Here's a fun fact about the Japanese language - the word "Emoji" combines the Japanese for "picture" and "character". What's more, the word "Chikara" means power. What do you get when you combine the two? Emojikara, the name of a game that is anything but powerful (or clever, as the title would lead you to believe). While the brainless, luck-based gameplay and extremely barebones presentation might fly if this were a free-to-play mobile game, it certainly doesn't work too well as an eShop title.
The gameplay of Emojikara sounds good in concept, but the reality is far less exciting. Typical matching games require you to procedurally work through the tiles and find two of a kind, but Emojikara takes a different route. You'll be given a two word phrase, like "Blood Moon" or "Liberty Bell", and are tasked with finding two emojis on a 3x5 grid that match the description of the words. After finding the pair, a new phrase is given and the grid is randomized. There are two and a half game modes on offer. One that sees you trying to get five matches in as few tries as possible and one that sees you trying to get as many matches as you can in ninety seconds. Any symbols that you successfully match in either of these modes are then unlocked in a weird "Emoji Sentence" mode where you can stick emojis together in strings that can be shared on Miiverse.
While it's kind of cool at first to match things together and slowly unlock new emojis, it takes maybe an hour to unlock everything and actually "beat" the game. Beyond that, the main draw is trying to get higher scores, but the fact is this is almost entirely decided by luck. For example, the first game mode adds a point every time you fail to successfully pair the two symbols; the lower your score, the better. But, you have no idea where the two symbols are, meaning that trial and error is the only way to succeed. You might hit them on your first try or you might go through every other tile first. Seeing as there aren't enough tiles in the grid for this to really be very taxing on one's memory, it ultimately becomes a guessing game where you're graded based on how lucky you were.
To add insult to injury, the presentation here is absolutely horrendous. The gently rotating, two colour psychedelic backgrounds are ugly and distracting; the music is forgettable chaff that sounds like it was churned out in a few minutes on the last day of development. A bizarre, omnipresent "OK" button acts as the pause menu. But, the best part by far is the broken English phrases that occasionally pop up, with gems such as "Hope for the death, but prepare for the house" or "Keep your mail close and your bell closer" permeating the experience. We're not sure what exactly the developer really meant to achieve with these phrases, but they lead to many inadvertently humorous moments that do the game no favours.
Conclusion
All in all, Emojikara: A Clever Emoji Match Game is anything but clever. Featuring shallow, luck based gameplay, shoddy presentation and poor English, one really must wonder if this went through any sort of quality assurance before being dragged out the door. We would strongly suggest that you pass on this one; there are few, if any redeeming qualities to this, and you'll probably be more entertained looking through the collection of emojis on your smartphone.
Comments 30
2 !?that's new!
How are these developers allowed release such rubbish on the eShop? The Wii U eShop is literally littered with this kind of crap. There'll be some poor unsuspecting people who get stung by these turds.
Slots - Pharaoh's Riches = 3/10
Splashy Duck = 5/10
Steel Lords = 1/10
Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games = 5/10
Emojikara: A Clever Emoji Match Game = 2/10
And they're just reviews from about the past week on this site alone.
Emojikara: A Clever Emoji Match Game
Score:
Reaction of some poor soul buying this:
And yet some game developer white knights 🙄 will defend this and any other garbage like 😇. "ANY getting released is a good thing!"
Clever and Emoji never belong in the same sentence.
@SLIGEACH_EIRE Technically, a 5 on this site is a meh, but I still agree with what you're saying.
This just reminds me that the Emoji Movie is an actual thing and now I'm depressed
@SLIGEACH_EIRE The matter of quality control is a weird game to play. As a company, you have all rights to deny a game if it conflicts with objective reasons (unbeatable, malicious coding, erroneous ratings, copyright infringement, etc.).
But to deny a release based on subjectivity (whether you feel the game is "good" or "fun", over-saturation of a genre, art style [or lack thereof]), you risk opening a whole other can of worms.
The best you can hope for is to encourage or incentivize devs to make quality games (such as featuring on the front page of the shop, showcase their games, give positive reviews where they're deserved, etc.).
Why waste so many words on something that is obviously so bad??
I wouldn't get this game if I were paid for it. It would cost 100 of my IQ
There might be some linguistic mileage in trying to fathom the "broken English" phrases by comparison to Japanese, but otherwise, meh.
All in all, Emojikara: A Clever Emoji Match Game is anything but clever. Featuring shallow, luck based gameplay, shoddy presentation and poor English...
Engrish ?
2 from 10 ?
Oh my ....
We seem to have stretches of good then bad eShop games.....currently we are in a bad spell but based on what should be coming soon....we should get back in a good phase soon.
This game looks like a free time wasting mobile game that uses retries as a microtransaction scheme.
Whaaaaaaaaaaaat this is my favorite game of all time ;D and love your avatar @Deadlyblack
Cara means face in Spanish.
Does Nintendo Life have a poo emoticon? I fancy giving this game a review of my own. =P
(in fact, just what are all of the possible NL emoticons?)
@SLIGEACH_EIRE In all fairness, the Mario & Sonic 2016 for Wii U was reviewed by someone who didn't play the full game. That was a very embarrassing review. It's actually a pretty great game (it's by far the best Mario and Sonic Olympic game I've played), once you unlock everything and spend time to improve the skill. The thing is that it takes a long while to progress to actually unlock everything substantial.
And BTW, Terraria for the Wii U is one of the very best eShop releases of 2016, released about a month ago in EU (and some weeks ago in the US). Yet, NL seems to be more interested in reviewing quick-to-play junk eShop games that that title.
@jariw I've read other reviews of Mario & Sonic and they all seem to be around the 5-6 out of 10. Even RMC from GoNintendo gave it a 6 for Nintendo Force magazine. And it's at 68% on Metacritic thanks to sites I've never heard of and the likes of Forbes, yes Forbes, giving it an 8.
And yes Terraria is a great game. But for every 1 good game there's another 5 POS. I'm sure NL will review it but it takes time to review good games and there's a lot to do in Terraria.
@sillygostly Here's all I know. Anyone who knows of others feel free to let us know.
: )
: |
: (
; )
: D
: ' (
0 : - ) (the number 0, not the letter)
B - )
: P
: $
: *
: O (capital letter O, not the number)
: sweat :
@SLIGEACH_EIRE : Cheers for that. I couldn't find them anywhere else on the website (or in the forums).
💩
So I'm guessing that "Hope for the death, but prepare for the house" should be "Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst", and "Keep your mail close and your bell closer" should be "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer", but... "No bed is a lady"?!?! What on Earth is that one about?!?!
I completely misread "luck-based" at first (I changed both of the first letters of each word in my mind) and I was startled
I am sorry you had to play this but seeing "Hope for the death, prepare for the house" made my day.
@sillygostly http://www.emoji-cheat-sheet.com/
This is the entire list of emojis you can use here, and there are A LOT
@SLIGEACH_EIRE Your obsession with the score numbers has nothing to do with that particular game itself. Most reviews of Mario & Sonic for Wii U stops at Heroes Showdown and occasionally only mention what things happen next. As you say, it takes time to review good games, and reviewers didn't put the time required into that game - and it's not a bad game. For example, did Nintendo Force review describe the Carnival in any greater detail (I didn't read that review)?
So who's going to see the emoji movie...
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