Sushi Shuffle

Ah, sushi. The Japanese Marmite. You either love it or you learn to tolerate it, but if you’re in the latter category you’ll still never get it past your teeth without retching.

Fortunately, Sushi Shuffle from Glu isn’t nearly so polarising. If it has a fault, it’s that it’s just a little too middle of the road for anyone to truly get into. It’s definitely not a bad game, of course. Loath as I am to quote the mobile game reviewer’s cliché, what we have here is - yes, you guessed it - a Bejeweled clone.

It makes a very decent effort to individualise itself, however, and not least with its intriguing cross-breeding with time management games such as Diner Dash.

The game sees you, Pocket Gamer reader-san, step into the well-worn sabo of a seasoned sushi chef to serve the hungry masses. These guys love sushi, because it’s so very cultural, and seeing as they pay your wages it’s up to you to keep them full of fish and happy.

In front of the counter where these six moneyed gits sit is a sushi platter, with a six by six grid for different types of dish. As you’d expect with a Bejeweled clone, the only way to serve this tasty fish is in threes, and aligning them accordingly is your honourable duty.

Unlike most match-three games, this is done by vertically rotating the columns. No horizontal movement is allowed, other than fresh sushi swimming in from the side when you clear out a few platefuls.

A column can be rotated any number of squares you like, but will always return to its original position unless a match of three items is made, so you can’t move one column, then jump over to another to create a line of three, for instance.

This is a superb take on the usual ‘swap two icons around’ mechanic, though Sushi Shuffle also falls victim to its own superbly artistic design. Because the grid is quite small (only six by six) it’s very easy to make matches.

And, of course, there are more than a few automatic alignments made as you rotate a column or new sushi is added to the plate, which removes much of the game’s challenge - often enough that you’ll just sit there and watch the sushi serve itself to the customers before the level finishes on its own.

There are two modes of play: Happy and Hungry. Because of the remarkable ease of play and constant stream of combos that arrange themselves on the game board, Happy mode (which requires you to simply keep your punters in good feeding spirit) is more a case of going through the motions without much danger of ever losing.

Hungry mode adds a little extra challenge, as your snotty customers will stomp off if you don’t keep them well fed, and you’re advised to stick to this mode to keep the game interesting and addictive - which it undeniably is, despite the slack difficulty level.

Different types of sushi keep the game motivating by awarding different points, or by their effect on surrounding dishes, or even by going bad from being left on the platter too long and then making your customers sick when they eat the rotten fish.

Fugu is particularly potent in this respect, which is quite amusing considering it’s highly poisonous (if prepared incorrectly) in real life.

Sushi Shuffle doesn’t demolish any gaming boundaries, but it seems quite happy to exist as a good looking, simple match-three variant that doesn’t put any pressure on you to play it.

One final feature gives it a tad more appeal in the shape of Japanese etiquette lessons that are unlocked as the game progresses - a sweet little gift to the sushi aficionados of the mobile world, and in honour of that respectful offering we’ll say domo arigato to Sushi Shuffle-san for an enjoyable light meal.

Sayonara.