Zen Gems - Match-Three Enjoyment

 

Zen Gems is quite a unique match-three game from Fresh Games. It will neither make you bored nor will it put you on your toes with its crazy level of difficulty. It makes you feel somewhere in between - kind of a relaxing challenge.

 

 

You are to find the medallions travelling through different worlds.

 

The story of the game is as follows: your grandfather, who deals with spirits and things like that, asks your help to collect the Medallions of Virtue because you are so good at puzzles.

 

And now you go from one world to another collecting these medallions. At the very beginning you are presented with three modes: Arcade, Adventure, and Survival.

 

But strong chains on the last two modes make it obvious that those are locked.

 

The only mode you can play at the beginning is the Arcade mode. Your task here is to clear the board from all the balls and gems above the water level.

 

So you start from the Arcade mode, which is actually weird because the story of the game is revealed in the Adventure mode. So you start solving the puzzle without knowing the story. I guess it is supposed to make you more skilled before the starting the other two modes. You get a board filled with balls of different colors, gems and caged balls. A few lines from the bottom are under water but they are still active. Once in a while a new line of balls is being added at the bottom. Your task is to free the board from all the balls and gems above the water level. Once it's done the level is completed and you get a piece of a medallion.

 

The Adventure mode requires you to clear all the balls and gems from the board and save the temple, and in the Survival mode you are to play for as long as you can.

 

As you get through the first five levels of the Arcade mode, you are informed that the Adventure Mode is unlocked. In this mode you are told the story and the reasons for your adventure. There's no water in this mode.

 

You just have to clear all the balls from the board and save the temple.

 

And if you want to try playing for as long as you can then you should play the Survival mode, which gets unlocked after the 7^th level of the 2^nd world in the Arcade mode. You can also choose the level of difficulty in every mode: Casual or Expert.

 

What makes Zen Gems quite unique is the number of power-ups and the gems that you need to break.

 

The game is full of power-ups that are represented by different types of balls. The Color Burst Balls can make several balls the same color as the power-up ball. The Energy Ball destroys all the balls of the same color in one row. The Fire Ball makes two adjacent balls to the one you shoot at disappear. There are also balls with arrows that will shift the adjacent ball two the left or right. You get lots of them while playing, and it's fun. Then there are also the gems that get broken by falling. So it takes a bit of a strategy sometimes to make them fall and break. Blocks and caged balls are other obstacles on your way to the victory.

 

As to the graphics of the game, they are way beautiful. Zen Gems is one of those games that meet nearly every requirement for a good match-three game.

 

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