Farm Heroes Saga app game review – a fun harvest of the old, safe formula

Farm Heroes Saga’s goal is to stop Rancid the Racoon from stealing the cropsies by switching, matching, and collecting three or more of them. Along the way, you’ll have to think about your moves wisely to reach the next level and higher scores. The app promises exciting adventures with its various game modes and puzzles. For instance, you can leverage the Hero Mode when in possession of spare moves, allowing you to gain additional points and make the game smoother.

Farm Heroes Saga has single-player and multiplayer options, allowing you to choose which one floats your boat better. Anyhow, the puzzler structure includes an array of adorable cropsies, magic beans that unlock Farm Club, rechargeable boosters, and leaderboards.

If you played any King game, then you’re probably aware of their ability to develop addictive apps that keep players coming back. These are the games one can play regardless of their age due to relatively simple gameplay and mechanisms. Yet, despite being easy to understand and without much depth, they are typically challenging. At the same time, they are also relaxing, which is what attracts many players to install them.

Those that loved Candy Crush probably expect to get the same addictive simplicity. Or, perhaps, they gave Farm Heroes Saga a chance to check the similarities. Nevertheless, the game received moderate critics with a Metascore of 70 and a User Score of 1.4. However, Google PlayStore reviews are more generous, with an average of 4.6.

If you wonder whether Farm Heroes Saga is worth your time, we played the game on the iPhone for you. Here are our insights.

Good, but not as good as Candy Crush Saga

Farm Heroes Saga follows the same structure as most King’s games, but it doesn’t surpass them. Even though it has aspects that make it better than other apps, others feel a bit mediocre. The players have to get to the next level by matching relevant fruits and veggies and sometimes animals. As previously mentioned, the game uses the match-3 principle, expecting you to move pieces as you please, trying to match three or more identical cropsies.

The game doesn’t introduce anything we haven’t already seen, but that’s probably the point. The devs put a bet on a safe formula, implementing minimal tweaks and novelty. Thus, like in previous releases, matching four or five identical pieces simultaneously (horizontal or vertical) will result in extra rewards. Yet, don’t expect unique pieces that you probably received in similar puzzlers.

The challenge starts smoothly, preparing you for the more exciting stages. For example, you might have to match five green apples and ten smiling carrots. Although that may appear too easy, it is a warm-up only because, with time, the game gets more demanding, but the results are also more gratifying.

The tasks typically demand harvesting a particular quota of different pieces, but some challenging boss stages allow you to devastate the enemy by lining up a given kind of piece. In case you complete the quota while saving extra moves, you will unlock the Hero Mode. Then you can use the remaining ones with unique pieces that will help you increase your score.

If you manage to boost your ranking with the Hero Mode and reward your cropsies with additional points, that could be crucial later when the quota becomes more staggering. That also subtly announces the part where Farm Heroes Saga manages to outshine its predecessors: extra-value matches.

Making a match gives the adjacent sections an additional point for a short time, making it easier to reach the quota. Moreover, some specific line-ups could end up rewarding more pieces with gift points.

Typically, King starts its games slowly, but the pace speeds-up, and sooner than you noticed, the quotas became high, challenging you to make the most use of your bonus points. Build your strategy early on and find the best way to leverage them. Otherwise, you could fail quickly. That genuinely makes Farm Heroes Saga much better than it would be without this option, and it brings it closer to Candy Crush.

Reaching higher stages means new difficulties and pieces that require you to match particular boxes in more challenging directions. Also, expect that the board visuals will change as you progress through the game, both in size and shape.

Farm Heroes Saga increases innovation by introducing boss stages. Yet, there’s not much that makes them different from other levels. The goal is to eliminate the hungry raccoon by reducing his health percentage and bring it to zero by harvesting particular cropsies. As a freemium game, you can purchase boosters, but don’t expect them to be cheap.

The game will let you begin with 50 gold bars, and if you want to go beyond that, you’ll have to pay. Or, if you’re patient enough, you can wait out for the period when the boosters become free. The number of lives also has a limit, and once you use them all, you’ll have to pay, ask Facebook friends for help, or wait for thirty minutes.

A playable and colorful little app

Overall, the Farm Heroes saga is fun and simple yet challenging after your reach level 30. The visuals are colorful and cute, which allows you to make a difference between each piece. Compared to Candy Crash, the audio is not impressive and doesn’t add to a sense of triumph concerning particular matches.

Ultimately, the game is highly playable, and it provides a balance between entertainment, challenges, and novel tweaks.