Времена года 2
Unlocked 19 Apr, 2015 @ 12:46am

Времена года 3: Проклятие ведьмы-вороны

This is the third game-shaped no challenge busywork in the series for all your game-shaped no challenge busywork needs. Now half of the levels are puzzles. Every odd one is the same tile matcher, every even one is either a kind of hidden object, a tile swapper or spot the difference. You have three spells for tile-matching and some of the tiles are mana to reload your spells. While you can have all three spells ready at the start of the level, only one can be reloaded. Also, you get a new spell each time you finish the next set of levels, so your arsenal is constantly rotating, discarding the oldest spell you have.

The levels are often designed around using bonuses to get the goal. And pre-put rainbow powerups (colour change) are often useless, changing nothing. That is especially jarring when it must rearrange the second colour-locked field. It doesn't work so you have to cast a spell. Due to the whole mobile paradigm using spells feels like you are losing money. It's just a stable connotation of the free to play market. That's why i'm not a fan of levels where you have to use magic. And there are a lot of those in the later game. The old lightning bonus model is now used for a horizontal freezer malus. It can look both ways, but that's breaking the inherited knowledge.

In the second half of the hidden object stages, the design gets quite lazy. How about a hamster in the sky? How about the picture not fitting into the 4:3 aspect ratio because the devs did pan and scan poorly. How about an invisible fan? Or a bird? Also, when you gather lizards, do you do it so they will be boiled alive?

After the first two games, you start the third one with the help of the previous antagonists. That's cool. The games looks pretty nice for the most part: planes, racial castles across the world, wonder-yonder fish-whale etc. I like the character art. Locked tiles now look much better than in the first game, but still not perfect.
Despite the developers being russian, in the russian text, all of the girls are using male pronouns.

It's the same extremely lenient game. But i still have never solved the secret of the Crow Witch, because the ending is broken and doesn't work.