There was a golden age of match-stuff puzzlers in the 90s, when games like Puzzle Fighter showed us all that there was more to the genre than just clearing screens. Petal Crash tries to capture some of the greatness of that era, and does it pretty darn well.
The game sees you sliding blocks around a grid. You can slide them horizontally or vertically, and they’ll go until they hit something – be that a block or a wall. If they smash into a block of the same color, they’ll both explode. But there’s an extra layer to proceedings as well.
When blocks explode, they send any blocks touching them firing out as well, letting you create awesome, high-scoring chains if you position things just right. Popping off two-block matches might be enough in the early games, but you need to start thinking further ahead if you want to succeed as things get tougher.
There are a number of different modes here. The story mode lets you pick one of the seven characters and leading them through a series of battles with the others. You can take on one-off battles as well. Then there are a variety of score attack modes, as well as a puzzle mode that’s sure to stretch your gray matter.
The art style here is particularly gorgeous, all chunky pixels and sprites, and the brightly colored blocks are easy to see. The controls can be a little fiddly sometimes, especially if you’ve got hefty digits, but it’s rare that they ruin your plans.
There’s a decent level of challenge here, and you can tweak the settings in story mode to make things tougher as well. Petal Crash is a game that asks you to put the work in, figuring out not just its mechanics but how to exploit them in order to win.
If you’re looking for another throwaway bubble burster, then Petal Crash definitely isn’t for you. If you’re after a meaty puzzling experience that’s crafted with care and love, then it’s well worth checking out.
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