Microsoft Jewel 2

I started playing Microsoft Jewel 2 through the Xbox app because it earned me Microsoft rewards points that I could use to buy Xbox games. At first, I avoided playing it because I knew I'd have to write a review, but I obviously caved. The Microsoft Rewards program has since been seriously nerfed, so I stopped participating and no longer have much of an incentive to play this generic, yet enjoyable, puzzle game. Thus, I am now facing the consequences. I'm not actually disappointed to be writing a review, I just wish it were about something with a little more spirit. Microsoft Jewel 2 does everything it needs to in order to be a passable match-3 puzzle game, but not much more.

The game starts you with a screen full of colorful jewels, a level progress bar, and a set of three challenges. Jewels can swap places with any of their adjacent, non-diagonal neighbors, as long as at least one of the jewels being swapped creates a line of three or more like-colored jewels. That line is then cleared with any jewels on top dropping down and any empty space being refilled with new jewels. Matching jewels that have a challenge active fills that challenge's progress bar, and once full, you get a bonus jewel. The bonus jewel is the same color as the ones you needed to match to earn it and can replace any jewel on the screen at any time, which can be especially helpful later in the game.

In order to give players a sense of progress, Microsoft Jewel 2 is broken into levels. Any matches made fill up the progress bar, and once it is full, the screen refill is blocked. You then need to match a specified number of jewels without any new ones to fill the empty space. If you succeed, then you can move forward to the next level. Later levels introduce new jewel colors and junk gems that cannot be matched. New jewels never get any challenges associated with them, so you can never get their bonus versions. To clear the junk gems, you'll need to take advantage of special jewels.

Special jewels are earned by making big matches, and they stay on the board where the match was made. There are three kinds of special jewels to keep track of. Bomb jewels are created by making a match of four and, when used in a match themselves, clear the nine jewels surrounding them. Line clear jewels are created by making a horizontal and vertical match at the same time with the same jewel, and clear all jewels in both its row and column when used in a match. Power jewels are my favorite. They are earned by making a match of five, and have two functions. When swapped with a colored jewel (or junk), they clear every like jewel from the board, no match necessary. When swapped with another power jewel, they clear the entire screen! I especially enjoyed saving those for the locked screen challenges at the end of levels.

Writing it all out makes Microsoft Jewel 2 feel pretty well-featured, and while it is unquestionably a balanced game that is fun to play for a bit, it just doesn't do anything to make it stand out in my mind. I enjoyed that the levels system gave me something to work towards other than a high score, but it only took a couple of resets for me to feel like that progress wasn't actually getting me anywhere. Ultimately, Microsoft Jewel 2 was perfect as a reward-point-earning time waster, but I don't think it has the legs to stand on its own in the ever-growing sea of match-3 puzzle games.

The game is available online here (as of 1/15/24): https://zone.msn.com/en/msjewelnew/default.htm

The game is available for Android here (as of 1/15/24): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.xboxone.smartglass&hl=en_US&gl=US&pli=1

The game is available for iOS here (as of 1/15/24): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/xbox/id736179781