To be perfectly honest, when I was approached to review Azkend I wasn't keen. It's essentially a casual colour matcher that didn't appear to offer anything new - in fact it's actually the iPhone version of an existing pc game of the same name (which I haven't played).
All you have to do is match 3 or more of each tile by drawing a line between the tiles - and in the process turn all the tiles from gold to blue. So far, the same as many others in the genre.
Where Azkend is different is in its implementation on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Using your fingers to join the tiles adds an immediacy and sense of connection that can be lost in mouse based PC equivalents. It also adds a simple pick up and play feel that I think could only really be matched by playing the game on the DS.
Aesthetically Azkend is similar to many similar games on the PC but I haven't seen games like it on Apples portable devices (but then I haven't played many iPod Touch games either..!). It has an Oriental theme and this is carried through in the basic story and artwork. The story itself is quite simple, and I didn't pay any real attention to it.
I said above that I haven't played many iPhone games, but those I have played have been very short - few offer more than 7/8 levels and most can be finished very quickly. I guess that's what you get for charging so little for electronic entertainment but this felt less of a problem with Azkend. The final game statistics said I completed the story mode in just short of 4 hours, and it felt like it ended at the right time. There's still another game mode for me to play through so I am rather pleased with what I got for my money jogos do mario bros.
As iPhone and iPod Touch games go Azkend is quite surprisingly good. I am not a fan of the platform for games but in this case it works very well and I would have no problem recommending it to anyone who enjoys similar colour matchers (such as Bejewelled and Chuzzle).
