Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Well... this is the longest I've ever had a game on my phone. Certainly most match 3 games are similar, but it's the style of the graphics and the inter-game play that makes the difference. In Fishdom, you start with an aquarium and earn coins through playing in order to buy fish and decorations for it. As you beautify your tank you earn your way towards more stars - up to a maximum of three. As you earn more starts, you open up new themed aquariums that you can move on to in order to decorate them as well. New aquarium themes also open up new aquarium decorations to go along with the theme, although you are not restricted where you put any of the decorations you want. Earning stars also adds to your bonus points (i.e. more coins) as you complete levels, so while stars get harder to earn, you at least get more points/coins for each level, which allows you to buy more or more expensive decorations and fish. Completing levels also opens up new decorations and fish. Lately the game has added a few new aspects that can make the game even more interesting. What seems like a couple of times a week, now, there is a treasure hunt - you just keep playing as normal, but finishing a number of levels opens up chests, which gives you rewards and unlimited lives for a fixed duration - 2 hours for the first two trunks, 6 hours for the third (and final) trunk. Feeding your fish can grant you a few coins, too, as can watching ads. When you watch an ad, you can gain coins or gems... gems can be used to continue a level that you are close to finishing, and sometimes can be used to buy a few extras at the start of a round to help you finish it. Extras in the game include a hammer that will knock out one location on the board. If you are down to your last move, for example, and there's a single tile on the board you need to knock out in order to win - and you can't do it on your last move, you can use a hammer. Another extra is a tile swap - you can exchange the location of two pieces on the board. That might make it possible to make a match you wouldn't have been able to make otherwise. The game play includes the usual extras for making matches greater than 3 - a series of bombs that become more powerful the more matches you make, from firecracker to mine to dynamite to nuclear, which will take out half the board. As you use bombs you build up "lightening," and once you build up enough, a lightening piece "randomly" goes on the board. A single lightening will take out all of the same type of piece that you swap it with. One extra feature - two lightening pieces swapped together will take out the whole board. That may not be enough to win; if there is, for example, a frozen tile, it might be enough to unfreeze it, but it won't destroy it. As an extra, every day your are allowed to choose a shell from field of shells; underneath the shell is a bonus. It might be an extra bomb, lightening, hammer, swap, coins or gems. IOW, if you are stuck on a really hard level, perseverance will allow you to build up a few extras over the course of a few days to help you beat that level. I've seen a lot of complaining that the game gets too hard too quickly, and you can't possibly play without paying for extra gems and goodies. I am telling you right now - I am nearing level 1300, and have not paid one dime for any assistance (out of pocket - of course, watching ads is a form of payment). Yes, some of the levels are extremely hard, some of them almost certainly require something "extra," but because you can build up gems and extras without beating levels, if you're just patient and let those extras build up, you can beat any level without having to pay extra. All in all, this is one of the more fun match 3 games you can play, in my opinion, but it suffers from a few drawbacks: 1. The game cheats. You'll have to take my word for it, experience it yourself. For example, the other day I detonated a bomb near two lightening tiles that should have brought them next to each other.... but one "fell" to the side before falling down, keeping them separated by one tile. Now, I get that pieces don't always fall straight down, but in this case there were no other obstacles - it shouldn't have happened. I've also had times where falling pieces (from a match made below) should have formed a bomb because it was more than 3, but didn't. There are other issues - they are annoying, but minor, and haven't kept me from playing. 2. A terrible ad system. Sometimes the screen goes black when trying to play an ad. Worse, sometimes you watch the whole ad... then the screen goes black. The only solution I've found is to quit and restart the game; in the latter case, it means you watched an ad and got nothing for it. 3. Intrusive ads. A 30 second ad is one thing, but they have ones where multiple ads are shown in one. In one case, it's several 10-15 second ads that you have to push "next" ever each one is over; in one case there are FOUR ads in one. Now imagine watching all those and the screen goes black and you don't even get any coins or anything for it. Terrible. 4. Timed levels. Every dozen levels or so is a timed level. The problem with timed levels is that if you're phone isn't the latest and greatest, it may lag and make it harder for you to defeat. Disney, for example, seems to have pulled timed levels out of it's match 3 games, I think Playrix should follow suit. In addition to hardware potentially slowing you down, they insist on having timed levels where: lightening takes several seconds to finish, and prevents you from making some moves while it's happening (although you can still do other moves), some tiles rotate the item on those tiles, and the game seems to pause as this animation happens (again, you may be able to make some moves, but it prevents others). All in all, very frustrating and a cheap gimmick to make levels harder - there are plenty of non-timed levels that I've spent days on (well, you know, 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there) without having to be timed. Like any game, if you get over that they're trying to make money off of you, but that, with patience, you won't have to spend anything, this is definitely one of the nicer match 3 games.