Critter Crunch Review

By Ellie Gibson Published 4 December, 2009

Tasty.

Version tested: PlayStation 3

Another day, another puzzle game. Like so many others this one involves matching coloured objects as they drop down the screen. Yet again you'll spend your time pulling off combos, racking up points, gathering gems, collecting power-ups and vomiting rainbows of sick into your son's mouth. Hang on what?

Critter Crunch will be familiar to many iPhone-owning puzzle fans, having been selling well in the App Store for over a year now. As you'd expect, the PSN version features much better visuals and audio effects, while the core gameplay mechanics of matching, combining, collecting and vomiting remain intact.

You play as Biggs, a rotund furry character with a big gob and a super-long tongue. He moves left and right underneath a grid populated by coloured critters of various shapes and sizes. The idea is to feed smaller critters to bigger ones till they burst, taking out any adjacent critters of the same type along with them. Say you've got a row of four medium-sized yellows, for example. The medium yellows eat the small blues. So feed small blue critters to a medium yellow and the whole row of yellows will explode.

That's the basic principle, but of course there are extra rules and power-ups to make things more complicated. You can set off a "food chain" by feeding a small to a medium who is directly below a big, thereby blowing up the lot. Some critters are "toxic" and must be avoided, as swallowing them will lose you points. There are bombs for blowing up large groups and watermelon seeds for destroying individual critters. Other top power-ups include the bulb of garlic - swallow this to unleash a belch of breath so bad the entire grid will retreat by one row.

'Critter Crunch' Screenshot 1

You get the idea.

When critters explode they drop precious gems. Collecting these boosts your score and fills the "hunger meter" at the side of the screen. The aim is to fill the meter as fast possible, because if you don't manage it before the critters reach the bottom of the screen it's game over.

Then there's your son, a smaller version of Biggs. Every so often he appears from nowhere and opens his giant mouth, indicating he wants to be fed. Pressing the circle button makes Biggs spew up an arcing rainbow of multicoloured puke, as if his breakfast consisted of 486 packs of Skittles and a bucket of glitter. The longer you vomit into baby Biggs' mouth, the more points you rack up. Never has throwing up held so much charm or appeal. For most of us anyway.

'Critter Crunch' Screenshot 2

Any game with this much burping, vomiting and exploding has to be worth £4.49.

So there are quite a few variables to deal with, but but the power-ups and rules are introduced at a steady rate. In fact, the first half of the game is straightforward to complete and really rather relaxing. Once the pace starts to pick up, however, you can no longer get away with absent-mindedly plugging away till the meter is full - proper concentration and forward planning are required just to stay alive, let alone rack up high scores.

This is where Critter Crunch digs its hooks in. As is essential for a puzzle game to be great, the balance between challenge and reward is just right. You're required to move fast, react quickly, think ahead and weigh up options all at the same time. Succeed and you're rewarded with showers of pretty confetti, sparkly chinking jewels and the satisfying sound of cute creatures popping open like balloons.

True, the bottom line is you're still using colour-matching and pattern-building to make things on a grid disappear. Critter Crunch does owe plenty to puzzlers which have come before such as Bejeweled and Pokemon Puzzle League. (In fact, the medium yellows bear a remarkable resemblance to Pikachu, which should make the game even more appealing to those who've always wanted to push the cheeky little fellow's smug squinting face into a fire and watch his jaundiced skin blister as his rosy round cheeks burst open like tomatoes in a microwave.) However, there are new ideas here and the game has enough depth to make it feel fresh.

It also helps that the presentation is great. The critters manage to be cute without, well, making you want to push their faces into a fire. (The vomiting probably helps.) They look like they're straight out of a cartoon - an animated film like Spirited Away though, not some rubbishy Saturday morning nonsense. The background music is excellent, jolly without being obtrusive and gently hypnotic enough to make you forget what time it is, everything you were supposed to do today and why anyone would ever want to do anything else anyway.

Along with the basic mode there are Puzzles to solve. These involve clearing the screen of critters using a maximum number of moves. There's no spawning so the Puzzles are ideal if you want more time to think and less pressure. Then there are Challenges, which present you with a specific objective - "Fill the meter by popping chains of only three critters or more," for example. Some of these can be quite tricky so they're ideal for those who have mastered the Adventure mode.

Critter Crunch also offers up two online options. In co-op mode you and another player attempt to clear a giant grid and stay alive as long as possible. It's fun enough but it's not much more enjoyable than single-player mode as you can't tell what the other person is planning. It's frustrating when the other Biggs swallows the keystone critter in the giant combo you've spent ages setting up, for instance.

'Critter Crunch' Screenshot 3

Look! It's just like Catford Island! Without the Lidl or the JD Sports.

In versus mode each player gets their own grid and they're displayed side-by-side on the same screen. There are some superb power-ups in play here, such as the one which makes your enemy's screen go all wibbly while crazy monsters swirl around and trippy music plays. Once again films like Spirited Away come to mind, not to mention In the Night Garden after 15 vodka Red Bulls.

All in all, the online co-op is forgettable and the versus mode is enjoyable. The Puzzles and Challenges are different enough to be worth taking a look at. But it's Critter Crunch's basic mode you'll return to again and again. It features some of the best elements of classic puzzlers along with some fresh ideas, finely-balanced gameplay and polished presentation.

It's also highly addictive. Perhaps not to the same extent as crack, but at least it's cheaper - £4.49 for the full game, which works out at an estimated 1p per hour of fun. Which is a much better deal than a hundred pounds per half hour of fun like ooh I don't know I just can't think of anything.

Even if Critter Crunch sounds like a lot of puzzlers you've played before, why not download the free demo? You might be pleasantly surprised by how fresh it feels and how addictive this game can be. And if not, at least you'll get to see a big furry creature vomit a rainbow of sick into his son's mouth.

9 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (50) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Death-of-Imagination #1 2 years ago

    Awesome little game. Heartily recommend it. :)

  • Benno #2 2 years ago

    Looks colourful

  • KayJay #3 2 years ago

    Tried the demo last night and its pretty good fun.
    Very slick and well presented.

  • Zebula77 #4 2 years ago

    This review made me want to watch Spirited Away again (or any of the other wonderful Miyazaki films, for that matter!). This isn't really my cup of tea, but I admit I really enjoyed the trial version. Gameplay was easy to understand and controls responsive, and the cuteness level just right. Also loved the traditional 2D animation.

  • uglygamer #5 2 years ago

    hmm interesting. Anyone can recommend me other good PSN titles I might have a look at while downloading the demo for this

  • captain_Carl #6 2 years ago

    Amazing little game, couldn't recommend it more

  • TonyHarrison #7 2 years ago

    I tried the demo last night, it was fun, but it didn't grab me enough to warrant a purchase.

  • penhalion #8 2 years ago

    9/10 really! I played the demo and it's a match 3 game pure and bloody simple. I certainly didn't feel any compulsion to pay money for it but, then you guys don't pay for stuff do you so all your reviews seem stupily off lately.

  • freakzilla #9 2 years ago

    wow its THAT good? I will go get it now.

  • Johnsters #10 2 years ago

    @uglygamer

    try Pixel Junk Monsters (next week Pixel junk Shooter).
    Everyday riff & Super Stardust HD.

  • JohnnyWashnGo #11 2 years ago

    Not worth 9/10 to be honest. Its fun and provides a nice distraction when taking breaks from disc-based games, but its not that good. Very odd score.

  • Fletche #12 2 years ago

    This game is fantastic, had it a while now and myself and Mrs Fletche just love it, great presentation and in later levels it will have you throwing your controller at the TV, offline co-op is great, manic fun when you are shouting at each other to move the bird after using the spray can or move the cannon to remove the blocker (all makes sense when you play), great fun and can't recommend it enough

    @penhalion it is a LOT more than matching three colours which is perhaps why I like it so much as I usually avoid puzzles games like the plague
    Edited by 1 at 04/12/09 @ 14:45

  • NorUraeus #13 2 years ago

    @JohnnyWashnGo: Its reviewed in comparison to its price level. so its a 9/10 for a 4.50 GBP game. The score is not meant to be compared to a 9/10 disc game costing 49.99.

  • Xephon1970 #14 2 years ago

    Played the demo, bought the game. Simple, addictive and fun. Easily my most played game in the past week.

    Also, Flower, Pixeljunk Eden and Shatter are well worth picking up, although all for very different reasons. Plus, Pixeljunk Shooter is out next week.

  • betahoven #15 2 years ago

    Post deleted at 09:36:16 17-12-2011

  • davisorle #16 2 years ago

    So.. this is a 9/10 and Sabuteur a 6/10? Wtf is wrong with EG. Im done with EG reviews. uncontrolable, incapable to communicate and put together a standard for the way they rate. You seriously have to be kidding me. Chopped all the good latest games and an easy 9 where you dont expect it. ( nothing against this title btw but feel free to take it personal, I dont mind it. )

    Ellie, if you read this fn post do something usefull for EG and transfer this to the rest of them in there. I dont know much about this game to say about the rating but some need to learn about gaming and how to rate...

  • superted1974 #17 2 years ago

    Will try this
    Loved flower - not re-visited it but a unique game/experience

  • Widge #18 2 years ago

    Is there a reason this isn't allowed to have a 9?

  • Fletche #19 2 years ago

    @davisorle
    Funny, you have a go at EG reviews and yet a quick look around the net pretty much says what you are complaining about, this game getting high review scores, Saboteur not so, so what's your issue with the EG reviews here?
    @Widge
    Because it is not a £40 AAA title so even though this will give you hours of entertainment, is a huge challenge and highly addictive it can't possibly be worth a high score. For me this is worth a 9 because of the fun it has given me, I have played this more than a lot of "proper" games I have bought this year.

  • onyxbox #20 2 years ago

    better than Gravity Crash then ;) ...... or is it?

    difficult to say these days based on EG reviews.

  • menage #21 2 years ago

    Anyone who doesn't like this has no soul. I mean look at the little cute furball, he's awesome.

    And oooooh my favorite hardcore game didn't get an 8 but cuute puzzler get's a 9 idiocy. Opinions are a bitch.
    Edited by 1 at 04/12/09 @ 16:38

  • gmjapan #22 2 years ago

    @davisorle "I dont know much about this game to say about the rating "

    But yet you still managed to go off on a rant based on the game and its rating...

  • fongy #23 2 years ago

    The demo doesn't do this game justice, it introduces you only to the very, very basics... until you buy it and more and more options / strategies / monsters appear - it seems quite simple... add in multicolour combos, rock monsters, chillis, garlic, egg things you have to keep alive, etc. etc. it's probably the best value PSN game on there - worth every penny and perfectly reviewed!

  • fongy #24 2 years ago

    @davisorle - you've got to remember that scoring isn't the same for a budget game and a full pricer - 9/10 for £4.50 is going to be massively different to a game 9/10 that is £40... it's all about taking the score in context - surely you understand that - right? it's like the £1.99 games you used to get on the Commodore 64 versus £10 games (shows my age there) - they're different types of games / different markets and therefore the scoring mechanism (although the same on face value) should be interpreted as such!!! :)

  • fongy #25 2 years ago

    oh and gravity crash is amazing too - that what the one bad EG review I've seen all year!

  • Trikk #26 2 years ago

    You have to learn which journalists you can trust on EG, just as with any site or medium. Shocking, I know!

  • udat #27 2 years ago

    I think people are getting hung up on price as a baseline for what a game is reviewed against, but the core principle is correct, games are reviewed against their peers surely. There's no core gaming standard or benchmark to rate against - so thiis game is scored in comparison to other puzzle games, PSN games, XBLA games, etc. Price might factor into it somewhat, but primarily this game is a 9/10 when placed in the context of Bejewelled, Castle Crashers, Flower, and whatnot.

    It's kinda like how you wouldn't compare Never Mind the Buzzcocks and Attenborough's "Life" even though they are both TV, but you might use QI as a comparison.

  • Bangaioh #28 2 years ago

    I bought it a while ago for my girlfriend because she loved the I-Phone version.
    I think 9 is a fair rating, it deserves at least 8: it's very well designed, animated and produced.
    Those who disagree need to think that you can't compare this to Saboteur, they're are too completely different games and productions and need to be judged according to appropriate scales and not as if they were competing against each other: is it that difficult to understand?

  • RandomTerrain #29 2 years ago

    I suggest anyone planning to purchase after reading this should download the demo first.
    A friend of mine loves it and is addicted; personally I find it to be one of the more boring PSN games.

    I love a good puzzle game.. but this simply didn't do anything for me even though it has been well made.

  • TONYgr #30 2 years ago

    The game is superb!

  • AOFanboi #31 2 years ago

    Eurogamer readers in "complaining about score instead of writing a reader review" shocker.

  • Krelle #32 2 years ago

    This is a 9. Lovely game. Lovely art.

  • shotgun44 #33 2 years ago

    I bought this on iPhone after the raving review on here and have to disagree with the score. It's ok for the price and quite a bit of fun but it's no classic. I've fired in maybe 3 or 4 times in the last 3 weeks. Canabalt is sooo much better. Still, good game but not something I think everyone is gonna be equally blown away by...

  • sirtacos #34 2 years ago

    Nice review. 8/10. Game's not available here though :/ Wait, never mind, it is.
    Edited by 2 at 04/12/09 @ 18:43

  • dahsif #35 2 years ago

    Better than MGS4 then?
    It is a very cute and polished game. The missus is addicted to it, but there's almost no one to play against online.
    I rate it a 7, or 8/10.
    9 is too high, and it does it disservice if people expect to get ther mind blown away.
    I recommend it anyway. It deserves more sales, just don't expect it to be GOTY quality.

    Edited by 2 at 04/12/09 @ 19:02

  • Scimarad #36 2 years ago

    Ellie clearly has Pikachu issues:)

  • shotgun44 #37 2 years ago

    Reading the review, it seems I have yet to get to the real meat of the game. Might give this more time this weekend. In the mean time, MASHUP.

    Still, I have to agree with Dahsif
    Edited by 1 at 04/12/09 @ 20:13

  • Prodigy_BE #38 2 years ago

    I crunch, and if you own a PS3, you should too.

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #39 2 years ago

    Everyone going on about' so this is better then a AAA title' go back and look at bloody EG's scoring system, it's how RECOMMENDED TO OTHERS this game should be, not how 'better' the game is...

    TBH at the end of the year EG should just ditch the numbered score system and just sum it up with a 'to buy or not to buy' ending so the score crunchers out there stop getting their pants in a twist because they cant understand the scoring system and every game isn't 'lesser' to their 'best game ever and can never be beaten'

  • Chufty #40 2 years ago

    I dont particularly care about the scores either, but they shouldn't change their system just because of a few whiners on the comment threads.

    Surely one of the things we love about EG is the way it reviews games on their own merits rather than comparing every game to the latest overhyped bland FPS blockbuster.

  • Lord_Gremlin #41 2 years ago

    Tried the demo... Don't know why, didn't like it. Not bad, just nothing special. Game for kids, I suppose.

  • Bazfrag #42 2 years ago

    Please dump the scores EG. For the greater good of humanity. Break the endless cycle of moaning after Game X scores higher/lower than Game Y.

    "Better than MGS4 then? It is a very cute and polished game... I rate it a 7, or 8/10. 9 is too high, and it does it disservice if people expect to get ther mind blown away. I recommend it anyway. It deserves more sales, just don't expect it to be GOTY quality."

    :/ Behold exhibit A. Not really moaning as such but still silly score nitpicking. I would imagine that CC will win GOTY on some sites. Ellie posted a thorough, well written review, and thought it was a quality product. Mgs has nothing to do with anything.
    If people must complain about reviews then how about the ones that are poorly written, riddled with inaccuracies or are paid for adverts in disguise.
    Edited by 1 at 06/12/09 @ 01:03

  • bap10 #43 2 years ago

    Great game great fun great price.

  • dahsif #44 2 years ago

    @Bazfrag
    I actually agree with you there. However oft-times the score reflects the tone of the review, and whatever your expectations are, humans will always try to reach a conclusion and form a judgement on as few clues as possible (basic Social Psychology) unless it is something really important to them.
    What I'm trying to say is: buy the game, enjoy it (my missus is playing it RIGHT NOW online) but it's not innovative enough to warrant a 9/10 in my books.

  • Bazfrag #45 2 years ago

    Fair enough.

    Reading my post sober I will stop quoting as it comes across as personal. No need to single people out as a cheap way of getting a point across, especially when you explain the reasoning behind your post.
    Edited by 1 at 06/12/09 @ 12:58

  • webcider #46 2 years ago

    Maybe not as innovative but sure as hell as fun or more fun than a 9 out of 10 game.

    This game has connected my family plus its insanely addictive to play over multiplayer sessions and thats just talking from the Co-op experience. The game has tons of cool elements it throws at you.

    I must say i hate Toxic critters + Vegetarians this combo makes it nearly impossible to see if they are vegetarians or not thanks to the toxic green smoke. its a very frustrating combination.
    Edited by 1 at 07/12/09 @ 08:39

  • Erebu #47 2 years ago

    @ shotgun44

    Canabalt, a one button 2min game, is a better game?

  • FladgeMangle #48 2 years ago

    You've got to wonder at the mentality of the people who've criticised the review score because it's not a £20m+ budget murder/war/crime simulation.

    Maybe they just don't get this generation. The advent Live Arcade, PSN and the Virtual Console has liberated us from the yoke of blockbuster "Hollywood" games, both as gamers and developers.

    Not so very long ago, a game this well made would have been ranked as triple A. 2D animation of this quality often requires more time and talent than most 3D work.

    It's an excellent game and well worthy of it's score.
    Edited by 1 at 08/12/09 @ 00:04

  • webcider #49 2 years ago

    Im still playing this with friends and family i completely stopped playing Adventure mode the fun is all in the Co-op and Versus mode damn is it satisfying to give a lightning strike just to see a opponent not getting a armbolt or some other nasty stuff hehe :D The game is unpredictable but thats what makes it fun :)

  • Weebleboy #50 2 years ago

    Great wee game, wasn't convinced at first, but I've spent a suprising amount of time with it in the past couple of days. And for just over a couple of quid (at the moment) then well worth the cash.