Tl;dr: make 3 combos less punishing or remove timer from arcade. It's fine in story
I honestly feel getting combos of 3 mean literal nothing and there just isn't enough time to figure out combos larger then that cause if you stop making any combos for even a brief moment it gets highly punished. If the puzzles were like hunie pop where you can move it in the same column or row from one side to the other that would make it easier with current constraints.
The other issue I feel comes from the sometimes the clicking on an item in it doesn't register and I know it ain't my mouse cause this isn't an issue in anything else I do.
Another thought you could do and dunno how this work is instead of time based it be turn based and you get extra turns for 4 combos or better. These are just random thoughts I had while writing this honestly.
The farthest I have managed to get is stage 5 once while majority my attempts are stage 1 or 2. I've only got to stage 3 like 5-6 times and stage 4 like twice out of a 4 hour time play.