Combining match three puzzle gaming with light monster role playing elements is Best Fiends a mobile title where players will utilise their own team of colourful monsters to battle against slugs. Known as Fiends these monsters each come with their own unique skills and colours that allow you to deliver an ideal team for your playstyle preferences. From your starting teams first battle to their last slug foe you’ll also have the opportunity to develop their skills and evolve them into powerful allies on browser, iOS and Android devices.
Set in the cute land of Minutia players will begin their tutorial with Temper, who will teach you the basics of Best Fiends that stay mostly unchanged from start to finish although does scale in challenge. Gameplay consists primarily of a game board filled with different coloured tiles (red, blue, purple, green and yellow). In order to pass each game level of Best Fiends players will have to collect a certain amount of each colour with a limited number of moves or similarly themed goals.
Best Fiends falls under the connector match 3 genre and thus these moves have players swiping their fingers across the screen to connect 3 or more of the same colour tiles together. In addition to meeting the goals for each level players will also encounter slugs that block their path forward that need to be pushed aside before you can continue further.
In order to defeat these slug opponents you’ll need to match the colours that correspond to your team of Fiends which will make them attack that slug accordingly. It’s a similar system to games like Brave Frontier have made popular and is a great balance between easy to learn but still enjoyable time after time. These mechanics also ensure you’ll have a growing sense of challenge throughout the hundreds of varied game level designs.
The depth in Best Fiends doesn’t really start to show itself until about a dozen levels in though where players will be using multiple monsters in their team and balancing several goals at once. This is also when the game starts to throw monster upgrades and all sorts of rewards at you to ensure you stay hooked on perfecting your team. While it can be risky to not have a balanced team from the available colour archetypes certain missions may call for a team setup like this.
Certain levels may also require players to leverage specific special skills that are tied to specific Best Fiends. Gordon the scorpion for example has a horizontal bomb skill while Tantrum the beetle has a vertical bomb that are both effective at clearly a board rapidly despite both being red in colour. Other skills include X bombs, area bombs and converter blocks that each have specific levels that they shine.
Summary:
- Create and evolve a team of uniquely skilled and coloured creatures for battle against slugs.
- Save the land of Minutia from the invading slugs with increasing challenges and puzzles.
- Connect tiles to create matches and utilise specific skills to clear the game board rapidly.
- A large diverse community and regular updates ensure regular game events.
- Thousands of level to conquer each with their own challenging design.
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Review Platform: iOS