Pretty Girls Pop Match (Nintendo Switch) Review

Pretty Girls Pop Match is exactly what you expect a Match-3 title to be. Line up three or more gems of the same colour, poof goes the line, rinse repeat. What changes the whole thing a bit is that combos rank up score points, but most importantly create helpful items that can be used to, say, destroy a whole line of gems, blow up what's nearby, and more. This tries to add a little bit of light (very light in fact) RPG mechanics as well, by offering three characters to play with, representing the mage-warrior-rogue archetypes.

Each of the three girls (because of course they are girls) is tied to one of the previously mentioned items, and thus enhances its power. As an example, the witch enhances the bomb and creates a bigger 'boom!' The reason why you create combos to "spawn" helper items, and the reason why there are classes that enhance said items is that the whole thing is a series of missions. Each of the 100 ones available requires something particular like "Score 10.000 Points" or "Destroy 20 Green Gems," and so on, and many of those levels, especially as one gets closer to stage 50 or so, are easier with the use of a particular item over the other ones.

While the choice between character 'A,' 'B' or 'C' is indeed a tactical one, it doesn't make the experience any better. As it happens many times in the industry, once again an RPG system was shoehorned in, for no particular reason. There's also little to do here besides completing the 100 missions, which means that you'll need about three evenings to reach the end. Occasionally you can get stuck. Then you either have to try a different tactic, or spend some gems to upgrade the aforementioned items, which, again, is a simple three tier system, and nothing more than that.

After completing the "main" game, there's a Time Attack or what's-its-called mode, which gives about three minutes to try and reach the highest score possible… and doesn't record it or provides any sort of reward. Speaking of rewards, one of the main "things" of the Pretty Girls series is the fun of unlocking more of them… well, Pretty Girls or at least additional costumes. You can forget about that aspect here. In terms of content, Pretty Girls Pop Match is so poor it hurts.