Upon booting up Candy Match 3, there was a shiver sent down my spine. There is no music here and players see just three options on the touchscreen of the Nintendo 3DS. The fact that there are more marketing lads than programmers in the credits tells you more than you would want to know.

Candy Match 3 is the most cynical of all the match three games I have ever played. Yes, a major amount of them follow the same path and don't do much to be different, but Candy Match 3 really takes the crown in that regard. There is just single lengthy marathon mode on a single board that does not change in the slightest.

The game is full of flaws and does little to stand out. Instead, it finds itself proudly standing behind a barrage of old concepts, which Candy Crush in particular has done far better. You swap around some rough looking candies in seven colors and try to clear them from the screen by making lines of three or more. By matching enough candies, special candies will appear that can remove these rough looking shapes in other ways.

By scoring enough points by swapping said candies, you will reach new levels in which harder patterns of candies appear. There is very little change and it quickly becomes boring. You want to make great and gigantic combos, but with the timer this is largely discouraged. It wants you to keep making quick and dirty combinations, which becomes saddening after a little while. When you are done, you can upload to a local leaderboard or the Nintendo 3DS version of Miiverse if you so desire. Online leaderboards would have made it slightly better, because the hassle of sharing those scores is simply not worth your time.

With just some simple sound effects, the theme has to do a lot to make it worth your while. Sadly, there are just a few static images in lieu of an actual visual aesthetic. At least, it looks colorful, but that can't really save it from being an abysmal product. The graphics are pixelated and look terrible on the 3DS.

Candy Match 3 is a blatant ripoff that has no right to be on the eShop. It rips off way better games like Pokémon Link: Battle and Bejeweled Blitz and thinks it can get away with it. I want to remind you that this is not only sold through the Nintendo eShop, but also sold in stores as a budget product. With just one gameplay mode, which functions, Candy Match 3 is one of the more uninspiring offerings in the Nintendo 3DS library.