Angry Birds Match review: An old concept with a new edge

Angry Birds seems to have a place in every genre of gaming, but has it mastered the done-to-death match-3 category with this installment?

Developer: Rovio
Publisher: Rovio
Platform: Android (version reviewed), iOS
Release Date: August 30, 2017

If you have a phone devoid of physical buttons, then you must have played a game in the Angry Birds franchise. Whether it’s their RPG, the cheesy Star Wars parodies, or even the original, then you know what the game is all about; killing those cocky piggies.

Since the successful breakout of the Angry Birds series, they have thrust the testy avians (and their slingshot) into all sorts of genres ranging from a simple bubble shooter to a Lego-type building game starring the evil green pigs. Now, they’ve done it once again with a match-3 game.

There are literally thousands of match-3 games out there on Google Play and the App Store, but most of them are candy related. Angry Birds Match stars three of everyone’s favorite birds, but sadly the Mighty Eagle isn’t one of them.

The story centers around a quest based on the successful movie in which it is your mission to rescue over fifty hatchlings from the dastardly pigs. Red, Bomb, and Chuck act as your power-ups as you play through more than 1,000 levels that gradually increase in difficulty; very gradually.

Rovio /

As you rescue the kidnapped baby birds, you are gifted with a treasure chest for each one and an outfit of your own choosing. Each of the little ones has a total of six outfits that you can either buy for fictional money or earn from chests which cost twenty gems to open.

The outfits for all the hatchlings is a fun little customization, but also adds a benefit as well. Once you unlock outfits four through six, you earn more coins for defeating the levels. The final hatchling doesn’t become free until conquering level 610, so there is no shortage of stuff to unlock.

The main game starts out small by of course introducing you to the basic mechanics of this match-3 in which you connect 3, 4, or 5 of the same colored object to make them disappear or transform them into a power-up. This is where the birds come in, and you begin to recognize the link to Angry Birds.

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The three birds are utilized by holding your finger down on the screen and pulling in any direction to send them flying without the need for a slingshot. Red eliminates a single column or row, Chuck knocks out one of each, and Bomb smoothly destroys three rows or columns in any direction but diagonal.

The game also offers three power-ups to equip before a level begins, but unfortunately, they are the same and only offer you to start with 1, 2, or 3 birds on the board. The most useful aspect of these power-ups is that they help with some of the later levels as piggies begin to become a threat.

As you progress through the game, pigs start showing up and taunting you in a variety of ways. The green fatties eventually hide under muddy tiles, swim in a moat while pushing your tiles around, and even wear armor in the form of a wooden barrel.

Luckily, your heroic birds can kill all these villains in one shot while it takes two or more matches to kill them; the barrel-wearing pig requires four matches. Sadly, this is where the game stops changing aside from the occasional new obstacle like TNT or ice blocking your tiles.

Rovio /

There is a little side quest which rewards you with the white treasure chest for your efforts if you want to escape the hatchlings for a bit. If you want the spoils, you’ll need to beat anywhere from 5 to 15 levels without losing a life in the process.

You would think that an official Angry Birds game made by Rovio would constantly be changing and provide the player with new, interesting challenges but after level 50 it becomes rather repetitive.

The fact that this game receives a stellar 4.7 stars on Google Play baffles the mind, but I did notice that the biggest complaint among reviewers is that the levels are just way too easy. I agree with them, and I tended to put the game down, not because I ran out of lives, but because an easy game is not fun for very long.

One nice thing about the game is the rewards received from treasure chests. Unlike other games, Angry Birds Match is not stingy about free lives, coins, or gems. I’ve been rewarded with things like unlimited lives for an hour and starting the next level with extra moves which would be incredible if I actually needed them.

Another refreshing change from other games is that the ads aren’t as insidious as you’d expect. Aside from the pause menu and first starting up the game, you really don’t see a lot of ads or them begging you to rate them. All the ads are for other Angry Birds games though.

In my honest opinion, this game is perfect for the 7-13 crowd because when my daughter was playing it, she got a real kick out of the hatchlings dancing around in their various outfits in different locales like the beach or the disco club.

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I would suggest you get this game for your small children or pre-teens because it isn’t so difficult to anger them and it provides some nice eye candy paired with funny sounds that are synonymous with the Angry Birds franchise. I will be uninstalling this game and continue to wait for Angry Birds 3.

. Angry Birds Match. 6.5. Great graphics and sound, but the lack of difficulty makes Angry Birds Match nothing more than a game for little kids, and no novelty can make up for that.. Rovio

A copy of this game was provided to App Trigger for the purpose of this review. All scores are ranked out of 10, with .5 increments. Click here to learn more about our Review Policy.

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