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Puzzle Quest

When Puzzle Quest first appeared on the PC (in demo form) roughly a half a year ago, and later on the DS and PSP, it became a surprise hit, with inventive gameplay appealing to both casual and veteran gamers alike. It’s a game that can be played for brief periods of time or hours on end, and even has some room for competitive play online. Naturally, all these factors combine to create a game that is absolutely ideal for Xbox Live Arcade.

Let me begin by saying that I despise Bejeweled, on which the puzzle mechanics of this game are based. In my mind, Bejeweled ranks up there with Columns as one of the most inane puzzle games of all time, with players generally snagging chains and combos due to pure luck and accident just as often as skill. What’s more, viewed as a pure RPG, Puzzle Quest would look outright antiquated, with graphics and presentation far inferior to the standard set by Square Enix or even more niche RPG-makers like Atlus and Nippon Ichi. What’s more, the story is hopelessly generic, and exploration limited to clicking locations on an overworld map.

If either of these elements was here on its own, this would be a very poor game indeed, yet somehow the combination of the two works as one of the most addictive games I’ve played this year. To coin a friend’s phrase, it’s like they slammed together a dead baby and a retarded puppy to make Voltron. While it might seem like I’m slamming the game, the truth is quite the opposite – that even if you, like me, don’t like Bejeweled and are really weary of simple, “reads like it was pulled from an 80s D&D manual” RPGs, this game still may latch onto you and refuse to let go.

So, why does it work? The best answer I can come up with is that both of these elements compliment each other beautifully. On the puzzle side of things, you’re not just playing Bejeweled trying to get points – you play against an opponent, alternating turns making moves on the same board, and you’re shaping your method of play to match your character’s strengths and altering your strategy based on the actions of your opponent and the layout of the board.

Let me explain. The idea is that you’re swapping adjacent “gems” on a grid in an effort to match thee or more like gems. However, while Bejeweled leaves it at that and just tasks you with scoring points, here every type of gem has a specific affect. Gems of red, blue, green and yellow correspond to four magic types and matching those gems enables you to use spells that require them. Skull gems are straight-up damage, purple ones get you extra experience, and gold ones get you extra gold. Now, while you could just match gems willy-nilly, the object is to match the gems you’ll need to use, and conversely to deny your opponent the opportunity to match the ones he/she/it wants.

This sense of purpose gives the core gameplay a whole new direction, and giving you strategic decisions you wouldn’t otherwise have – do you try to snatch up the red gems your opponent needs for their spells? Do you forgo the nice combo you see so you can get gems you feel are more important? Do you save up your magic for more powerful attacks, or use it sooner just in case a dead board wipes it all back to zero?

On the other side of things, the puzzle angle gives purpose to an otherwise pointless RPG. Honestly, you’re probably not gonna’ care about the problems the neighboring kingdom is having with the orcs. What you will care about is snagging that new item from completing the quest that will improve your performance in the puzzle battles.

In addition to weapons, armor and other equip items that alter the way the puzzle game plays out, the RPG side of the game is full of other stuff that will help you out. You can gain levels to increase your skill and capacity for one of the various magic types or other stats, you can take on helper characters who give you an added edge in battles under specific conditions, train mounts that add extra skills and abilities to your repertoire, study captured enemies to learn their attacks, buy new equipment in shops, create unique equipment using runes you find hidden away, lay siege to cities to get paid extra gold in tribute, or purchase one of various other upgrades to your home citadel to open up other possibilities.

What’s more, every task you want to do is represented by a unique spin on the core puzzle mechanics. Capturing creatures requires you to clear a pre-constructed board without leaving any extra pieces behind. Training mounts to level them up tasks you with fighting the creature with increasingly more and more stringent time limits on turns. Forging items tasks you with finding a way to clear specifically-marked tiles from a grid before you run out of available moves. This all works as a great way to infuse the game with variety and also prepare gamers for playing more competitively online.

As for the online, there’s good and bad. On the upside, in choosing your own custom abilities and equipment, you’re essentially customizing a competitive profile for playing against others, giving the game much the same kind of pre-game strategy that you find in games like Pokemon, Magic: The Gathering and Guild Wars. On the downside, the fact that you earn this stuff in the game means that building up your character before you play is kinda’ a prerequisite, unless you want to get trounced by someone who’s built up their character more than you.

As I’ve said before, the game isn’t perfect – the presentation is lacking, the story seems largely expendable, and online play isn’t easily approachable until you’ve been playing the single-player game for a while. What’s more, forcing players to choose one of four pre-made “classes” at the game’s outset seems somewhat limiting, and it would’ve been nice if the game offered players more options in the way of building a custom character and class. However, the fact remains that this is still an extremely fun and original title.

By essentially combining a shameless Bejeweled clone with a second-rate RPG, Infinite Interactive has created a game that truly is more than the sum of its parts. It’s inventive and extremely addictive, and as it happens, the Xbox 360 version of the game is also the cheapest version of the game, priced on XBLA at $15. If you like puzzle games, RPGs, or especially competitive games like Magic: the Gathering or Pokemon, Puzzle Quest should be considered a must-buy.

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Tags: Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords

Posted by Jake McNeill on Oct 19th, 2007 and is filed under Reviews, Xbox 360 Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.

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