Game: Solitaire Quest: Love Blossoms
Genre: Solitaire, Card Game
System: Steam (Windows)
Developers | Publishers: Playzzy Games
Controller Support: None
Price: US $7.99 | UK £5.99 | EU € 7,59
Release Date: August 26th, 2024
A review code was used, and many thanks to Playzzy Games.
Solitaire Quest: Love Blossoms is a card game that feels similar to many mobile Solitaire games in the same genre. You need to select cards that are one away from the card on top of your pile while getting around obstacles and solving problems. In the background, there is also a love story.
The Gameplay and Story of Solitaire Quest: Love Blossoms
At the beginning of the game, you start by flying to a tropical island to help your aunt open her flower shop. You begin to meet her friends and form friendships of your own while completing Solitaire-like puzzles, decorating the store, and enjoying some sunshine while you’re at it.
With each completed level, you get more flowers, which are the currency for the items to decorate the store. You also earn coins, which can be used to buy extra cards and powers to help you get through future levels. There are only a handful of these powers, but they are all useful in their own way, including Wild cards and Jokers (which basically do the same thing), things that allow you to shuffle some things around or remove a card.
There are a grand total of 200 levels, and you get progressively more and more complex things to interact with at every level. By the end, you’ll have on-fire cards to put out with water, cards that change, cards you have to match to get rid of, clippers to cut up vines, axes to cut roots, hammers for chains… It gets a little wild.
There are also hidden gnomes in most of the levels that you collect just to collect; they don’t do much of anything except give you an achievement if you get enough. All the gnomes are identical, which was a little disappointing.
It’s Exactly Like the Mobile Games Minus One Thing
If you have ever played any of the big Solitaire-like games on mobile, you’ll already basically know how to play this one. The only difference between Solitaire Quest: Love Blossoms and those others is the lack of microtransactions that are rampant in mobile games. You don’t have to pay to unlock stuff, but that also severely limits the number of helpful items you can buy.
To help mitigate this, you will have these little side quest types of things where you have to complete hidden object puzzles. I think Solitaire Quest: Love Blossoms could have done with a lot more of these; they were a fun change of pace with fairly good art. Some of them were pretty difficult; there were a couple where you had to find the object based on its outline, and some of the outlines were just like a circle or a square.
I’m super glad the developers didn’t put microtransactions in the game, but some kind of other way to earn coins would have been welcome.
Some Other Observations I Had About Solitaire Quest: Love Blossoms
Overall, Solitaire Quest: Love Blossoms is pretty. There is a cute story running in the background, and there are some difficult puzzles. If you like the mobile versions of these types of games, you’ll probably also love Solitaire Quest: Love Blossoms. However, I had some issues with it.
This chaotic puzzle game has a rather repetitive and annoying soundtrack that I turned off in the first few minutes. I didn’t mind the actual game sounds; there was one sound that was weirdly similar to a sound in Breath of the Wild that made me want to go replay both of those games again, but the sound design overall was fine, minus the music.
The backgrounds are fine, and it’s always nice to see a game that doesn’t use AI to create the art. It gives Solitaire Quest: Love Blossoms a beachy, tropical vibe that fits well with the game’s untimed, relaxed playstyle.
Overall, the story is sort of generic and boring, but I have a feeling that’s not what most people are playing this for. It’s just walls of text that I mostly just browsed then skipped over; it would have been much more appealing if there had been some back-and-forth instead of the characters showing up and monologuing at me. There was a lot of potential to do something interesting, such as adding visual novel elements to make the love story more interesting.
I Don’t Think I Like the Gameplay
As someone who really loves Solitaire, I strongly dislike these kinds of games. They give you a stack of cards, and then you have to pick cards to match up from the board. So if you draw a seven, you can only play a six or a five on it. If you are lucky, you might be able to play more than one or two cards. However, since the cards you are drawing seem completely random, there is no check in place to make sure you are drawing the same card three times in a row.
I can’t tell you the number of times I picked up, say, a three, had nothing to play on it, then drew a card, and it was another three. Then I would draw a card again, and it would be something else I couldn’t play on. I am not convinced that there is no solution to this in the code; there should be a way to keep from drawing the card you just played on the stack.
The gimmicks in the levels were fine until they started being stacked on top of one another so much that it was difficult to get through them. It’s like I would have a vine card that covered up the water I needed for an on-fire card, which was covered by three cards that keep changing, which is covered by an ice-blocked card and a locked card that needs a key. It was okay, but again, I don’t find these types of games appealing to begin with.
Conclusion
It’s hard for me to formulate a real opinion on this game. It was okay; I didn’t find the gameplay interesting or different from a million similar games. The love story felt tacked on instead of integrated; I didn’t really get to know the characters or care about what they had to say.
I did like some of the art and that I got to decorate the store, but the actual gameplay of the Solitaire stuff in Solitaire Quest: Love Blossoms wasn’t the best. With repetitive music and a lack of coins, I’m not even sure this is a good Solitaire-like game. Overall, I just don’t know how to rate it.
Final Verdict: I’m Not Sure.
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