*=Video
^=Music
All Caps=Recommended
Hover mouse over screenshots for commentary.
February 2015
 The main gameplay area is on the right, the area that displays your soldiers and their enemies in is the top left, and bonus objectives are in the bottom left. This particular enemy is a boss, and can only be harmed if you match gems in the "boxed" areas. |  |  If you play through several levels, you get a free PS3 game. Not bad! |
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 |  |  You can't advance past these gates until you clear all of the lighted tiles. Enemies will continually come through the gate until it's opened. |
 |  |  Chucking a bomb at the enemies can send them flying. |
 |  You can only get past these towers if you can get the tower "gem" at the bottom of the screen. Enemies will keep coming out of the tower until you do so. |  |
 Heart gems come when you match five in a row. They will erase all gems that you switch them with. But what if you switch them with another heart? |  Then all gems are destroyed! So sweet. |  Some enemies mess with your gems, such as by turning them into useless ashes. |
 Boss characters are introduced, such as this spoof of Chuck Norris. |  As you can see by the hit points of my soldiers, they have gotten significantly stronger. |  |
 |  The map screen where you choose your level. |  The upgrade screen. |
Fat Princess: Piece of Cake
This is a three-match game that is free on the Vita. It takes a more thoughtful approach to the genre, kind of like Candy Crush. However, the twist is that matching different colored pieces has a different effect in the overall gameplay. At the top left of the screen are your soldiers who need to deal damage to enemies before the enemies take their turn to deal damage. Red gems activate the swordsman, who does lots of damage to one enemy; yellow gems activate the rifleman, who deals moderate damage to every enemy on the front row; orange gems activate the bomber, who does moderate damage to all enemies, and blue gems activate the healer, who heals your soldiers. You upgrade the effectiveness of your soldiers with diamonds, which you get from green gems. If you collect enough cake from the purple gems then you can thwomp all of the enemies with the Fat Princess herself. There are a variety of enemies who also get stronger as the game progresses, and there are even boss characters that can only be killed in specific ways.
There are a ton of "match 3" type games out there, especially on phones, but this one is a cut above the rest. It has a layer of strategy that goes beyond that of any other "match 3" game I've played. The main downside is that it is designed to have you spend real money on diamonds, so if you want to upgrade your soldiers without paying real money then you have to play for a bit longer than you would in a normal game.