So I’ve found a new game on the iPhone I’ve become addicted to. It combines the match-3 puzzle standard, a storyline and plot, additional powerups (recipes), various game modes (Adventure, Quick Play, Challenge), and it’s all packed in a cute little anime-style package.
You play as Master Chef, and he must travel across various islands in his journey to cook the freshest sushi, while encountering people along the way. However, these people have ‘inner demons’ and Master Chef must battle them in a sushi battle! You then are in a battle with these demons, and you must match-3 sushi pieces in the puzzle while also bringing down the opponent’s HP by matching 3 or more wasabi pieces.
You select pieces of sushi and slide your finger across the screen to move a piece to another end of the board, which will cause the pieces to slide and you’ll match pieces together. If there is no move available for that direction, you’ll get a message saying ‘Illegal move!’ but you won’t be penalized in any way. There is also no time limit, which is great, and you can take your time in the game.
As you play, you will gain experience if you win the battles. You’ll level up after reaching a certain amount of experience, and your HP will get raised and the damage you do with wasabi will become more powerful. You can increase the amount of experience you’ll gain at the end of the battle by matching 3+ of the puffer fish and increase the amount of money you get by matching 3+ of the blue fish.
As you progress through the game, you’ll eventually come across recipes which are certain combinations of sushi that will have powerful rewards when you use them in battle. These rewards range from healing yourself or doing massive damage to the opponent. You must learn the recipes first, which will be presented in a puzzle of matching 3 sushi in a limited amount of moves.
A great twist with the game that doesn’t usually appear in a lot of other puzzle games is that when there are no more moves available, the stones that are on the board crack open to reveal more sushi, fish, and wasabi; this opens up a lot of possibility to make a comeback if you’re falling behind, or even to get pwn’d by the opponent. It’s a fair playing field, after all.
The game contains three modes: Adventure (main storyline), Quick Battle, and Challenge. Adventure is the main core of the game and is where you will probably spend the most time, unless you’re like me and abuse Quick Play to level up. Quick Play lets you battle past opponents that you have already beat, but you still gain experience and can level up. This is the mode where you literally can ‘grind’ (if you’ve played MMORPG games like WoW, you know what I’m talking about). Challenge is the mode to match items in a limited amount of moves.
Chop Sushi is a great puzzle game that adds a fresh new twist to the standard match-3 genre. If you’re unsure of how you’ll like the game, you can try out the free Lite version, or buy the full version in the iTunes App Store for $2.99.
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