Line #31 YMMV/CandyCrushSaga


1	* AnnoyingVideoGameHelper:
2	** At any point in the game, if you leave it idling for too long, it will point out possible switches for you. That can be pretty annoying when you're trying to plot your own switches.
3	** If you're having a tough time on a particularly difficult level, before you try that level again, it will likely pop up randomly with a message saying that you must be having trouble with that level and offering a powerup tip in exchange for--you guessed it!--real money! That can be even more annoying, especially if you don't want to spend any money and just want to try (and not succeed) again. Sometimes, it just offers a random item that isn't even relevant to the level you're struggling in--like it'll ask you if you want to buy a Bubblegum Troll (temporarily stalls Chocolate Spawners) in a level where Chocolate Spawners aren't causing you trouble and something like Bombs or Licorice is.
4	* ArchivePanic: By Fall 2023, the game has over 15,000 levels (''1000 episodes'') and counting and has been releasing new levels for over 10 years.
5	* AudienceAlienatingEra:
6	** The period of time between Fall 2013 and Spring 2014 (especially after Level 500 was released). There was a ''ten-week gap'' between episodes 34 and 35 alone, several months went by with absolutely no new features whatsoever, very few episodes were released and the bulk of the developer's efforts were spent on Dreamworld, a feature that ended up being discontinued less than a year and a half after it was introduced. Fortunately, things started to improve in Spring and Summer of 2014, with episodes being released weekly and new features being introduced every few episodes or so from then on.
7	** Since 2020, the maps have been redesigned to reuse the same 10 episode names and characters ad nauseum, which generated this reaction from players, due to them feeling that most of the fun and uniqueness of the game had been sucked out. On the upside, this is also the year that introduced the new Rainbow Rapids levels.
8	** 2022, despite being the game's [[MilestoneCelebration 10th anniversary]] (and extensively advertised as such), got hit with this hard. The levels had reached the point where they were just plain unfair, unnecessary changes that made the game less fun to play were made (such as changing the music and forcing people to play in portrait mode, even on the desktop version), several events were removed to make way for more monotonous ones, and there was a severe lack of new features. Only the Wonderful Wrapper, Magic Shuffler, and Countdown Crystal were introduced, and the latter two were A) merely redesigned versions of old elements (the shuffle booster and Candy Bombs, respectively), B) they were never officially introduced, only appearing in some people's games and/or in earlier levels, and C) both of them were eventually removed anyway, leaving the Wonderful Wrapper as the only truly new feature to be introduced in the ''entire year'' (and even then, it was introduced in March, meaning that people who never got to experience the Magic Shuffler or the Countdown Crystal went the entire rest of the year (and some of next year as well) with nothing new whatsoever, on top of the unwelcome changes, notorious levels, and favorite events being removed).
9	** 2023 continues the trend, with the drought of no (proper) new features continuing on with seemingly no end in sight until November and another map revamp that was received even more poorly than the one in 2020, due to a much more cramped design and even less episode names (half of which now match the very first four episodes of the game[[note]]Candy Town, Candy Factory, Lemonade Lake, and Chocolate Mountain(s)[[/note]], despite there being nearly 500 different episode names to choose from). The final nail in the coffin for a lot of people was when the major milestone Episode 1000 released...and the only thing King did to celebrate it was host an event[[note]]events having become a dime a dozen since around the early 2020s and having no impact on level-to-level gameplay, instead being focused on collecting candies and beating levels for boosters and (rarely) gold bars, with the occasional case of a candy changing shape for seasonal events (such as orange candies being changed into pumpkins around Halloween), though the candies behave exactly the same[[/note]] where players could collect 15000 blue candies for a free party popper booster. Nothing that had any real bearing on the actual gameplay, no new features, or anything of the sort (in fact, Episode 1000 even has a reused name). Thankfully, the introduction of the Gumball Machine in November means that the point where new blockers have been stopped being made entirely hasn't come around just yet, meaning there's still some hope for the future.
10	* BreatherLevel:
11	** The world "Crunchy Castle" has a bunch of pretty easy levels along with a gimmick that's easy to get around, which is a dispenser that drops licorice. Its sister world, "Holiday Hut", however, introduces the Bomb variety.
12	** Candy Clouds, in spite of introducing 5-layer meringue blocks, is a relatively easy area that keeps the number of meringue blocks and jellies underneath them at a manageable level, especially when compared to the bomb dispenser-riddled Holiday Hut and the giant meringue stack-loving Jelly Jungle, the two areas it's sandwiched between.
13	** The last levels in an area are usually the harder ones, but that's not the case for the last level in "Licorice Tower", which is considered very easy compared to the rest of the area, especially the SECOND level. What level is it? You have to take ingredients down ... and it basically gives you two paths - one with two-layered Meringue blocks and one with Licorice ... and this Licorice doesn't respawn either.
14	** Level 587 is considered a major breather level, especially in the world its on. It is an Ingredient Level, but the main challenge is trying to waste moves trying to get two Ingredients down from some portals to the bottom of the level. You can make a lot of Colorbombs and Striped Candies with this one, so have at it.
15	** The levels that introduce new features tend to be much easier, acting as a [[TutorialLevel tutorial]] for the new feature, with some even having an automatic walkthrough on your first attempt.
16	* BrokenBase: The Daily Booster Wheel. There are people who like the addition of the Daily Booster Wheel and how it can give an item that can help with the game. However, there are people who complain that it is rigged and it never gives them Jackpots (if a jackpot was hit, the player would get three of every item).
17	* DemonicSpiders:
18	** Chocolate Spawners cannot be removed and spawn chocolate which swallows any candy in its vicinity. Dark Chocolate Spawners are basically the same, except worse, since they spawn dark chocolate (which has up to three layers).
19	** Licorice Swirls have the ability to stop stripe candies, making even stripe candy combos (including the ungodly striped candy + color bomb combo) almost worthless against them. Licorice Generators are even worse.
20	** Bomb Generators turn Bombs into these. Thought the bombs were a minor worry before? Well these things will make the game a whole lot harder than it already is.
21	** Toffee Tornados introduced in Soda Swamp. They constantly regenerate and can screw up with Orders - especially the fact that the episode that they're introduced in features A LOT of Order levels, particularly the ones that require you to mix two particular special candies together--without getting hit by one of these tornados.
22	** ''Soda Saga'' introduces the white chocolate, which is similar to chocolates, only they have 2 layers and will generate two blocks of itself if you use up a round without destroying any of the pieces.
23	** [[MookMaker Magic Mixers]], which can spawn various blockers every few moves until destroyed. They take five hits to destroy and can be hard to reach with all the blockers surrounding them.
24	** Liquorice Candy Canes combine MadeOfIndestructium with the ability to NoSell all special candy effects. If a tile is encased by them, anything in that tile becomes NighInvulnerable.
25	* DifficultySpike: You may be meandering along the levels, having completed four or five levels in a row quite easily. You might even be passing the 'Hard' levels in one or two turns. And suddenly along comes a level that has an obscene time limit or a crippling number of moves, and it's not even called Hard. [[SchizophrenicDifficulty And then, for no reason, it gets easy again.]]
26	* FanonDiscontinuity: Because the game has been running for over a decade, with more and more disliked changes being made, a lack of new features, and levels that are next to impossible without boosters being the norm, plenty of fans are calling it quits with the game and declaring certain levels and episodes as the "true" end of the game and ignoring everything else beyond it.
27	** Episode 189 (Peppermint Portal), the final episode of Flash version, was released in October 2017. For many, it was the last episode, with all of the [=HTML5=] episodes being a fever dream.
28	** Episode 500, released in Summer 2020, was also seen as a good place to stop, since it ended at a nice round number, and it was the point where episode names began to be reused in an endless loop as of Episode 489, meaning that, as of Episode 498, all 10 names in the loop had been used once, leaving the final two episodes as a two-part finale of sorts.
29	** Milestone Meadow, released August 2021, around the time when Moves Levels were done away with, and the episode with the major milestone Level 10000, would serve as a finale for a lot of players because of said milestone.
30	** Episode 765, released on the same day that the Wonderful Wrapper, the final blocker of the game until late 2023 (and what was believed to be the final blocker to ''ever'' be released), was introduced, and the last episode playable on King's website before it pulled the plug. It was almost like King was saying "This is where we get off".
31	** When Episode 1000 released on September 13, 2023, it served as the last ever episode for a lot of people, due to it being a nice round number, over a decade after the game started, and well over a year after the final blocker was introduced, as well as having no new features despite being a major milestone, no special in-game event to celebrate it, or even a unique name.
32	* FanNickname: Even though the proper/real/full name is 'Candy Crush Saga', most fans just call it 'Candy Crush'.
33	* FridgeBrilliance: The effect of swapping two special candies actually blends the natures of the special candies into one. A striped plus a wrapped has the row/column nature of a striped candy and the 3x3-square and dual (vertical AND horizontal) nature of the wrapped candy[[note]]The "dual nature" of a wrapped candy being the fact that it explodes twice[[/note]]. A striped plus a color bomb has the "all candies of a single color" nature of the color bomb as well as the row/column nature of the striped candy. A wrapped plus a color bomb eliminates all candies of a single color, just as the lone color bomb does, and it has another "dual nature" of the wrapped candy: it clears the board of ''two'' colors of candy. Matching two special candies of the same kind simply amplifies its effect to some extent.
34	* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: Candy Crush Saga is ranked No. 1 in Japan.
35	* GoddamnBats:
36	** Chocolate. Easy to destroy on its own, very troublesome when it begins to overflow the board (and swallow any special candy in its vicinity if you're not careful).
37	** Toffee swirls (formerly waffles), particularly when they spawn from cannons. In some levels, you can destroy waves of them, only for another barrage to come cascading down. Unlike liquorice swirls, which can be prevented from spawning the next turn if you make a match next to them, toffee swirls always spawn the next turn. This makes some levels a pain when the only jelly square or rainbow candy path is perpetually blocked from being cleared by a mobile blocker that comes back as fast as you can destroy it.
38	* MemeticMutation: Some particularly frustrating levels in the game's early days (especially 65 and 147) attracted memetic infamy because ''everyone'' was stuck on them.
39	** Level 252. Prior to the removal of timed levels, this level could be played ''infinitely,'' and players could get scores in the ''billions'' with sufficient patience.
40	* SugarWiki/MostWonderfulSound:
41	** The combination of a Colorbomb and a Wrapped Candy make a pretty awesome sound.
42	** The "Divine" sounds, along with the Colorbomb and Wrapped Candy sounds, are good to listen to.
43	** The sound of a Wrapped Candy/Striped Candy combination. The deep piano chord followed by two deep swooshes is always fun to hear.
44	* ObscurePopularity: Despite being one of the most downloaded mobile games out there, people seldom actually discuss ''Candy Crush Saga''.
45	* OlderThanTheyThink: ''Candy Crush Saga'' actually wasn't the first match-3 game with candies. The original ''Bejeweled'' had a DolledUpInstallment called ''Sweet Tooth To Go'' released in 2004 that replaced the gems with candies.
46	* PortingDisaster: The ambitious in idea but terrible in execution game show version of ''Candy Crush''. Sure, make a huge pair of touchscreen arrays out of giant monitors. That's awesome... but here's the thing. It was ''too'' big, and no one could even ''see'' what they were doing on the screens. Each individual monitor was about as big as face level and had only two pieces of candy displayed at a time, giving almost every player a severe case of tunnel vision as they literally could not make out the game board and blindly moved pieces of candy around with their partners often screaming incoherently and making it even worse of an ordeal. If that wasn't bad enough, Mario Lopez contributed very little to the production in terms of personality, with no snark or wit to be had; his commentary was lukewarm at best, phoned in and forced at other times and likely contractually obligated not to diss the obvious flaws lest it make the brand name look bad. At its worst, what he said could be utterly dull and nervous as he struggled to come up with things to say while contestants repeatedly and painfully made stupid mistakes and played at a level substantially worse than professional ''CC'' players, even the veterans themselves, resulting in a show which quickly flagged in ratings and didn't get another season.
47	* {{Retcon}}: The dragon from Lemonade Lake was initially male and unable to breathe fire from drinking lemonade. After the same dragon appears to show up inexplicably able to breathe fire, and later identified as female going by the name Denize, many fans indifferently decided to resolve the ensuing continuity issue plainly by retconning the character's gender and ability to breathe fire.
48	* TheScrappy: Thanks to the ScrappyMechanic of the moon balance system in the dreamworld levels, Odus is considered one of the most hated character in the games, especially since he makes annoying panicked noises when he's about to fall.
49	* ScrappyMechanic:
50	** Spending your ''real money'' on powerups and life refills. If you don't have any lives, you have to wait 30 minutes to get another life, or 2 and-a-half hours to get all of your five lives back. You can't increase your max lives either.[[note]]It used to be possible by buying the Charm of Lives... for ''$17'' in real money. It only increased your max lives from five to eight, and regaining a single life ''still'' took 30 minutes.[[/note]] Unlocking later levels costs money too. 30 cents isn't too bad, though.
51	** The Conveyor Belts, introduced in Sticky Savannah, are annoying and tricky, and the levels that usually feature them are littered with bombs that are hard enough to get rid of. And what's worse? The Bombs will explode before the Conveyor Belt moves--meaning that ''if'' the Bombs were to possibly be taken out by luck of the Conveyor Belt, it wouldn't happen. Not as hated as the Toffee Tornado, but still an annoying obstacle.
52	** Every Dreamworld level features the annoying moon scale, which forces you to get two different candy colours in roughly equal quantities, or else you'll fail the level. It's entirely possible for a single unrelated combo to rapidly make several chains of one of them, resulting in Odus falling off and you losing the level due to pure dumb luck. The unpopularity of this mechanic may have contributed to the Dreamworld being discontinued in May 2015 and removed altogether two years later.
53	** Despite only appearing in 27 levels in Reality and 18 in Dreamworld, Toffee Tornadoes were one of the most hated blockers in the game. In their original form, they couldn't be matched with anything, couldn't be removed -- not even temporarily -- in ''any'' way, moved to another random tile and destroyed the candy on it after each move, and left its original tile cracked (thus useless) for a move. They essentially only existed to screw you over by randomly denying you the chance to make certain matches, and made certain levels almost impossible unless you got very lucky. It didn't help that the candies they destroyed affected the moon scale in the web version if the game. Even ''three'' nerfs to make them more tolerable couldn't rescue them from the scrappy heap, and they were eventually removed entirely from the standard game with pretty much no one mourning them.
54	** '''Any''' of the versus levels in ''Jelly Saga''. Because the moves are limited, it's not uncommon for a game to end where you needed one more point to win. But because you ran out of moves, the game claims victory, even when it has next to no points. It doesn't help that each of the opponents you face have a ''very'' smug grin on their face when this happens.
55	* ShockingMoments: The surprise reveal of a new blocker (the Gumball Machine) in November 2023 came as a shock to many fans who had all but given up hope that another blocker would ever be introduced again, since most of 2022 and 2023 went by with nothing new to their name in spite of being the game's 10th anniversary and release year of the 1000th episode, respectively (in addition to several elements being removed and/or replaced).
56	* SurpriseDifficulty: A cutesy candy game with nice visuals and such. Seems fun and easy to play, right? NO.
57	** Jelly Levels involving clearing the corner pieces. Doesn't seem too bad, right? Think again. And if that jelly is on the upper corners... [[LuckBasedMission well, good luck. You'll need it.]]
58	** Any level having to do with a Mystery Candy. Sure, they can give you beneficial candies (Like Colorbombs) and even candies unavailable without purchasing them (Jelly Fish and Coconut Wheel), but sure... some of the things that can come out from a Mystery Candy include Licorice, 5-layered meringue blocks, bombs (Some which are set to 5 turns), and the worst one of all ... ''chocolate spawners''.
59	* SuspiciouslySimilarSong: The main theme sounds very similar to "If I Fell" by Music/TheBeatles.
60	* ThatOneDisadvantage: The whole BribingYourWayToVictory deal is the one thing that turns people away from the game, especially the app players.
61	** In timed levels, the timer won't wait for you, even if candy is slowly dropping from portals or a Wrapped Candy is waiting to go off (you can't move during those periods). That itself can waste about 30 seconds.
62	** In the Dreamworld levels, Odus and the Moon can screw you over worse than the bombs... putting you in a disadvantage on which candies you should and should not set off. Getting that Colorbomb ready, and then realizing that the color you used is a color that is making Odus fall down? You lose a life!
63	* ThatOnePuzzle:
64	** Some levels don't let you clear jellies the conventional way. You have to actually find a striped candy (that fires in the direction you hope it does) or a certain item combo. Portal missions also get really confusing.
65	** There's a level later on that involves trying to clear a bunch of 3 and 4 layer icing blocks to bring down two ingredients. You better hope the Striped Candies are horizontal...
66	** Some Candy Order Levels require you to get...
67	*** A: A color that doesn't spawn in the level. Lucky Candies that appear in the level by default are required to spawn them.
68	*** B: A blocker (such as chocolate or licorice) that seldom spawns on the board (if at all). Lucky Candies may or may not be required, and the chocolate spawner may go from your worst enemy to a HelpfulMook... If there even is one at all. If there isn't, and you remove all the chocolate before getting the required amount (or if you accidentally... [[UnwinnableByDesign well...]]
69	*** C: A ''combination'' of special candies where one or both candies cannot be created normally due to the shape of the board. Lucky Candies are required ''unless'' the game gives them to you at the start... but that generally means Lucky Candies won't spawn, potentially making the level UnwinnableByDesign if you get unlucky.
70	*** D: A blocker or blockers that don't spawn ''at all,'' except from a magic mixer. [[UnwinnableByDesign Again, if you accidentally destroy it...]]
71	* TheyChangedItNowItSucks:
72	** The game has being suffering from this heavily since around Spring 2020. Various elements (including some which have been around since the game was first released) have been either removed or given a different appearance that makes them indistinguishable from what they used to be. Other elements haven't been removed but [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome have simply stopped being included in later levels]], including moves levels (an ''entire level type''). Worse, new episode names and backgrounds have stopped being made and each episode now has the name and background of a previous episode, when each episode (with a few exceptions) had a unique background, story, name and supporting character not so long ago.
73	** Whenever an element gets redesigned, there will be a section of the fanbase that misses the old design.
74	** The change to the lives system, in which players can only accept up to 20 lives a day from friends, was about as happily received as a kick in the nuts.
75	* UnderusedGameMechanic: Extra Moves Candies, which give you three extra moves when destroyed. They are an innovative game mechanic that could greatly alter how you play the game (one level where they appear starts with ''one'' move, and the idea of the level is to keep collecting them to survive, while also trying to fulfil the objective), but they only appeared in a few levels before being removed.
76	* ViewerGenderConfusion:
77	** Odus's gender was a subject of debate for several months before the developers confirmed him to be male.
78	** There is a dragon in Lemonade Lake who is identified as male and has lost the ability to breathe fire after drinking from the lake. In Fudge Islands, the dragon appears again and can breathe fire, and is later revealed to be female, going by the name Denize, confusing players. However, one plausible explanation for this is that Denize ''isn't'' the dragon at Lemonade Lake, meaning that she could always breathe fire because she never drank from the lake in the first place.

Context YMMV / CandyCrushSaga