Smash Time Review

Smash Time takes its name from the fact that you might end up smashing your screen with your finger, all in the hope of hitting every single alien blob that pops up on your screen; hopefully so you can get the highest score you can get.

When it comes to the story in Smash Time, you won’t be getting too much out of it. The gist of what’s going on is that aliens have come down to earth, and they’re starting to take over. For one reason or another, a group of heroes team up to take down this alien threat, with your starting character being a witch who bats magical balls at the aliens.

Controls and gameplay for this game are technically the same, as all you really need to do is tap the screen to squish one of the aliens until they die. At times animals will appear on screen, at which point you need to make sure not to tap on those, as you will receive a negative effect to your score because of it.

These aliens that you come in contact with will either run to the sides of the screens and out of sight, chase after animals, or come straight for you. If they come for you, they will make your job that little bit more difficult, and if they chase after an animal and they eat them before you manage to smash them, that alien will proceed to grow in size and be one hit point harder to take down. Your alien enemies don’t have a collective health bar, but the amount of eyes they have on their model represents how many times you need to tap on them to finish them off.

I think the best way I can compare this game is probably the classic iOS game, Ant Smasher. It wouldn’t come as a surprise if this game had taken some inspiration from this classic mobile game and developed on the idea by a fair amount, because the general premise is the same.

To keep things a touch more interesting, instead of a strange recreation of whack-a-mole, the developer has implemented a sequence mechanic for the player to increase their score and keep things interesting. Basically, the way it works is on the top left there is a collection of three symbols, with each one representing a type of alien. It’s your job to follow along that sequence, and every time you do, you’ll have your multiplier go up by one, to ultimately increase your score.

Smash Time, just like Ant Smasher, is a free to play title for anyone to enjoy, but the game has a fairly restrictive energy system in place for the players. With the first character you start with, you have a maximum of five energy. While it is nice that the first couple of stages are completely free, so the game can teach you the tutorial and mechanics, before long you will be required to put energy into each level to play through it. Before long, you will run out of your energy and you will either have to wait or make use of your in-game currency that you’ve been earning up until now.

What I find incredibly strange about the in-game currency is the fact that it isn’t used for anything other than replenishing your energy. Pretty much everything you do in Smash Time gets you cash, even in the special events that see how long you can survive, but when that cash is only used for you to play the game some more, it seems a tad pointless to even try for it. At the end of each and every level, depending on how well you do, you’ll get a chest, but if you just get a bronze chest, you can pass the level. It gives you absolutely no reason to go for the higher chests, unless you wish to complete the game, but you’re not rewarded for doing so; as such, it seems pointless.

Honestly, I’m not a big fan of energy systems, especially those that suggest you watch a video to get some back, but in Smash Time’s case, I feel that would benefit this game more; rather than an unnecessary in-game currency that doesn’t do anything else to the game.
Even though Ant Smasher was the game that Smash Time was taking inspiration from, that doesn’t mean the aesthetics of the game have stayed as lacking as Ant Smasher’s. All the characters, models, environments, and general graphics the game has may be somewhat childlike, but it’s not to a degree where it is too young for a more mature crowd.

Throughout the title you’ll be met with a vast number of bright and vibrant colours that surrounds everything around you, and it truly gives the game its own charm to the overall style.

Overall, Smash Time has a nice theme and style going for it; one that the cute and colourful graphics really help and accentuate. Gameplay is quite fun and addictive, as the whole sequence mechanic that the game has you do to make sure you get the optimal amount of score keeps you on your toes on the slightly more stressful levels. The energy system is easily the game’s biggest downfall because of the in-game currency, being used simply to replenish energy and nothing more – in a word; it’s redundant. This system doesn’t drag the game down enough to prevent a recommendation, because the game as a whole is a fun experience, one that you should be sure to try for yourself.