Aggretsuko :Sanrio Puzzle Game 4+

A fun take on a familiar game genre

There is no shortage of Match-3 games, so a new one will have to be pretty memorable to stand out. Happily, Hive has managed to do so here in The Short-Timer Strikes Back. The joy and frustration found in the Netflix/Sanrio series “Aggretsuko” is perfectly captured within this game. Nearly every character in the series is represented here as a power-up to help you clear each level.
As a bonus, the further you pass levels, you unlock plenty of short animated videos depicting Retsuko’s daily grind and aggrieved workplace incidents, which are well worth watching. As far as expenses go, I was able to get past level 300 without shelling out for more coins or upgrades, so this game offers a lot of fun without needing a monetary boost so early on.
I should also note that while the game offers lots of Sanrio-brand joy in its kawaii graphics and catchy ragtime music, Retsuko will burst into death metal rage at the completion of each level, which it can be a little jarring. It’s all in good fun, though!

Review update-Loved It, Can’t Use Rewards

There was a glitch where we could receive rewards. I have received draw tickets as rewards and not achievements and I can’t even use them. It’s not right to blame the players who had draw tickets from rewards by not allowing them to use them. So sad that the developers do that. I’ve been playing it since it first came out and don’t want to keep up because of that. I wanted to share that I genuinely LOVE this game, it is fun and addictive, including the new department mode. It is just discouraging to see the unfairness of the notice recently released that other reviewers are referring to.

Help was resolved- I’ve had this game since July 2020. I love this game and have put in many hours (I’m almost at the level threshold). However, I have no way to contact the developers about this, but *my game has been offline for almost 10 hours*. I have absolutely no idea why (my wifi is great and my data is good too!). I’ve also tried the usual troubleshooting, but that means I can’t play the department challenges that my department relies on me. Is anyone else having this issue? I can’t report this issue because I have no way of contacting anyone about this since the app is offline.

Developer Response ,

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. The server is now normalized except [Quest] are currently unable to access. After several restorations, however, the play data rolled back to 6/23 5 PM (EDT). Please check our official FB/Twitter for any further notice. Thank you so much for your patience during the maintenance.

Too many levels just too hard

2384 is impossible— you get 12 tries and there’s 4 layers—2 layers of teacups, one layer of dust, one layer of tickets—that alone is impossible to do in 12 moves. But ALSO, you need to collect pink tokens. Please up the number of moves to something doable.

There’s just too many levels that are too hard to pass without using up all my tries. It ruins the flow of the game, instead of playing a few levels at a time and enjoying it, I spend all day just trying to finish one level. Sometimes they’re like mathmatically impossible to win— I played level 1506 like 20 times, always a few moves short, but then when I played one more time, I won with 8 moves left over. It feels more like the game is entirely luck based (well ofc it is, but it shouldn’t FEEL that way to the player) Also the rewards for department quests are not even worth what you put in—I got one heart after expending four to defeat a level. If anything you should get a heart just for playing. At the very least, consider making watching ad to get hearts unlimited or at least higher than 7 a day. I can use up 7 just trying to get a three star score on one of the daily challenges. Great game overall I just wish it didn’t feel so much like a Skinner box

Developer Response ,

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. We will keep monitoring and improving the balance of the level of difficulty and Department rewards. Also, we will do our best to provide more enjoyable gameplay.