Title: Suika Game / Watermelon Game
System: Nintendo Switch (eShop)
Price: $2.99
Release Date: 10/20/2023

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Story

In Suika/Watermelon game, you… Combine fruit endlessly until they become watermelon.

There’s no story to the game. Normally, I wouldn’t even include this segment for a game like this, but Suika Game does have an intriguing tale from outside the game, mainly with how it exploded in popularity out of nowhere and is now the talk of Twitch and most other social outlets you can think of. This game originally came out in Japan two years ago, and just now has gotten a US release due to the extreme popularity, so that should tell you how big of a deal this is for Suika Game to suddenly be given a speedy english translation and be climbing sales charts all over the world.

In fact, the game is so simple the official site lets you play it on a browser. I’m not even kidding, give the game a play and fiddle around as you read this review, as the game really is that simple.

Presentation

Suika Game, at least at first glance, honestly seemed like yet another boilerplate mobile puzzle game, with a cute art style and simple menus that look ripe for touch controls, and not too much unlike other cute/super deformed brands you’ve seen before, ala Squishmallows.

Yet in motion, the game does have more of its own charm to it, and each fruit of the evolutionary cycle has its own distinct expression, making each of the pieces look memorable enough that you’ll be able to quickly recognize them the more sessions with Suika that you play. There’s not much in terms of animation besides the cute facial expressions changing now and then, or the physics-related shenanigans, but there really doesn’t need to be.

The neat part about Suika Game’s visual style is the potential for lots of cool skins. As I’m writing this, a Halloween event is wrapping up, which reskins the main watermelon into a big pumpkin, and completely changes the music. These seem to be timed per the seasons and not something you unlock with scoring progress, which is unfortunate, but like with how other games such as Tetris and Puyo come in different presentational skins, I would definitely enjoy seeing more variety added in this regard, since it would help to make the already cute vibe mesh well with a lot more themes. How about a Snowman themed Christmas event, for instance?

Speaking of said music, that’s the one aspect of Suika Game I do have to knock on pretty hard. The Halloween theme is pretty cozy sounding, with the tune fitting the typical vibe of the holiday that you’ve come to expect in any media referencing it by now, but the default theme song is just obnoxious. Considering how long games can last and how addictive the core loop is, I can’t lie when I say that the one thing that made me stop playing for the day or switch over to the holiday theme was the irritating recorder music driving me insane. Play several games in a half hour session and you’ll immediately reach for your Switch’s volume button.

Gameplay

Suika Game is a score chasing puzzler tasking the player with combining different kinds of fruits together in order to gradually work their way up into assembling the big watermelon. There’s a handy visual guide on the corner of the screen, and fruits combine by bumping into one enough, rolling around in a tight container by the power of physics. You can’t even use the touch screen for this one, only the stick and buttons, and there’s only a singular mode.

Yet this game is deceptively addictive and nails a great gameplay loop, better than you might expect! At first it reminded me a lot of 2048, and also the Threes game which that game took inspiration from, and while that core “build small things into bigger things before the smaller things overwhelm you” mindset is present here, the physics and variety of Suika Game really give it an edge over the chance based nature of those Threes-likes.

You can move the cursor horizontally to drop your fruit however you like, and wherever they roll is where they go, so if you want to, you could just mash your way towards filling the container and then focus on combinations, or just carefully position the fruit in order to get an evolved piece where you want it to be. There are plenty of moments where you could try and force a piece through a small gap to combine with a matching one just out of reach, and being able to pull that off is incredibly satisfying. There’s also the fact that the game is just superb for pick up and play action, and even if you do pretty terribly with one run, the urge to avoid your mistakes and nail it the next time is very high.

So thus, despite this ridiculously simple gameplay loop, Suika Game hooks in hard. For me it hasn’t come close to taking over my life, and I feel it would need to be a bit of a faster paced experience to pull that off, but I did make it one of my optimal pre-bedtime games, which isn’t something I can say for a lot of puzzlers outside of Tetris or the first Puyo Puyo. There’s local and online leaderboards, but sadly no option to compare your scores with friends online, though the local leaderboards are still pretty handy as you can compare your scores on a daily, monthly, and all time basis, so even if you’re nowhere close to breaking your absolute best, you can beat your own daily goal, which still provides a fun incentive to play multiple times in a day!

Conclusion

In conclusion, Suika Game is a sudden hit that came out of nowhere, and for me, I typically do not tend to gel with viral games; usually they end up fading away too quickly, not having enough depth, or being heavily focused on the online aspects, but Suika Game stands really darn well by itself.

From a great gameplay loop, a simple concept literally anyone can pick up and have fun with for a few minutes, and a good leaderboard system, this is easily one of my favorite scorechasers in a long while, and I’m eager to see what sort of new content or features they add to this. I’d definitely enjoy more themes being added, or just the ability to take on my friend list companions on the leaderboard, since that would certainly make things a lot more competitive. Even still, the game is super cheap on the eShop, and there’s that aforementioned web version available if you just want to give it a quick demo. Definitely a puzzler worth the hype!

I give Suika Game an 8 out of 10.