Gem Legends Reviews

fun

Gem Legends is a FREE mobile app that's been dumped on Steam as a paid product, as if it was a real PC game (it's not)... it's a cash grab from greedy mobile devs, 8Floor... Who are more famous from dumping asset flips... they've dumped over 70 copies of the exact same jigsaw game onto Steam, all with a bunch of stock art they stole off the internet. But today we see these serial asset flippers and Steam polluters doing something new... polluting Steam again. But this time with a Match-3. That's right, Gem Legends is yet another of literally hundreds of mobile app Match-3/Bejewelled/Candy Crush ripoff games infesting Steam and lowering the average quality of all video games everywhere. This mobile app match-3 game, invariably a copy + paste of dozens of other match-3 games infesting Steam from the same template, has a generic, mildly eastern theme... and that's the only differentiator it has... none, basically. It's identical to every other match-3 mobile app shovelware polluting app stores everywhere, except they seriously expect you to pay money for this on Steam, which is a bit of a joke, or an insult, I'm not sure which. From a technical perspective, as a mobile app, this doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. There's no option to change the resolution and no useful graphics tweaks. There's no way to ensure this is running at the native resolution of your display. There's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision. The controls can't be customised because the game has such a dumbed down, simplified interface that it's just iPhone screen tapping stuff. The fact that the interface is this dumbed down might be seen as a problem in itself, however... this is a fairly shallow experience if you're the kind of gamer that likes to play games with deep, rich control schemes and interaction. You'll get none of that here. Because this is a mobile app, it carries a number of deliberate design deficiencies. Compromises were made to cater to the iPhones that the mobile app was designed for. These are unfortunate handicaps and limitations that PC gamers shouldn't be forced to accept, but it's evident that PC was an afterthought for the iPhone developers who are to blame for this. The mobile app is deficient as a result of these choices, and would have been so much better without the handicaps that designing games for mobile phones forces upon a game. Once more, mobile devs have made gaming worse for everyone. I didn't spend thousands on building a gaming rig just so I could pretend it's an iPhone. These technical defects push this mobile app below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. The poor quality of this mobile app is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 5 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 100,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality mobile app is to be expected. So, should you buy this mobile app? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ games on Steam? Once more we see greedy mobile devs trying to scam PC gamers. On Steam, this is $5 USD, on app stores, it's free. Mobile devs must learn PC gamers are not here to be gouged, and can't be expected to pay FIVE BUCKS FOR A FREE MOBILE APP just because it's been lazily dumped on Steam. This is unacceptable disrespect for PC gamers. Because this can be played free elsewhere, and because of the other defects, it's impossible to recommend. Who do they think we are?

Simple and fun game, well worth the price and time to play. I'd love to see this same game with non-cartoon-like graphics and a larger grid to play in ♥ ♥ ♥

I was in a “match 3” mood and so tired of microtransaction games on the mobile phone. Pay once, enjoy as often as you like! Not the kind of “match 3” I typically like - you can’t move pieces to make matches, only eliminate those that happen to match. Only played up to level 30 so far. Fun gimmicks keep it interesting, although some levels are not balanced in difficulty (due to limited moves and RNG-dependency). Not bad. I’ll keep it installed and play on it when I don’t have time to get deep in other games.

[b]gem legend[/b] is an incredibly lazy mobile port of a match-3 game, with most of the mobile shenanigans still in place. the only things missing are lives to lose after a failed level, waiting 24 hours to get them back, real money microtransactions, and facebook integration to ask friends for money, which is still present in the text files but was disabled in this version. [b]120 cluster-based levels[/b], so clicking areas with 2 or more of the same color will make them disappear. matching 5 or more creates power-ups, which can only be triggered next to chips of the same color. you can [b]keep matching while disappearing animations are playing[/b], one of the very few positives about the game. [b]no difficulty settings, most levels have a turn limit, others a timer.[/b] level goals include reaching a score, removing tiles or breakable stones, taking things to the bottom of the level, the usual stuff, and up to 3 stars and some coins (or whatever they are) are awarded for completion. a single unit of currency for every 1000 points, which in itself doesn't say much, but you'll only get maybe a few dozen per level, and when you fail one, [b]+15 seconds cost 4 (four) coins, fair enough, but +5 moves is 250[/b]. or you can keep trying and trying again until you luck into a solution without spending anything. currency can also be used to buy more stars, as every now and then there's a requirement to progress further, like have 40 by level 20. purchasable single-use power-ups enter the picture after a few levels as well. eventually you'll be able to buy up to 3 before the level starts, the rest while playing, but they're pretty expensive. and of course you're forced to try every new one, wasting precious coins. the graphics are as expected, nice and colorful, and there's a slightly smaller non-resizable windowed mode. the audio is fine, though the music is repetitive, and [b]volume settings keep resetting[/b] between the map and the levels. [b]cutscenes are in portrait mode[/b], leaving 2/3 of the screen black on both sides, and the how to play section and tutorials are [b]full of tapping instead of clicking[/b]. the level complete screen can be clicked away, but not the end-of-level celebration with explosions and using up remaining moves, and there's [b]no retry or restart button[/b] (only if you fail, and it only comes up after multiple messages telling you so). have to wait for the next level to slowly unlock on the map before the game lets you do anything, and since it automatically moves on to the next stage, for a replay you have to close that window, select the previous level and click play. really convenient. [b]the whole thing is really unresponsive, sluggish and unbalanced[/b], exactly like every 'free' match-3 game on mobile, except they're asking money for this one. avoid at all costs, even for free.