Safari City Review - A fairly typical match-3 game that stands out

While there are many things that are hard to do well, there are also things that are hard to do badly. For instance, while it can be done (trust me, I know), you've have to work hard to make a bad hamburger.

Apparently, match-3 puzzle games are the same. Having played dozens over the last couple years, I can't think of any that were truly terrible. Or, if they were, it was because of something unrelated to gameplay, and was instead about being too aggressive with the ads or microtransactions.

Thankfully, there's none of that nonsense in Safari City (iOS, Android), a free-to-play match-3 puzzle game made by Nigeria's Maliyo Games. Though we will be having a talk with their art department...

Gameplay and Visuals

For those unfamiliar with match-3 games, the idea is simple, but addictive. You're given a board filled with items that are of different colors and shapes. In Safari City, for instance, they're fruits: yellow bananas, blue blueberries, and purple ube pear (or African Butter pear).

The idea is that you have to move one so that three or more are lined up or grouped together. Doing this removes all the matched items from the board, and you closer to your goal, which could be to remove 25 blueberries or clear grass off the board so you can find some hidden wrenches. All of which must be done before you run out of turns.

As with other match-3 puzzle games, Safari City has all the usual rules. Matching four in a line gives you a rocket that takes out an entire row or column, while getting four into a square pattern gives you the opportunity to take out two random items on the board. Though what's weird is that the random destruction device in Safari City is a faulty blender that shoots its blades across the board. 

Things get even less safe when you combine these boosters. Move the generator (which sends out random blasts of fruit-destroying electricity) onto a bomb (which explodes, destroying all nearby fruits), and you'll send out random blasts of electric that deposit bombs randomly around the board. You can also set off some boosters by, say, exploding a bomb next to them, which can result is some helpful chain reactions.

What sets Safari City apart, somewhat, is your ultimate objective. In such match-3 games as Candy Crush Saga, clearing the board is its own reward. In others, such as Game Of Thrones: Legends, you're engaged in combat, and every time you line up three or more items, you unleash a corresponding attack.

Safari City, however, is more like Homescapes in that your ultimate goal is to renovate some rundown homes. When you complete a round, you earn coins, which you then use to, say, pay a carpenter to fix up the roof, or a painter to paint the fence. There are even times when you can listen to your painter or carpenter tell a story about how they got into this line of work.

You even get to decide the color and styles of certain home improvement projects, such as the roof or the grounds. Though like in other mobile games of this kind, your options are limited. This isn't Sim City or Civilization. Typically, you're given three options to choose from, and there will be times when none will be especially appealing, especially if you're picky.

Safari City also has many of the same economic policies as other free-to-play games. If you run out of turns before finishing a level, you can chose to give up a life, spend money for more turns, or watch a video ad. You can also buy more lives from the in-game store or just skip the middleman and buy coins outright.

Now, as I mentioned, this is often where match-3 games go awry. Though I'm happy to say that Safari City isn't one of them. They don't, for example, show ads between matches.

At least I don't think so...

Issues and Irritations

One of the few issues I ran into when playing Safari City was that some online functions didn't always work. I usually wasn't allowed to watch ads when I failed and wanted 5 more lives, the store was empty, and the leaderboards didn't work. 

Now, admittedly, this may be because I live in the United States, and those functions just don't work here. But that's not really an excuse given that I got this game from the Apple Store on my iPad, not the dark web or through some VPN.

That said, Safari City isn't otherwise as aggressive with the ads as other free-to-play games, match-3 or otherwise. You're never, for instance, forced to watch an ad before playing a match or using one of your lives.

I also have an issue I'd like to discuss with Maliyo Games' art department: Hi. Nice to meet you. Please fix the image of the pear in the game. It doesn't look like a pear. It looks like an avocado. Yes, avocados are somewhat pear-shaped, but pears don't have big round seeds in the middle; avocados do.

In fact, the only real issue is the uneven difficulty. Most match-3 games get more difficult as you proceed and do so slowly. While Safari City does as well, there are times when the difficulty spikes a bit more than veteran match-3 players might expect.

Verdict

In the end, Safari City is a pretty typical free-to-play match-3 game, both in how you play and how much fun it is to do so. Sure, I could do without the stories, the weird-looking pears, the missing online functions, and the uneven difficulty, but these are minor issues in a game that's otherwise rather engaging.