Okay, so good game. Definitely worth the price. There were some issues, though. I’ll talk about it after the break.

Most glaring is that I can’t lower the resolution and the game lags on my old tablet. The lag is inconsistent, so I couldn’t even accurately predict the right moment to press for certain moves, like Amethyst’s Purple Puma or Garnet’s Rocket Punch. It was very frustrating. I can adjust the resolution on any given flash animation between 3 presets, why couldn’t I do it here?

The game suffers terribly from player scaling. The abilities and their upgrades you get from leveling allow you to better control any given fight. Only… the enemies don’t ever get anything that requires you to use them. So when you do use them, you can completely take control of an engagement. The enemy never had a chance.

But I’m not convinced that’s the only balance issue. The first boss had a reasonable level of difficulty, and the second boss was grueling. It seemed to be shaping up into a surprisingly tough game. But then the third boss had no back up. And the forth boss was alone too. And the last boss could only summon, like, one dude. And they were all terribly easy fights because of it.

To that end, the game places wa~y too much importance on timed attack and defense. Hitting a timed attack usually means doing about double damage, but missing a timed defense can mean the difference between taking 3 points of damage, or 14! Even with 40 health on Amethyst there were still times where she got one-shot from full health! That’s not rewarding success for good timing, that’s punishing failure.

But overall, it’s still a good game. The badges and stat distribution allow you a variety of ways to play your characters, which is a big deal for a game of this scale. The dialog between the gems is delightful and very appropriate, the areas are neither too big nor too small, and it doesn’t overstay its welcome. In fact, I’d have probably played through the whole game again, if not for my frustrating lag issues.

Absolutely no regrets buying this, and I recommend it to any that are even a little interested in the game.