Buy, Borrow, or Bury: Puzzle Quest
This is a review that’s been a long time in the making. I remember about a year ago when I played the PC demo for Puzzle Quest. I was initially put off by the idea – an RPG game based solely on Bejeweled-like puzzle gameplay – and yet after playing it for a while I was hooked. Then, this past year when Puzzle Quest came out for Xbox Live I downloaded it immediately. I finally beat the game about a week ago so I figured I’d offer up my review.
Puzzle Quest is a traditional RPG a lot like some of the classics like Final Fantasy. The only difference is that instead of having a battle system based on physical attacks and pre-set health and mana levels you instead play on a puzzle board. By lining up 3 or more identical gems on the board you gain attributes or do attacks. For example, if I line up 3 green gems I get some green mana. If I line up 3 blue gems I get blue mana. If I line up 3 skulls I do some damage to my opponent and so on. There are also skills you learn throughout the game that you can also use to affect the outcome, but for the most part you’re playing an easy to learn but difficult to master game of bejeweled. You can choose your character’s class (I was a knight) and you progress through a standard story where-in you’re trying to save your city (and inevitably the rest of the world) from evildoers.
One of the first things I noticed about Puzzle Quest was the music. Despite being originally released for the Nintendo DS this game has really great sound. The music is epic and sounds almost like something out of a Lord of the Rings movie. Whether you’re traveling along the road via the 2D top-down map or in the middle of a battle it’s hard to miss the grandiose orchestral soundtrack. My only beef with it is that a lot of the music tends to repeat, but like I said this was originally a handheld game so you can’t expect a whole lot more than what they give.
The gameplay is, like I said, easy to learn but difficult to master. You’ll find yourself doing quests for all different types of people as you travel from one city to the next and meet new companions. In these quests you always run into something or someone to fight, and when that happens you’ll be pushed into the gem battle system. After you’ve successfully beaten a foe 3 or more times you’ll be able to capture it by playing a matching game based on the same gem battle system. Basically, you’ll be seeing the gems quite a bit. That’s alright though, I never really got tired of it while I played. As you progress through the game you can also siege cities to expand your empire. Each city you successfully capture will then generate money for you to use on new weapons, armor and so on. You can also have a mount in Puzzle Quest which varies between the wide array of beasts in the game. You train up your mount as time goes by and they end up adding additional bonuses to your character to make you more proficient when battling.
The story is pretty straight forward. You start out as an initiate in your hometown and are tasked with some basic errands and you inevitably get caught up in a much larger evil plot. Nothing really surprising throughout. From the time you start to the time you finish you know who you’re after and all of your work is towards defeating your nemesis. Still you meet some cool characters (my favorite was Khalkus, the long-winded dwarf obsessed with machinery) both friend and enemy alike. Let me just say right now – Puzzle Quest is a long game. I’m not sure how much time I put into it but I’d say at the very least 20 hours. I’m assuming the actual figure is somewhere near 40 hours. Some people think that’s way too long, especially since 80% of the gameplay involves the gem battle system so it might get tedious and repetitive by the end.
Puzzle Quest also has online multiplayer where you can fight people online in both ranked and unranked matches. These again are the standard gem battles but you get to talk a little smack if you’d like. One thing I really like about the game is that you’re never completely out of it. In your standard RPG if you’re fighting someone that is even a couple levels above you you’ll probably get destroyed. In Puzzle Quest, because the game is based on your ability to play the puzzle game effectively, you can technically beat a higher level opponent. Sure higher level opponents have a larger repertoire of attacks and do more damage, but if you can outplay them in the gem battle you can also take them down. Not only did I beat people and single player NPCs that were above my skill level, but I got taken out by some that were below me as well. You’re never completely out of it and it’s one of the few games that works actual skill into a traditionally stat-based game.
Overall I’d have to say Puzzle Quest is one of, if not the best game I’ve played on Xbox Live Arcade. It has tremendous value first of all, like I said the game had me playing for months and I believe it was only 800 points (around $10). When the game came out for The Nintendo DS it was around $30 so it’s a good deal regardless. So basically if you own an Xbox 360 and are looking for an Arcade game at least give the demo a shot. Unless you’re really opposed to RPG or puzzle games chances are Puzzle Quest is worth a purchase.
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