Pretty Girls Pop Match – Review
Follow Genre: Puzzle, Arcade
Developer: Zoo Corporation, East Asiasoft Limited
Publisher: Zoo Corporation, East Asiasoft Limited
Platform: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch
Tested on: Switch

Pretty Girls Pop Match – Review

Site Score
5.0
Good: Theme is better incorporated, Simple but fun gameplay
Bad: Lack of story, Horrendous touchscreen support
User Score
0
(0 votes)
Click to vote
VN:R_U [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)

If you’re thinking that you’ve already seen the name ‘Pretty Girls‘ pass by several times on the site, you’re absolutely correct. The Pretty Girls franchise is rather expansive, and we have a bit of a love-hate relationship with it. Most games in the series offer simple and engaging gameplay, but the pretty girls’ theme that is slapped on top feels cheap and has nothing to do with the actual gameplay. Even so, today marks the review of yet another entry in the franchise, namely Pretty Girls Pop Match. While some elements showed a bit of improvement compared to prior entries, others sadly deteriorated.

Story

Surprisingly, Pretty Girls Pop Match somewhat hints at a story, but other than a themed menu and a few fantasy elements, there is none present. It’s a shame, really, as the slightly fleshed-out theme would have been great if there had been some narrative that would unfold throughout the 100 stages the game has to offer.

Graphics

Even though the medieval fantasy theme is somewhat refreshing, this might be one of the most basic Pretty Girls games out there. Pop Match only has four busty ladies featured throughout the experience, which is significantly less than most other titles in the franchise. On top of that, the character art looks more basic. Even the diorama mode feels rather useless here, as the girls only have one static pose each with only a handful of facial expressions to choose from. The backgrounds looked decent, but the static images failed to impress.

The ‘match three’ portion of the game looks like a traditional version of the game, albeit with a few original animations added to the mix. Some powerups have a medieval version, such as a sword that can clear clusters of gems, for example. Everything looks clear, and the menus are also user-friendly.

Sound

All in all, the sound design of Pretty Girls Pop Match isn’t too bad. The music is okay, albeit slightly bland and forgettable. The SFX are decent, but once again nothing special. There is a bit of Japanese voice acting present, but most of the spoken lines come with no subtitles. While we reckon the characters are not saying anything important, it would still be nice to know what was being said.

Gameplay

Pretty Girls Pop Match is a fairly traditional match three game. The game offers 100 levels to play through, as well as a score attack mode. The offset is quite simple. The normal stages require objectives to be completed within a certain number of moves. The score attack mode requires you to score as high as possible within three minutes. Both modes offer crystals as a reward dependent on your total score at the end of a normal level or when the timer runs out in the score attack mode.

The gameplay follows the traditional format of a match three game, where you have to form rows of three identical gems to clear them from the board, making room for new gems. Of course, stronger effects occur when you match more than three, such as bombs that make big areas of gems explode, or swords that target specific gems or other obstacles. As you progress, special ‘gems’ will also be on the board that require specific conditions to be removed. Most of the time you’ll need to clear adjacent gems in order to remove them. It’s all fairly standard fare for the genre, but it’s enjoyable nonetheless.

An interesting twist is that you earn crystals for clearing levels, which you can then use to upgrade the abilities of the three available heroines. Each heroine has its own special ability, which correlates to the specially formed ‘gems’ on the field. If you upgrade skills, you can, for example, make bigger explosions when making bombs detonate. It does create an incentive to keep pressing forward, and thanks to this, Pop Match also has a bit more depth than other games in the Pretty Girls series.

While most of Pretty Girls Pop Match is a bit bland but enjoyable, it goes horribly wrong when it comes to the controls. As you have probably played quite a few ‘free’ versions of games such as this on your smartphone with decent touchscreen controls, you’d expect the developers to do the same for the Pop Match Switch port. Sadly, the touchscreen controls are absolute garbage. Almost with every single tap, the game takes an action that you’re not even trying to do. You’ll miss ideal combos and things simply aren’t responsive at all. These are probably the worst touchscreen controls we’ve had the misfortune to play a game with. Touchscreen controls are responsive in the menus, so we have no idea what went wrong with the actual gameplay. Luckily, you can play the game with a controller or just the Joy-Cons, but it’s a lot slower than optimized touchscreen controls would be.

Conclusion

Pretty Girls Pop Match would be a fairly enjoyable entry in the franchise if it weren’t for the horrendous touchscreen controls. Don’t get us wrong, the gameplay on offer here is still decent, and you’ll be able to entertain yourself for an evening or two while trying to beat the different levels. Sadly, the theme feels a bit useless here, as no attempts were made to incorporate a narrative that would flesh out the world and the characters. If you’re a fan of what other titles in the series have to offer, you’ll probably be entertained by this one as well. We can sadly only recommend this one at a hefty discount.

VN:R_U [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)
VN:R_U [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)
Ibuki


Aspiring ninja.

No Comments

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.