Bejeweled Twist

Review from Cav - Saturday, 03 September 2011 @ 9:47pm

Bejeweled.

There wouldn’t be too many people who haven’t played it (or a clone…of which there are hundreds - research says that Bejeweled itself is inspired by a game called Shariki) on one platform or another, even on a phone. It doesn’t even have to be a smart phone as I remember playing it on my old Motorola KRZR some years ago. PopCap Games have brought out a few versions of Bejeweled, with Bejeweled 2 and 3, Bejeweled Blitz and Bejeweled Twist (the subject of my review) all gracing a number of platforms. So with this in mind, other than not having played it before and wanting something new to put in your DS/3DS because you are all Pokemon’ed out, is Bejewelled Twist on the DS different enough to give reason to buy this?

‘Twist’ is exactly that: a ‘twist’ on the original Bejeweled. Instead of swapping jewels left/ right or up/down , you have to rotate a circular group of four to make rows of three or more. Those of us familiar with the game will realise that this does make the game slightly more challenging. Bringing four single player modes, but not all available from the get go, there is (as always) plenty to do:

Couldn't they think of a better name than 'Junior Rotator'?

Classic Mode has a few nice changes to the original. There are 8 different types of gems that will appear, most of which will be created by you for matching four or more gems. Not only do you have the task of matching gems, but you can now achieve a bonus multiplier and specific colour to match in sequence, to obtain that bonus. I kinda suck so I didn’t achieve all of the bonuses or gem types, but practice will make perfect….. hopefully. One of my favourite changes to this game is that if you are beaten by a Bomb Gem (counts down with every move you make) you get a chance to spin a wheel to see if you can carry on with the game. Each time you have to spin, another pair of skulls (which look remarkably like HalfBrick’s Raskulls) fill vacant spots on the wheel, minimising your chance of success.

Skulls = Bad

Challenge Mode (opened once you reach Rank 3) offers 91 challenges which is sure to keep you going. They range from ‘do that with my eyes closed’ to ‘cleaning my ears out with a power tool would be less painful than this”. There are quite a variety of challenges, including removing a certain number of gems in a time frame, creating a variety of ‘power gems’ and other scenarios.

Zen Mode Can have you sitting there for hours. A near endless game mode has some appeal and little pressure, but can become mundane.

Blitz Mode is five minutes of frantic gem twisting which often leads to not paying attention to the bonus multiplier and just twisting away to get the biggest score you can.

One thing that Bejeweled Twist hasn’t left behind is the soundtrack, which I have always likened to Enigma (sans Gregorian Monk harmonising) spliced with a cosmic porno back beat… if there is such a thing. I do like how the music intensifies as the clock counts down during a timed game. If this happened during other games in the series on other platforms, I will be the first to admit that I never noticed it. On the downside for the sound, the iconic voice that welcomes you to the game and warns you when time is running out or when you level up is really difficult to understand and nowhere near as distinctive as it’s bigger screen counterparts.

While there is two player battle mode, as always, DS Multicard Wireless Play makes this an expensive option that I believe only die hard Bejeweled fans/families (and I do believe that they are out there) would venture towards. I have not come across any of these fans so I am unable to report to you how well this option works.

Pros

• The Twist version is more challenging that the original
• Sizeable Challnge Mode
• Spinning Wheel Second Chance
• ...umm Pretty Colours?

Cons

• Poor audio
• Much of the same
• DS Multicard play
• Bejeweled is spelled incorrectly and it makes it damn hard to write a review