Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
On one side of the video gaming spectrum, you have the hard core gamer. A person who spends as many waking hours trying to improve his skills. Often times these are the role players whose computer chairs are permenantly worn into the shape of their bodies as evidence to the time they spend leveling up, grinding and taking missions so they can earn gold to buy that next piece of blessed armor or an enchanted axe.
That player’s polar opposite is the casual gamer. A Tetris fan that likes puzzles, faster gameplay and typically doesn’t have the time to invest in simple plots, let alone arcing story lines and epic quests.
Surely, blending these two genres would be like dipping pickles in chocolate. So why would anyone try? Maybe because it’s damned addicting.
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords is that ‘crack’ of all trades. It folds in the simplistic and frenetic gameplay of Bejeweled into a deeper character and skill driven Final Fantasy type RPG.
You begin your quest by building a character. Choose from 4 professions, each strong in one elemental force and varying in skill sets. Warriors will handle weapons better than a Wizard, but will lack the skill in spell casting. Once you’ve decided on the basic skills and some minor customization options, you will be rushed into the basic plot before a brief training session schools you in the art of combat. Swap tiles on a grid in order to match up three or more like symbols. 4 symbols each represent a type of Mana, the points you will use to cast any special attacks or spells you’ve learned. Coin symbols matched gain you cold hard cash to spend on armor and other special items and purple stars net you experience points crucial to leveling up. Finally, matching up 3 or more skull symbols in a row will directly attack your opponent. Combat is turned base and takes place on a single grid, so preventing your opponent from attacking you and gathering the Mana he requires to cast spells brings an element of strategy to the game.
Puzzle Quest proves difficult to put down. You’ll find yourself wanting to defeat just one more ogre to level up, capture and train a new mount or siege one more city before going to bed. The HD images are easy on the eye and the cut scenes that move the story along are no more intrusive than a comic book, using western Manga art style. Being on Xbox Live, multiplayer matches are available, but beware that matchmaking isn’t as forgiving as a game like Halo. Level 14 players may find themselves squaring off against level 30 questors looking for some easy experience and cash.
You can find the title on the DS and PSP, but they are riddled with bugs. I found the DS version particularly frustrating because one wrong move can cost precious life points and tapping the correct symbol would often end up hitting an adjacent and incorrect symbol. The title should soon be out for the PC and Nintendo Wii as well, but I suspect the universal game play issue I kept experiencing will carry over. The computer has the most ridiculous dumb luck during combat. Symbols will cascade down, chaining multiple attacks together with a single move, but against the computer often times dozens of attack combos will come down in its favor, turning a 5 point attack into a 50 hitter in the blink of an eye.
Puzzle Quest is certainly unique. You’ll be hard pressed to find stranger gaming bed fellows, but the end result is a challenging and engaging puzzler with all the spellcasting and quest seeking an RPG fan could want. And at a reasonable 1200 Microsoft points (about 15 bucks American), you really can’t beat the value.
