App review: Tap Tap Revenge 3

review by Christine Chan


As far as iPhone music rhythm games goes, Tapulous knows how to do it right, and has done so since the very first Tap Tap Revenge game. Now on its third iteration, Tapulous has raised the bar for music games on the iPhone.

If you’ve played any of the first two Tap Tap Revenge games, or any of the band specific ones, then you are familiar with the gameplay. Simply tap to the beat of the song – keep a streak going and you’ll end up with a high multiplier, and you’ll be able to activate “Revenge” mode which doubles your multiplier and therefore, your score. This formula has made the game what it is since the first version, and it has worked very well.

Tap Tap Revenge 3 keeps the gorgeous visuals and graphics that Tapulous has had since the original. For the most part, the game has a pre-skin that you’ll see in most songs when playing, but there are some songs that will have their own theme, which add more uniqueness to the game. However, some themes, like Coldplay, actually have so much gorgeous visuals that it may overload the device, causing it to lag at some parts. So if that’s the case, don’t expect perfect scores every time – there will most likely be at least one beat missed with such stunning visuals taking over the screen.

You can play through songs sorted out by Kids, Easy, Medium, Hard, or Extreme difficulties. Quick play will let you play a 90-second segment of a random song, which gives you a sample of the track and a pick-up-put-down experience. There is also 2-player mode, which lets you share the device between two people and play on both ends of the screen. Playing songs will earn your character experience for levels and coins to buy avatar items.

The real fun comes in playing online, where you can play in a room with several other people and battle to come out on top in rankings. While tapping along to the song’s beat, you can earn weapons that can be used to your advantage as they do their part to mess up opponents. If you are in one of the top rankings, more coins and experience will be gained for your character.

You can chat with other people while waiting for games to begin, and add them as friends (amongst other friends that you already knew play the game), and even send messages to them in the game. There is even a separate chat room option if you just want to chat with people. The multiplayer experience is rich in this game.

With the coins you gather after all of your hard work, you can buy items for your avatar in the Tap Tap Store with them. I guess if decking out your pixelated you is important, then you’ll have a field day with this. But the Tap Tap Store does not just contain little pixelated for your little pixelated avatar, there are also song packs to purchase.

Since Tap Tap Revenge 3 came out before Apple decided to let free apps have in-app purchases, TTR 3 is a mere .99 out of your wallet. But you may find your money going toward more TTR 3 in the form of song-bundles and mini-albums. The Tap Tap Store will have a slew of songs from popular bands, and it’s pretty much guaranteed that anyone that gets this game will buy at least one or two song bundles with their favorite band’s songs.

Now, what happens if you have to restore your device and lost all the data in the game? Don’t worry, since it’s going to be linked to a Tapulous account, you’ll keep all your character items and levels, experience, and coins. You can also restore purchased tracks as well, so no need to have to buy them all over again.

Tapulous knows what they’re doing in the iPhone music game industry. Perhaps in an update they can allow users to import songs from the band-specific games like one is able to in Tap Tap Revenge 2.6. But even without that, if Tap Tap Revenge 3 is the only TTR game one person has, it’s still great on its own.

Tap Tap Revenge is available for 99 cents in the App Store.