Orchidia Review

Posted on August 16, 2007 - Filed Under Review |

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Orchidia is very similar to Tetris, only the “blocks” are flowers. Orchidia also contains a story line, which Tetris doesn’t. The concept is similar to Tetris, but you only need to get three in row to make the flowers disappear instead of creating a single line. The story behind the game is you need to restore the magic to Orchidia. You restore the magic by breaking the dams. The flowers flow down a stream, which is blocked by a dam. You remove the dam by getting the number of flowers at the top of each level. Each level contains a different amount of flowers to achieve.
As the flowers are flowing down the stream, you can rotate them so they match up better with the flowers at the bottom of the screen. The more you get in a row the more it counts towards your total flowers you need to get. In other words, if you need 34 flowers and you match 4 in a row, you will only need 30 flowers.

Orchidia has different challenges in different levels. The beginning levels the only challenge is getting the correct number of flowers. In the later levels, you have rocks in the middle of the river, side rivers that appear that throw random flowers down or snowballs in the middle of the river. As the levels progress, the flowers drop at a faster speed.

There are power ups to help you along as well. The power ups are dropped when you complete all of the petals on a flower. You need to match four of a kind or higher to complete the petals on the flower. When the flower has all of its petals, a power up will be released.

The graphics in the game are not that great. The flowers are pretty and look nice, but the background leaves a little something to be desired. The trees on the river bank are not that great looking. The characters in the game are nicely done, so really the only the background could use a little work.

I found the game enjoying. Each level brings a different object to achieve. Some times you have to free animals stuck in the ice, some times you have to match only one type of flower and other times you need to get a certain number. The different objectives in the levels keep the game interesting.