A breakout game from 1st Playable Productions, Puzzle Quest blends the RPG and Puzzle genres in a new and interesting way.
The
point and touch accessibility of the DS makes Puzzle Quest as easy to
control on the DS as Bejeweled was on the PC. Touch a puzzle piece,
move a puzzle piece. Easy as that. The only buttons used are the
shoulder buttons, which flip the top and bottom screens.
Praise
aside, there are two issues with the control. When checking the
specifics of a spell in battle the 'help' button must be pressed
first, then the spell selected. Occasionally, touching the help button
would not register causing a spell to be used accidentally. Also,
touching cities or towns on the overworld could be a little flaky. These two
issues aside, Puzzle Quest's controls are flawless.
Puzzle Quest's gameplay feels comfortable and well known. It takes a
lot from PopCap's Bejeweled and adds enough of its own to keep it very
interesting.
The
most notable advancement of this puzzle type is the battle taking place
between your avatar and an opponent. In this, you match three like colored
pieces to build red, blue, green and yellow mana. Additionally, there
are purple experience pieces, gold coin pieces, and skulls that deal
direct damage. Mana is spent to cast spells that affect the board in
drastic or minor ways. This could be as small as destroying a single
puzzle piece, destroying a three by three of the board, or changing
every yellow piece on the board to a purple experience piece before
absorbing every bit of it for yourself. Each of the games four
classes gain different abilities as the level, each with their own
dependencies on certain colors of mana and strengths and weaknesses as a
class.
Along with gaining
their own class specific spells, enemies can also be captured. To do this, you
must complete a different type of puzzle where there are a finite
amount of pieces on the board and they must be matched in a pattern
where none are left on the board at the end. Some captured enemies,
such as spiders, griffins or giant rats can be used as a mount and
grant you an additional spell and stat improvements. Stat
improvements increase with a mounts level, which increases with
puzzle battles with timed turns. Most captured enemies
allow you to gain their main spell by completing a yet different type
of puzzle. You face a full board with the goal of matching a minimum
amount of red, blue, green, yellow, skull, and scroll pieces. The
scroll pieces exist only in this puzzle type and they are not created
until 4 or more of any piece is matched. This is before at least three
must be matched together.
Needless to say, there is
a lot to keep completionists playing this game for a long time. This
combination of chance and old fashioned brain sweat in each puzzle type
keep pulling on you to come back even after the main story is finished.
Add the fantasy saturated humor with the puzzle/RPG combination and
you have yourself a stand out game that shines just as hard for its
genre blending as well as its distinct gameplay.
