Drakolanche review

Puzzle games have rarely matched the bombastic feeling that most action games presents. Sure, they have the panic moments and the adrenaline rushes that quick thinking can sometimes simulate but you know what a puzzle game could always use? Dragons. Yes dragons. The awesome-meter has exploded. Suddenly puzzle gaming just got a scaly-flaming-winged kicked in the butt. Drakolanche, released by Motin Games, is available on the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad for $0.99… but the price is minor in comparison to the epic awesomeness of dragons!

DRAGONNNNNSSS!!! Ok sorry, this review isn’t going to be like that the whole way through. This is a match-4 puzzle game with colored eggs and 2 very unique elements. First is the avalanche system. Put simply, you can rotate how you hold your iDevice to shift all the blocks around on the screen through the power of gravity. It shuffles the screen and can activate matches for extra combos! Next, you get a DRAGON!!! DRAGONNNN—so this dragon. What does it do? Well, each egg match you make gets you some points. This fills up your Dragon meter. When that meter gets full you can unleash the power of your dragon. It could spit a fireball that will destroy a random cluster of eggs or it will fly through a row or column and destroy all the eggs in its path. It’s like controlling a Pokemon in a game of Bejeweled.

So to play the game, you tap in the center of 4 eggs and slide your finger left or right. This rotates the 4 eggs and if you get a match of 4 or more eggs of the same color, they explode and the eggs shift downward. Like Dr. Mario, shapes move downward if they land and there is an empty gap beneath them. Rotating the screen 90 degrees causes them to slide downwards like a rock slide. Rotating 180% will cause the pile to shift upside down and really opens up color match potential.

The graphics are seriously good and all the little eggs have a nice design that is different for each color. This helps folks like me who have colorblindness, but the theme of eggs makes me feel like this Dragon is killing babies… how horrible! At least the baby dragon massacre is very pretty and colorful.

Play through 60 levels, play Drakolanche’s survival and puzzle modes, and train that dragon! DRAGGGOONNNNN!!!! The awesomeness of this review has been increased just by being in the presence of DRAGONS!!

Drakolanche is a great entry into the puzzle game genre. Many Bejeweled clones fail because they fail to add new, well designed, elements to the genre. Drakolanche did a great job and is extremely fun to play. Play the free version and experience it for yourself. What is “it” exactly? DRAAAGGGGOOOO—*head explodes into flames*

Here is a video demo of the Drakolanche app on the iPhone

AppSafari Rating: 5/5

AppSafari review of Drakolanche was written by Joseph Ho on February 8th, 2011 and categorized under App Store, Featured, Games, Puzzler. Page viewed 4909 times, 2 so far today. Need help on using these apps? Please read the Help Page.