Expert tips for fast progress in Pokémon Café Mix
Get through those tough stages easily with our tips for this puzzler
Hey, look on the bright side, I could be here to talk about Pokémon Smile, the slightly terrifying tooth-brushing AR game. Instead we're here to talk puzzle games, which is much harder to complain about.
Pokémon Café Mix is a brand new puzzle game where you match up heads of Pokémon, and somehow come out the other end with a variety of drinks, snacks, and happy customers. I don't understand the logistics, but I'll suspend my disbelief.
This is the first time I've been inside of a café since the dawn of a global pandemic, and Pokémon Café Mix is a very, very cute and lighthearted puzzler which will eat up your time just because of how sweet it can be. Hopefully the snacks are sweet too.
In this guide we're going to give you the run down on how to take out some of the more difficult stages that appear later on, so read through below to quickly slam through the early stages of the game, and tackle those late stages with skill.
Oh, and if your game is playing in Japanese… Well I don't know what the fix is for that right now, but believe me I'll let you know when I have one.
1
Breaking down barriers
Pokémon Café Mix isn't actually about mixing things, it's about breaking through blocks of sugar cubes and whipping through globs of whipped cream. To do this, you simply join Pokémon heads together.
Most stages will require you to break cubes and other items. Cubes don't move, while whipped cream does. All you really need to is connect a bunch of Pokémon heads, and attempt to wrap them around whatever you must break.
Pokémon heads connect with a strange sticky mucus, and you can use this to wrap a string of Pokémon around an item. Most items will require you to link many Pokémon heads, and break them while they touch whatever you're attempting to clear multiple times.
2
Mixing thoroughly
What's nice about the games mechanics here is that it allows you to mix up what you start with easily enough. What I mean is that you might start with a very uniform layout, but you can quickly change that.
Brush your finger around hard enough, and yes, you will mix around all of the icons on your field. This is good for trying to group together cream or tomatoes, which are more heavily dependent on where they move to and fall in the stage.
But before you mix, you should look carefully. It might be easier to get all of the cream if you keep it together, for example, and therefore you should carefully assess your best move before you make your first move.
3
Abilities
Ahh yes, your abilities, limited items that can mean all the difference when trying to clear the trickier stages in the game.
Abilities work here like they do in many puzzle games of this type, you get to clear a row or a column of icons, or make an explosive to clear through multiple, and so on.
You should save these for when you need them most. When there's an awkward line up of cream to get rid of, or perhaps if a cube is blocked off behind a wall you can't reach.
4
Tight spaces
The trickiest part of the game is the tight spaces that you will sometimes find yourself in. Cream, cubes, and other targets will be hidden away through a tight gap, or behind two solid walls.
This will make it harder for the falling Pokémon icons to penetrate through for you to link them up. To get to them, you will want to either use the special icons that drop after you make large connections, or use the limited abilities, in a last-case scenario.
You can of course attempt to drag icons into tight spaces to make the most of them, but this isn't always the best idea. Use your own discretion, and don't use a limited ability unless you're certain it'll help you win.
Oh, final tip, don't bother using the continue option in exchange for gold acorns unless it's a very tough stage and you can definitely clear it with one or two more moves.
