Game Review: Christmas Mansion 3 (Mobile – Free to Play)

Having not played Christmas Mansion or Christmas Mansion 2, it might seem like a bad idea to play Christmas Mansion 3 without any prior knowledge of the series. I mean, won’t you be unable to follow the story? Won’t you be confused as to just who these characters are? Or what the style of gameplay is?

Only joking, this is a free to play match-3 game that thinks building a Christmas town is a core part of gameplay. It would be if you actually built it but you don’t. Instead you are given tasks that unlock new buildings, decorations or ornaments. Then you play as many match-3 games as it takes to earn the required coins to then ‘build’. It’s a matter of pushing the ‘complete task’ button and voila, you’re building a Christmas Town.

It’s so lacklustre and unexciting, it’s almost worth consigning this game to the bin immediately. However…it nails the match-3 gameplay with variety, a decent amount of difficulty and plenty of replay value. Whether you like it or not, you’ll find yourself constantly having just ‘one more go’. At least until you run out lives and have to wait out a timer or spend the premium currency to retry/buy new lives/more turns or time.

The premium currency is earned by completing match games but can also be bought with real money. For a game that is aimed at young children, to see prices reach nearly £50 is disgraceful. Especially when you take into account just what those green gems are spent on.

For example, to refill your lives you would need to spend 1300 green gems. Of course there is no in-app purchase for that amount. Instead you’d need to spend $1.99 for 650 or $4.99 for 3500. See what they’ve done there? However, that’s not the worst thing though.

The worst thing is how it charges for extra moves or time. Something that makes this nothing but a cash grab and a blatant attempt to part fools with their money.

It’s incredibly disappointing and frustrating because Christmas Mansion 3 isn’t a bad game. It’s wholly unoriginal but it looks and feels Christmassy. It plays well, sounds great and would be more then deserving of a couple of pounds/dollars if the developers charged up front for the game. Instead greed has meant most will uninstall this the moment the festive period has ended.