Good, but Greedy – Amazing Candy Shift HD Review

I was looking for a game similar to Candy Crush that wouldn't make me beg to my friends on Facebook. This game is an exact clone of CC, with a few aesthetic changes to make it not an outright ripoff. The creepy candy man is replaced with an oddly tan woman with a thick Chinese accent, and the little girl is a boy. But otherwise it's the same game. With, of course, the bonus that no one will ask you to beg for tickets. It doesn't work with Facebook. But it is basically CC all the same. Power ups and extra features are pricey. So much so that you could easily spend hundreds of dollars if you're not careful. I might pay $1 or 2 for an upgrade, but not $35! And the game cheats you in little ways too, to (I guess) try to grab more cash. You get a new life every 25 minutes, but sometimes I will play before a 6 hour work shift and come back after to find I've been given 1 or 0 lives. Sometimes I'll start the game up after an hour or two of setting it aside and the countdown clock will so conveniently show that I "just" got a life and it's counting down to the next. If you're going to have a countdown, I expect it to be accurate. After six hours I should have all five lives. Not one or two or zero. Then there are glitches. Sometimes in ice levels the ice will remain empty until you blast it with a striped candy or a similar piece. If this glitch occurs, it can ruin your game. And since (as I mentioned) 25 minutes doesn't really mean 25 minutes, it can be ages before you get to try again. Plus, it will use one of your lives to play a new level. That's right--beat level 56 with 3 lives intact and you'll find on level 57 that you only have 2 left. I'm unaware of any other game that operates this way. Clearing a level and moving on to the next should not cost lives. The only time this doesn't happen is when I have no lives left. Get rid of the expensive in-app purchases. Make the timer more reasonable. Fix the glitches, and this could be a really good game. Allow players to earn candies or coins through play, not cash. Because I can't be the only one who didn't just fall off the turnip truck. If a level becomes so impossible that one needs power ups to finish it? I'll just stop playing and go back to Boggle.
Review by Catapostrophe on Amazing Candy Shift HD.