, and said difficulty feels just right; It’s not so easy that you can’t pay attention, but too hard as to turn players away in frustration. It should be worth noting, however, that I obtained 100% completion in a mere 93 minutes. The rest of my playtime was spent idling the main menu to obtain the trading card drops.
– Real player with 5.7 hrs in game
Rainbow Reactor
EDIT: 1/21/19 - I originally expressed hesitation toward paying full game price, but that was before I realized the FULL ACCESS version would be much larger, and almost certainly a better cost / content ratio. Yes, I think a bigger and better game will be more worthwhile and more fun game.
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I paid full (sale) price (and I’m glad I did!)
This reviewer just spent 30 minutes playing Rainbow Reactor, and I had such a great time I (literally) had to force myself to stop! While perhaps not the world’s biggest fan of color matching games, I’m far from a stranger to the genre, and I have enjoyed it often while on Steam. Yet even in that context I don’t hesitate to take this opportunity to say that color matching through a combination of dexterity and strategy (mostly strategy, I’m inclined to think at this point) is just remarkably fun, and I sincerely thank the friend who told me about Rainbow Reactor.
– Real player with 13.9 hrs in game
I like this game. It’s a little more hectic than I expected but it’s unlikely to make you sweat. I particularly like that I got it at 67% off, it’s definitely a bargain at that price!
I completed the 8 levels of the main game in about 2hrs but haven’t managed to clear the bonus time stage. I also had a little teleport around. I haven’t tried SINGLE SHIFT yet.
The world you are in is well made and gives some grandeur to what is otherwise a quite simplistic game i.e. throw coloured ball in hole. However it does that very well. The colour blending (light not paint) works nicely, but they have clearly spent quite some time getting the throw of the ball just right.
– Real player with 9.4 hrs in game
ARCADEON VR
ARCADEON VR is a match 3 game on steroids.
Use the force of your gravity gloves to swap and match drones by colors in different grids simultaneously.
While solving levels, drones attack you with lasers and missiles.
Special drones offer you power ups: extra time, shield, and missiles while you achieve multipliers by creating series of combos.
The futuristic streamline universe of Arcadeon is heavily inspired by cyperpunk classics such as Blade Runner and Tron.