The iPhone App Review : iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad App News & Reviews

Price: 2.99    Score: 9/10    By Daniel Bischoff

Paradise Monkeys is a fun and colorful game from Vetasoft. It offers several play modes – story, time mode, as well as mini games you can play on the side. Story mode presents you with several challenges leading up to boss battles, while time mode entails trying to score as many points as you can within the time limit. These modes are obviously pretty self-explanatory, but the charm of Paradise Monkeys offers lies in the gameplay and graphics.

Obviously with a title like Paradise Monkeys, the graphics are tropical, colorful, and very kid friendly. Some monkeys are pink, some gold, and some are more traditional colors – I suppose that is if you consider a traditional color for a monkey to be red, blue, or green.

Paradise Monkeys has the player tapping monkeys as they pop up, sort of like Whack-a-mole, but after each successful round of tapping, story mode will add new challenges. Some monkeys will hold up signs that tell the player not to tap them, some monkeys will hold up bombs and you can’t tap them until they’ve dropped the bomb. Some monkeys drop coins, hearts, or a random drop.

The coins are counted up and tallied after a successful round. You can enter the shop to buy more hearts, which basically act as hit points, should you tap on a monkey that you shouldn’t have. You can also buy power rings so that some monkeys (who need to be tapped twice or more) only need to be tapped once. You can also buy the mini games in the shop after accruing enough coins.

The shop adds a little depth to a game that is actually pretty basic. You’ll have fun clearing levels, but certain elements seem a little out of order. For example, story mode adds gold monkeys that drop coins when you tap them before it adds pink monkeys that drop hit points when you tap them. If you can’t clear the level because you’re running out of hit points, how will you get enough coins to buy extra life or power rings?

Paradise Monkeys has great tap accuracy and sharp colorful graphics. Tapping is responsive and if you are challenged you know that it’s the level of play you’re at and not glitches or bugs in the game.

In the end, Paradise Monkeys is fun – quick and shallow – and doesn’t require a lot of thinking. It’s a great game to have on your phone for a younger child to play or if you just want a time waster that’ll wear your fingers down.

Paradise Monkeys is compatible with the iPhone and iPod Touch.  It requires iPhone OS 2.2.1 of later.