Yosumin

I bought Yosumin because I was looking for a new puzzle game in the same vein as all those Match-3 games. (That is, you've got a screen full of gems or ice-cream or whatever and you have to line up three in a row of the same colour to get them to disappear). The reason I settled on this one was because it's made by Square-Enix, famous for Final Fantasy and other great RPGs and I was wondering what their take on a puzzle game would be.

Turns out, not really any different than anyone else's puzzle games. In Yosumin, instead of trying to match 3 of the same, you have to match 4, but not in a row, they just have to form the corners of a rectangle. Yes, it's a game about forming rectangles. Sounds boring as hell, but it works alright, mostly. Each level you're given different goals like make 4 small rectangles, or 2 of each colour, or whatever, so there's a bit of variety.

There are a couple of gameplay mechanics that I think just don't work in this game's favour. One is that as you progress through the game you unlock more coloured blocks, so there are less and less possibly rectangles to form. I get that games have to get harder as you go along, but you'll feel less like you're solving puzzles then being at the mercy of whatever random blocks fall your way. Many times there'll be just the one rectangle possible and you'll be scrambling to find it until the game gives up and gives you a hint. The reason you'll be scrambling is the second problem, each level is timed, and if you don't make it in time, it's game over. Not only that, but as your timer runs low, they give you that panic-inducing sped up music to really help stress you out.

So I found that the further into the game I got, the less fun I was having. Maybe I'm just biased against puzzle games with a timer. I don't like having to think fast. I kept playing anyway for quite a while just because as you play you unlock pieces of a stained glass window and I really wanted to complete it. But in the end it wasn't enough to combat the stress it was causing me.

So I don't recommend this game. It's not the worst puzzle game, but it's not particularly clever or unique either, and those flaws I mentioned are enough of a turn off. 2/5 stars. Buy it only if you're a super fan of rectangles.