From the makers of the ever popular Candy Crush Saga, King.com, has returned with another game in the puzzler genre. This quirky puzzle game leaves the world of Facebook and enters your handheld devices. Pet Rescue Saga relies on its simple game design and addictive game play to keep you coming back to get that impossible third star.
Basically, you need to clear a certain percentage of blocks before you can advance to the next level. The blocks cannot be cleared unless there are two or more adjacent s blocks of the same color. Clearing them is as simple as just tapping on them with your finger. As the blocks get cleared the ones on top will fall down into the space that has just been cleared. The more blocks you can string together the higher your score will be.
There is an added level of difficulty to this game though. You need to rescue stray animals from the “pet snatchers”. You can rescue the Pets by breaking the blocks below them and getting them to land on the bottom floor of the level. If you leave a Pet stranded at the top of the screen with no available moves left they will be taken by the evil Pet Snatchers. Most levels will consist of a combination of saving a certain amount of pets, achieving a certain number of points, and clearing a specific percent of all the blocks.
Sounds tough, right? Well, honestly, it is. For such an innocent looking game it can get quite difficult towards the later levels. Especially if you are a person that needs to get three stars on every level. This game could leave you begging the pet snatchers to come take you away. Every move you make must be planned a couple steps in advance so you are not left with one yellow block surrounded by a whole bunch of green ones.
The game does help those of us who cannot think that far in advance. As you progress the game will give you different items to help you in your quest to save all the pets: Bombs, hammers, balloons, and a rocket just to name a few. Each item allows you to clear blocks in a unique way. The balloon clears all the blocks that are the same color as it. It is wise to save the balloon for situations where there are several blocks of the same color separated from each other. The rocket clears whole columns of blocks. This is a particularly critical item as you can use it as many times as you want, assuming that it is charged.
With the help of these items it helps to take the edge off of the difficulty. Heed this warning; you only get 3 of each item. After you use it three times you are going to have to pay real money to be able to use them again. I mean what else were you expecting from a King.com game? The easier you want the game to be, the more money you’re going to have to spend.
You must be able to adapt to the surroundings of each level. Some levels have wooden platforms that don’t move, causing your blocks and pets to stack up really fast. A simple trick to getting further in the game is to hold off on the first move you see and check for combinations that you can put together. Some blocks with have an “x2” on them. This will give you more points for clearing the string of same colored blocks. You must be careful on what objective you are concentrating on as well. If you think too much about saving the Pets, then you may be short on points and vice-versa. For such a simple game there is so much you need to think about.
Pet Rescue Saga is a really fun game if you can get past the repetitive music and the childish visuals. A plus for Pet Rescue Saga is being able to pick it up and put it down whenever you want. It’s a perfect game to play if you only have five minutes to spare. For that reason I would suggest this game to anyone who wants to kill some time, but keep their brain active. There are not a lot of games out there that give you this much fun in such a short amount of time.
I would have liked to see King.com branch out a little but more with this one, but the game is, admittedly, pretty fun to play. They stuck with what they know and it worked. Simple style, increasingly difficult levels, and cute Pets are what you can expect from this game. I would recommend this game to all who need their puzzle fix, but don’t have the time to dive deep into a strategy game.
