Tokyo Crash Mobs

Genre: Match-3 Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

Tokyo Crash Mobs is a Match-3 Puzzle game released on Nintendo 3DS in 2013. This game plays much like the game Zuma, with players aiming at a line of multicolored objects aiming to match 3 like-colored objects to clear them. However, unlike other games that have players batching balls, balloons, or marbles, this game has players matching… people. Apparently, this game puts players in the role of two ladies having to deal with frustrating lines full of people, and they resolve this issue by… tossing other people at them to make them go away.

Needless to say, this concept is pretty bizarre, and this game runs with that bizarre concept in its presentation, with the game making use of crudely-animated digitized images of people during gameplay, who shout out in surprise as you toss other people at them, with all of this backed by whimsical music, and interspersed with live-action cutscenes of the game’s leading ladies trying to make sense of this crazy mayhem.

This game does do a few different things with the Zuma formula beyond just the presentation. Each of the two girls features in a different kind of stage – Grace features in timed stages where players are trying to clear out all matches within that time limit, while Savannah is in more traditional Zuma-style stages where you’re aiming to clear out matches before they make their way down a line to reach its end. Grace has the ability to toss people anywhere in the line, going over others’ heads, while Savannah rolls people to their target, and must hold for a moment to wait for the line to jump if she wants to roll her toss past them. There are other elements here as well, such as people trying to cut in line and various power-ups, but at it’s core, this is still ultimately a different take on Zuma.

Unfortunately, the core gameplay here doesn’t work as smoothly as, well, Zuma. Because you’re tossing something irregular-shaped at other irregular-shaped things, it can be difficult at a glance to tell where your shots will land. Making this worse still is the fact that you’re using the touchscreen but looking at the top screen to see the results, and while the game does provide a cursor, this still isn’t always as clear as one would hope.

In the end, Tokyo Crash Mobs is still a fun Puzzle game, but a large part of that fun comes from the bizarre presentation. The gameplay here isn’t bad, but it’s better in countless other games that copy the Zuma formula. If your interest is more in the gameplay than the presentation, you’re better off playing one of those.

tl;dr – Tokyo Crash Mobs is a Puzzle game that plays similar to Zuma, but instead of shooting balls into other balls to clear them by matching colors, you’re throwing people into a line of people. It’s a silly concept with a similarly silly presentation, but the actual gameplay isn’t quite as good as more traditional game that use the Zuma formula. Rather, this is a game that’s largely worth playing to experience the bizarre presentation, with the gameplay being decent but somewhat lacking. If you’re considering this game, you should probably think about how much those different facets of the game appeal to you.

Grade: C+

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