Probably categorized as a "play-to-win" game and incredibly addictive. It affected my sleep health to the point where I couldn't sleep. I never spent actual money on it, but the game constantly encourages you to keep playing. In order to obtain characters you don't have, you have to gamble in the gacha system and run the risk of getting a repeat. Additionally, you need to have quick reactions and good techniques. I found myself constantly waiting for lives to replenish, playing non-stop, and feeling my heart rate elevated to an uncomfortable level and it did something to my body to make me unable to sleep.

10 years. I can never escape you.

Mobile games are hard for me to figure out. The reverse tactility of using your finger on a screen feels repulsive to me. I can't wrap my head around a game having tens of thousands of levels of incrementing difficulty to attempt retainment (Candy Crush, Dr. Mario World, Sailor Moon Drops, etc.). I shouldn't have to comment on microtransactions, either, and that goes double for gacha.

Disney Tsum Tsum, with all of its mobile gaming sins in the form of its wicked multicurrency rewards given at pittances, gacha-centered progression married with seasonal FOMO, and scoring that grows with lifetime multiplier gains is the most potent witches' brew of everything I should hate about it. And yet, for almost 10 years now, this hasn't been the case. Rain or shine, through sickness and health, I always end up re-installing Disney Tsum Tsum every now and then.

To disclaim, everything I like about Disney Tsum Tsum is in spite of the sins it commits, and I've learned very early you can rarely engage with them. Despite everything it throws at you to tempt you to gold out and spin its plentiful wheels of pitiful prizes for a king’s ransom, I’ve easily found my fun at this carnival purely within its ballpit, away from the raffles.

Every round, a 60-second burst of honing pattern-seeking and reflex training. A physics-based Match Three or More that begs, no, demands a peak performance response time from your sight to your motors. The visuals are cute, the sound design addictive, its responsiveness practically perfect. Every pop of a combo bubble, every bling-boom of a Fever, the blips building your chain, the explosive rising chimes on release-

I find it all to be a rush, genuinely exhilarating, and not in the unhealthy gratuitous here-is-your-big-number games I find the state of most mobile (and otherwise) games today. I've no need to crank its gachapon wheels or shill out my allowance of tokens for upgrades; I've found my fun in just the act of playing itself, the rare indulgence of trying a spin or two if just to burn some of my dragon's hoard of accumulated free currency. You're tempted to play weekly bingo challenge cards so you can earn enough crumbs to try for the 0.01% Disney 100 Premium Tsum. I'm tempted to beat my Weekly, Monthly, or even All-Time score, for nothing more than the gratification of doing so. It doesn't seem like it at first glance, with what its ugly constant barrage of event and challenge notifications on every screen, but Disney Tsum Tsum will let you play either way, and that's good. I don't need or want to collect. I'm here to pop Tsums.

Removed from all that makes you and I wroth, Disney Tsum Tsum, even after 10 years, still stands as an excellent arcade score attack game, and its insistence on player skill with its gratuitousness pushed to the side only shows the effectiveness of its personal lasting power for me.