Game Reviews, Puzzle Game Reviews > Rainforest Cascade Review by Meryl

Rainforest Cascade Review by Meryl

Rainforest Cascade joins the match three genre with a South American rainforest as the setting. Players must match at least three items in a row. Rainforest-themed critters and objects such as frogs, statues, butterflies, stones, gorillas, and leaves appear on board for the matching. Successful matches turn tiles into gold. The goal for each level is to completely cover the board in gold.

Along the way, players earn suns for using when they get stuck. Put a sun on a tile to turn it to gold. Every few levels, players get a bonus round with a 6 by 6 grid where they select five tiles in hopes of earning points or more suns. Sometimes a “extra click” shows and players get another click. I didn’t care about a high score and just wanted to find the suns so I could have them for trickier levels.

The game adds challenges and power ups as players advance. The first challenge comes when a vine covers a character preventing its mobility. You can’t move a tile tied down with the vine. Instead, you must create a match around the locked tile. One vine isn’t so bad as later you encounter two vines. This means making two matches to ride the tile of the vines. But the tile won’t turn to gold until you make one more match.

Cobwebs start appearing and these tiles won’t disappear until you make a match next to them. I’m most afraid of spiders, but these cobwebs didn’t bother me. Once you create a match near a cobweb, a character appears in place of the cobwebs. As you conquer the easier levels, the game will require you to make multiple matches for single tiles before it turns gold. For example, a tile could have four quadrants indicating you need to make four matches before the tile turns to gold. Each quadrant changes to gold after a match.

The eight power ups help you through rough spots. The game tells you about each one as you encounter them the first time. The first one you meet is the dragonfly, which flies in a pattern turning your tiles into gold. A power up resembling lightning clears a row or column for you. Other power ups stop the clock for a few seconds, clear random tiles,

Panic mode sets in when it starts snowing on the screen. That warns you that time is almost out. A timer appears at the bottom of the game to let you know how much time you have left before the game ends. When the timer comes close to exploding, the characters start shivering like the snow is too much for them. Instead of shivering, I get stiff as my eyes dart around trying to finish the matches or find the non-golden tiles for placing suns.

In between levels, you see a map with a frog making its way from one end of the map to another. This map piques your curiosity, but nothing came of it. You reached the end of the map and the game congratulates you. The frog goes back to the beginning, but your level doesn’t start over at one. The game could’ve stood out had the map had more meaning or a story behind it.

The colors, the scenery and the images in Rainforest Cascade look lovely and the dash of South American background music complements the ambiance. Though the game introduces nothing new, it easily engrosses and entertains as I stayed up past my bedtime a few times because I had to keep playing.

We give Rainforest Cascade a 3.5/5 diamond rating

Diamond! Half Diamond! No Diamond!