Other objectives include clearing specific columns to crush towers. Occasionally you'll need to bust through gates or bump off bosses in order to progress, and you'll have to ensure that you're matching gems within designated boundaries in order to do this. You will lose villagers as you progress, so you can either deploy medical kits – which, again, can be purchased using gold coins – to resurrect your weary heroes, or simply bank on matching enough plain gems to bring them back to life. This is where cascade combos come in, with matches of four or more resulting in the creation of super gems, which help clear out the grid. Her body flops are extremely powerful, so you'll need to make sure that you keep her sweet with sugary treats, while also ensuring that your villagers are performing a steady string of attacks, too.

The goal of each level is to guide the titular princess to the throne at the end of the stage, and she can join in on the action if you feed her enough cake. You'll need to use these abilities carefully to off enemy assaults. There are four character classes each based upon the villager hats from the PlayStation 3 game, with the worker, for example, wielding bombs and the priest acting as a healer. Gems represent different heroes, which when matched will carry out unique attacks. It's these issues that will eventually result in you revolting against the game, which is a shame, because what developer One Loop has actually produced is great. This seems steep for what the game actually is, and while you can earn additional coins via end-of-level slot machines, you'll need to gamble with the few that you actually have in order to do so. It'll cost you £0.59/$0.99 for eight gold coins, which will score you a grand total of four retries – but you'll need to pay up to £15.49/$24.99 to turn off the obtrusive system entirely. This would be fine if you didn't need access to the crown jewels to be able to pay the package's ransom.

Fat princess piece of cake vita review