Mia’s Picnic (PS4)

Thank you Nellyvision Ltd for sending us a review code!

Mia lives in a wildlife sanctuary with her parents. As she was talking to one of her pandas, Rum, she thought it would be a good idea to have a picnic. Mia will need your help to gather the fruit and mix together the smoothies for the event. Although this looks like a simple match 3 title, there are some tricky mechanics to make this game deceptively challenging!

Mia’s Picnic has over one hundred levels split across four chapters. As you complete a chapter, helpful items and outfits will become available for purchase. New game mechanics will be introduced as well to keep the gameplay challenging and interesting.

Each level requires you to collect various fruit items in a limited amount of time. The minimum to collect is three, but you’re encouraged to collect as much as possible in a continuous chain. Unneeded items can be double tapped to be discarded. All of the items required must be collected in time to progress to the next level. I like how this game lets you know the percentage completed and lets you resume where you left off.

You’ll earn coins for completing levels and will be awarded bonuses for unused time. With these coins you can buy handy items like a clock that gives you more time or a basket to allow a mismatch in your collection efforts. The ladder adds an additional item to each of your collections. There are also many themed outfits that Mia can dress up in.

Some of the recipe themed levels focus on collecting items in a specific order. There are usually multiple stringed items to collect and doing so within the time limit is extremely challenging (and frustrating!). Imagine trying to collect seven sets of pineapple, orange, and strawberry, followed by another pineapple along with an equal amount of pineapple, orange, pineapple, oranges in forty-five seconds. The extra time and item forgiveness trinkets come in handy for these scenarios.

Later on in the game you’ll be dealing with snow that spreads and freezes fruit items. Of course you’ll have to collect frozen and non-frozen ones in a limited amount of time. The same goes for rotten fruits too. I like how nothing goes to waste and even the spoiled fruit is put to good use.

Graphically, this game is very colorful and the non-spoiled fruit looks appetizing. I liked the textured art style. I’m sure young children will enjoy dressing up Mia into various pirate, astronaut, and explorer themed outfits.

The background music is decent and the sound effects get the job done. Nothing to write home about, but not horrible either.

There’s little to complain about morally other than some alcohol references.

If you’re looking for a relaxing game, you’ll want to continue your search. Mia’s Picnic takes the match 3 genre and kicks it up a notch. I’m not necessarily a fan, but I do appreciate its charm.