Zuma's Revenge!

Gameplay

As in Zuma, the main objective of Zuma's Revenge! is to clear strings of rolling balls, or 'stones', by matching balls of the same color. Players move a ball-shooting frog which always points in the direction of the mouse to aim and fire balls at these strings. When three or more balls of the same color match together, they are cleared from the playfield. This clearing creates gaps through which a player may shoot more balls at nearby strings, target bonus fruit, and 'power up' stones. Gaps automatically close if the balls at either end of the gap are (or become) the same color, potentially creating chain reaction matching and clearing as new sets of three or more are formed.

The strings of balls constantly roll along their tracks toward a skull emblem at the end. Should they reach the emblem, the player loses a life, and the game is over when the player has lost all of his or her lives. However, unlike in original Zuma in which regardless of stage, they are allowed to play Stage 1 of the temple again, when the player gets a game over, they will start again at the checkpoint (Stage 1 of an area if the player loses before the mid level and Stage 5 if the same situation happens in Stages 6-10). The strings are always "pushed" by the last ball in the string, so any balls not connected to the rearmost string do not move on their own.

Periodically, random balls display power-ups which the player may collect by destroying the ball. These include a visual guide to show where a ball will land when shot, powerups that slow down or reverse the direction of the string, a three-way cannon that blasts through all layers of balls, a laser that can destroy single balls, a bomb, and a lightning powerup which destroys all balls of a specific color.

Zuma's Revenge! introduces three types of levels that are new to the series. Some levels feature two lily pads that the frog can jump between, while other levels set the frog on a horizontal or vertical track and enable it to slide side-to-side or up and down rather than rotating to aim. There are also boss levels where the player has to shoot balls towards the enemies to reduce their hit points while simultaneously prevent the ball strings from reaching the emblem. The enemies in turn shoot projectiles that will induce a certain gimmick if they hit the player. These levels have an unlimited lives, so if one of the balls reaches the skull, they will try again. Players have no problem in getting a game over in this type of levels.

Game Modes

The game features four game modes. In Adventure mode, the player progresses through a Polynesian-style island ruled by the angry god Zhaka Mu. Every five levels, the player is awarded a checkpoint at which he or she can restart the game if all lives are lost. At the end of each island area, the player encounters a tiki god and must face the god in a boss battle. Clearing Adventure mode for the first time unlocks the Heroic Frog and Iron Frog modes. Gameplay of the Heroic Frog is the same as Adventure, but it is considerably more difficult. In Iron Frog, the player has to progress through ten levels with only one life and an even harder difficulty level than Heroic Frog.

In each mode except Challenge mode, the player must reach a general point goal to achieve "Zuma", at which point the game stops adding balls to the string(s). The player must then clear all of the remaining balls from the playfield to move on to the next level. In Challenge mode, the player has three minutes to score as many points as possible, collecting powerups which increase his or her score multiplier along the way.

Reception

Zuma's Revenge! received fairly positive reviews from critics on Metacritic and GameRankings.