Thank you Denda Games for sending us a review code!

While I haven’t played the first Match Three Pirates game, I’m very familiar with match three puzzle games. As the titles suggest, you have to drag adjacent identical items to make matches of three (or more) to clear them out.

Upon launching the game you are prompted to choose a difficulty level. At the relaxed difficulty, there are no move limits or pests to worry about. The normal (and recommended) difficulty has pests but no move limits. The hard difficulty has active pests, skulls, and a limited number of moves.

The story goes as follows: Bobby the pirate and his mom rescued some pirates from Davy Jones' locker and now they’re looking for a way to entertain them. What better way to utilize a desert island than build an amusement park on it?

You’ll have to get all of the essentials in place to make sure that both the adults and children have a fun time. You’ll have to start with the basics like a gate, ticket booth, medical station etc. before you can build all of the exciting attractions. Along with having enough money, you’ll also need to make sure that the prerequisite structures are in place as well. Some of the attractions unlock boosters to make completing the levels easier (at a cost).

Money is earned by completing the levels of which there are over one hundred of them. If you have boosters unlocked they’ll make completing them easier, but you’ll have to spend gold on them. I preferred saving my money for attractions. Depending on how quickly you complete a level, you’ll be awarded a gold, silver, or bronze medal.

Each level has different completion requirements. On some levels, you’ll have to rescue a certain number of pirates or match a set number of objects or clear areas that have map icons by them. Clearing obstacles is always handled by matching objects adjacent to them. If only all of life’s problems could be solved the same way!

The are many obstacles including statues, trapped pirates, items with rope on them, skulls, treasure chests, and more. These obstacles are not movable and you’ll have to work towards making matches near them to clear them out of your way. More often than not, these obstacles are required to be dealt with in order to complete the level.

Sometimes the levels are divided into separate maps with independent objects. Objectives are often on these smaller maps with fewer objects to move. If you run out of moves the game will shuffle the pieces for you, but running out of moves on smaller maps won’t trigger the shuffle mechanic and you’ll have to rely on luck or explosions to open up new opportunities. In some cases, I restarted a level to get a better selection of items to work with.

The visuals are colorful and there’s a decent variety of pirate characters to get to know along the way. A hippy pirate didn’t want to help with the amusement park initially because it would cause too much litter and trees to be cut down. As long as the park is eco-friendly he’ll pitch in. The only moral concern worth noting is that one of the characters is a ghost.

If you enjoy match three games, this one is worth checking out. There’s a good number of puzzles and not forcing a limited number of moves makes this game easier to get through. There’s nothing revolutionary or memorable about this title, but it’s decent. If you like match three or pirate-themed games, look no further than Match Three Pirates II.