Jewel Thieves: Knight's Armor Review

Jewel Thieves: Knight's Armor is the ideal example of a truly middle of the road Match Three puzzle game. It's quite entertaining to play, but put it aside for a time and one will easily forget its existence. It's just not distinctive enough to truly stand out, despite covering all the basics adequately.

Three different ways of playing are available, with a relaxing Zen mode, the fast-paced Blitz style Lightning mode, and the meat of the game: Adventure mode. The latter is where most players will be spending their time, working their way through 90 levels of rather similar action.

That action is quite fun, but doesn't really evolve. Players must drag their fingers across adjoining colored gems in order to match them together. Proximity is the key here and at times, it feels like Jewel Thieves: Knight's Armor moves the goalposts in terms of what's near or not. For the most part though, it's simple fun. Reach the desired number of gems cleared, and it's onto the next level, with up to three shields given depending on the player's performance. These shields then go towards unlocking new sections of the game but, besides a few minor additions, it's similar stuff.

Power-ups are available to buy throughout, which is also how in-app purchases are introduced to the game. These clear many gems in numerous different ways, frequently medieval themed, such as unleashing archers upon the gems. It's quite easy to collect enough virtual money to ensure there's rarely a need to pay out real money to aid progression, fortunately. To potentially slow down players, keys are used to unlock new levels, with the item replenishing after a certain time. Again, they're reasonably generously dealt with.

Excluding a few random crashes, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with Jewel Thieves: Knight's Armor, it's just not exactly exciting either. It's the kind of game that will prove briefly distracting for a little while, but there's no real "grab" factor that keeps one wanting to return for more. It helps that it's free so nothing is lost through checking it out, but don't expect to be wowed by any means. This is fairly standard Match Three gaming, nothing more.