Puzzle games that rely on matching falling items have been popular for decades. The undeniable king is Tetris, but other similar games like Dr. Mario and Columns put their own spin on the idea. Most recently, Raining Blobs tries its hand at making an addictive puzzle game with strong single and multiplayer aspects. While you are matching like-colored blobs, it’s the stars within them that must also be matched to earn maximum points. Raining Blobs is ambitious and creative, but how does it stack up against the genre heavyweights?

 

Concept:

Much to my surprise, there was some light story elements in Raining Blobs, mostly found in the tournament mode. Our story involves a group of 8 girlfriends who out of the blue start fighting each other. The only way to settle their differences is to puzzle fight each other. Doing so will unlock all the stories, and you can play on easy, normal or hard. Sadly, easy will not give you the full story, which is somewhat disappointing for less skilled players like myself

 

Gameplay:

No matter which mode you are playing, the core gameplay remains the same. A pair of blobs will slowly descend, and you must position them with similar colors to find the best placement. You can rotate them and if you leave one blob hanging, it will fall down and hopefully continue a chain elsewhere. These blob formations continue to grow bigger until you also match them with a pair of similar stars. For example, you can have a large formation of blobs with only 1 white star, it will only burst when you add a second white star to the group. Any other colors on top of the formation will shift down and with careful planning you can create a chain reaction of blob bursts for maximum points. Like similar games, if your screen fills up with blobs it is game over.

 

There are four game modes in Raining Blobs: arcade, tournament, endless and puzzle. We mentioned tournament earlier, where you choose a character and defeat your friends one-on-one. Arcade mode is the basic player versus CPU or player versus player. Up to 8 players can play at a time, which is an impressive number, and you can also team up and take on the CPU together. Endless mode is a player versus CPU mode that challenges you to last as long as possible. Lastly, puzzle mode gives you one block that can clear an entire puzzle and you must place it in the right spot. You go through 100 puzzles and try to clear as many as you can. Certain modes allow you to adjust the variants and tweak the game to your liking, but sadly they disable achievements. Overall the 4 gameplay modes are solid and enjoyable, the difficulty and variant options only help maximize replay value.

 

Presentation:

Raining Blobs has a very traditional anime style with its characters. They are all female, have large eyes, bright hair and extravagant outfits. Despite being slightly generic, the characters fit in the game well. There is always plenty of colors on screen thanks to the bright blobs and the changing backgrounds. Characters and icons on screen have a retro pixel style that looks good and makes for a charming art style. The music is catchy and upbeat. overall the game gives off a relaxing vibe. Switching between modes and navigating the menus is quick and easy without any loading times. There is a leaderboard menu for showing high scores in every game mode and difficulty in addition to a stats section and art gallery.

 

Final Thoughts:

Fans of the puzzle genre will find plenty of good content in Raining Blobs to justify the $9.99 USD price point. Its filled with a handful of quality modes that can be tweaked to your preference based on difficulty and other variants. While there is much to like about Raining Blobs, I just couldn’t get into the star matching gameplay like I do other similar games. The fact that achievements were disabled for playing on easy meant I was forced to play on normal and usually got my butt kicked. I think that Raining Blobs is a great pickup for fans of these types of games, but the more casual player should look elsewhere.

 

Rating: 7.5/10

 

Written by: Jordan650

Gamertag: Jordan650

 

Positives:

+ Quality gameplay modes and support for 8 players locally

+ Unique spin on the matching puzzle genre

+ Affordable price and high replay value

 

Negatives:

-Achievements disabled on easy

-Dramatic spikes in difficulty

-Lack of online play

 

Ethics Statement:

The reviewer spent approximately 5 hours grouping, globing and popping blobs across the 4 different game modes. Sadly only earning 1 of the 38 brutally difficult achievements.

 

A code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review

 

You can purchase Raining Blobs on the Xbox Store Here

 

Release Date - Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Price - $9.99

Download size - 155.49 MB

 

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