by Jon Price

Created on: November 04, 2008   Last Updated: November 12, 2008

"Spooky Spirits" is a game developed by Legendo Entertainment, a Swedish Company that makes games centered around myths, legends and stories. This particular game is an interesting take on the "falling block" and "match-2" types of games like "Tetris" and, to a lesser extent, "Bejeweled".

The story for "Spooky Spirits" centers around the characters of Becky and Tim, a pair of spirit wardens that have been banished to Earth to recapture the spirits they accidentally released from the spirit realm.

The basic gameplay in each Game Mode is basically the same - match corresponding colors of blocks. However, the blocks only clear when a string of colors are matched with a "Ghost" tile of the same color. And the longer the string of tiles is, the more points the player receives. There are various chains and combos you can shoot for, like clearing multiple colors with multiple ghost tiles at once double or triples your score on that chain.

Panic Mode finds your spirit wardens in a mad race to fill the Spirit Meter on the right side of the screen, by matching enough tiles. The player is timed per turn and per round so some forsight is necessary. Too often a couple of bad moves can spell certain doom for the little spirit warden - but who are you kidding? It's your fault.

For those with anxiety attacks from playing Panic Mode, there is Puzzle Mode. No timer here, just some devious puzzles. The object of this mode is to clear all the colored blocks from the board in the fewest moves possible. This mode does seem to get difficult rather quickly, but the only penalty for losing a round is starting the round over, so multiple tries are encouraged.

The last game mode is Eternity Mode. This is a watered down version of Panic Mode - it is timed, but there are no round breaks. The goal is to rack up as many points as possible overall before your uncleared pieces reach the top of the board. There is a timer in this mode, but it's more leisurely.

The graphics in "Spooky Spirits" are very nice and cartoonish, which may imply that this game is simple and for younger kids. This isn't really the case, however, as the game gets hard rather quickly. The art design, though, is clever and the characters are nicely drawn. Sound is good too, as the music feels like you're in an unscary haunted house.

Overall "Spooky Spirits" is a nice take on an old game format. A lot of games these days are playing with the match and falling block formats and "Spooky Spirits" has found a nice take on it. This would be an easy game to pickup and play for a little while to waste some time, but you won't find it taking over your entire life. And at $19.99, this is a worthwhile buy for potentially hours of fun.

4/5

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