After three years since the game’s launch, Fruit Ninja has become one of the most popular games on mobile devices with over 300 million downloads. Now the game has come to Vita, and while everything is there, the price is way too high and the presentation could’ve used a boost.
The object of Fruit Ninja is pretty self-explanatory. You swipe the fruit on the touch screen and you get points. There are a few different modes such as “Classic” which will end your game after you miss three fruit or hit a bomb, “Zen Mode” where you have to slice as many fruit in 90 seconds as you can, “Arcade” where in 60 seconds you can slice bananas to get limited boosts like doubling score, slow motion, etc., and “Online” where you battle against another player to rack up the most points.
Fruit Ninja is still a blast to play after years of playing it on my iPhone. Racking up major points, getting combos, and annihilating a poor gamer in multiplayer is satisfying and will keep me coming back. The Vita version is just as responsive and feels great. The bigger screen is a plus but I wish that Halfbrick didn’t just take the iPhone version and just pop it onto Vita because the screen is a little stretched out (Jetpack Joyride had a similar fate when it came to Vita earlier this year).
Another thing Jetpack Joyride did better was price. It was free to play but you can purchase micro-transactions to get coins and what not. Fruit Ninja has micro-transactions in the form of Starfruit which is rewarded after every single-player game and can be used for “Bomb Deflects,” “Berry Blasts” (“Strawberries will explode when you slice them, and are worth 5 points!”), and “Peachy Times” (“Peaches will give you extra time in Arcade and Zen Mode”). It’s a neat system but I refuse to give the game another dime as the game costs $8 versus the iPhone version which is $1. It’s cheap and it really sucks.
THE VERDICT
There’s not a whole lot to talk about Fruit Ninja on Vita as the game is mostly the same. All the modes, blades, and backgrounds are there and the game plays great. It’s a shame the price is 8x as much as iPhone and not much effort was put into the presentation as the screen is stretched out a bit, but it’s Fruit Ninja, and it’s still a lot of fun.
For reviews and more from me, Petey Oneto, you can check out my blog but be sure to check back to Resident Entertainment for more of my posts in the future.
