Gem Hunters - Match 3 Puzzle iOS Game with RPG Elements

Gem Hunters iOS Game Review

Gem Hunters (Free with iAP) by Armor Games, is a turn based match 3 puzzle iOS game with RPG elements. There are 3 playable characters to choose from Rogue, Wizard, and Knight. Each character specialise in different area for example, rogue increase attack 20%, wizard increase magic 20%, and knight increase defence 20%. Once players selected character, there is a short intro and tutorial to guide players to familiarised the game play and the interface.

The game play is pretty easy match at least 3 same elements (color) gem and players are able to match by diagonal direction as well. Each color represent 1 element and different monster / boss have resist / weak against certain elements. Attack will increased when players attack monster / boss with effective gem at the same time attack will reduced when player attack monster / boss with less effective gem. There would be a "Star" Gem when players match 7 same color gems in a single turn. "Star" Gem + match 3 gem will create a critical attack to monster / boss.
Note: Please use "Star" Gem + gem that monster weak against to boost players attack.

The game also offers 4 equipment slots to allow players to equip weapons, armours, or skills (Spirit Animal). There are no restriction to which slot to equip which equipment. Players are allow to equip 4 weapons or 4 skills. Each item comes with common (white), uncommon (green), and rare (purple) Note: So far I only manage to get rare, i'm not sure any higher grade equipment beyond rare.
In order to activate skills, players are required to collect a number of element gem during the battle. For example, a skill that required 20 green gem to activate the skills.

Equipments are upgradeable and different elements required different set of orb to upgrade. Upgrade material dropped from battle with monsters or players (Arena, discuss more below) after player win the battle. Equipment too dropped from battle with monster or players but the chances are quite rare. Equipments come with boost (special effect) such as 5% chances to stun enemy, chances to heal your character, and so on. Besides, equipment comes with some basic stat such as attack, magic, and defence. Those states will increase by upgrade the equipment with upgrade material dropped from monster. The higher level of upgrade the number of quantity material to upgrade will increase as well. There is another way to get new equipments which is using iAP to unlock chest. It costs 25 iAP currency (Gem) to unlock it, 20 Gems = USD 1.99.

Character comes with level and experience feature and players able to decide which stat (attach, defence, magic) to up every time character levelled up. So players are freely to customised what type of character that fit their play style.

Next, the most interesting and competitive feature in Gem Hunters - Arena which also known as PVP (not real time). Each battle won to gain some points and this points will define players ranking in the Arena. Higher ranking in the Arena will get rare equipment after Arena is ended. There is a time period in Arena menu so players able to know when the Arena will end.

There is no limit for players to keep on challenge in Arena as long as players win the battle, for every battle players lose 1 live will lost and each live is required 10 minutes to generate. This live system affects in both Arena and story mode. There is no effective and ineffective element when PVP in arena so to win basically need high attack, "Star" Gems, some luck when system generate element gem. Each time players are given 2 turns

The game do integrate friend feature such as add friend by using code and not sure what is the actual function as for now there is no function to summon your friend to help you on battle. So if you are reading this, this is my friend ID: a91ac235

One issue found - some times the game pop up "No Internet Connection" when I win battle, I have a good wifi signal and I have a strong telco signal when I play without wifi. If you cancel, your progress of this battle will not save, so what I do was put it there for 1 or 2 minutes and press retry again. I will keep on retry until success as some times I won the boss stage which I plan to play that stage again.

In a nut shell, if you are a fan of match 3 puzzle like me - try this game! It is fun and challenging at the same.

Above review is based on version 1.15.1. If any part of the review above is not valid in latest version, kindly comment below. Thanks for reading my long post! Please let me know what you thinks about this game in comment section!