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Game Review

Puzzle Quest Challenge of the Warlords – Game Review

Puzzle games have always held a unique place in the video game market, often they are referred to as casual games. Due to this, many hardcore gamers think puzzle games are shallow and lack a challenging and long lasting experience. “Puzzle Quest Challenge of the Warlords” takes those notions and throws them out the window. “Puzzle Quest” is a game in which you do everything you would in your typical turn based RPG, but instead of performing the majority of your battle actions from menus, you perform them by completing puzzles.

For those who have never seen “Puzzle Quest” in action the idea of a battle system based on gem matching must sound pretty ridiculous, but it works and makes for a strangely intuitive combat system. Your goal during each battle is to damage your opponent until his health is zero, while avoiding your own death. Each side takes turns moving objects on the grid to form rows or columns of three or more, or performing a skill, and once they have made their match or used their skill, their turn ends. Each colored gem, there are four in all (red, green, blue, and yellow), corresponds to a particular type of mana. Skills are used by selecting them and using some of the mana you have stored. While you want to collect the gems, your main objective is to hurt your opponent, and the easiest way to do this is to match skulls, there are two kinds of these, a normal skull and a 5 skull which does increased damage and destroys objects around it. The last two symbols on the board are gold, which looks like gold coins and when matched, provide you with more gold, and experience points, which go to increasing your level. By matching four in a row or column you gain more of the thing you matched, as well as an extra turn. Matching five in a row or column does everything matching four does, but also places a wild card multiplier onto the grid. Combat is not the only thing played out on the grid, you also capture mounts in a one sided mini-game, and level them up by playing in a speed version of a normal battle.

Combat

Combat

While mounts and a unique combat system are great, any hardcore RPG player wants quests and a story. “Puzzle Quest” has both, but the story is a little weak, really only a means to explain why you are to kill something or venture somewhere. As for quests, the game has many side quests which can allow you to gain experience and gold, and battle numerous enemies. The only thing hardcore fans may not enjoy is the lack of penalties for losing a battle. This feature is rather important though, as although the game is based on strategy, a lot of times luck plays a factor in determining if the next group of things to end up on the board will be placed in a way to help you or to help your opponent. For example, when you clear the grid of a large amount of objects, it is possible for the next set of objects that falls in to create a cascading effect, clearing more objects. If this happens to your opponent and objects are matching in lines of four they could get the chance to continue their turn and continue to chip away at your health. While this does not happen too often, it is still a possibility and can really hurt you later in the game when you face tougher enemies with better skills. Of course as you level up you will have access to better skills and increased stats, but that does not make it any easier.

As with any game, one must ask whether the game is worth purchasing and, in the case of “Puzzle Quest”, which system to get it on. After playing the game off and on for a while, it is obvious that this game is definitely a Cool or at the lowest a Meh Plus by Cool Shite standards, but it is not for everyone. If you hate puzzle games, definitely avoid this, but if you love puzzle games but find you want a longer lasting experience, this is for you. As for the system to get it on, The PC is probably the best, second to the DS, as both allow you to easily select the pieces you wish to move. The PSP version has slightly better graphics than the DS, but obviously the PC has the best, it is also available on XBOX Live Arcade, so if you do not have a PC the 360 version should suffice.

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About The Author

Genuwine Jon Hammer

The self proclaimed "Genuwine" Jon Hammer, currently a student studying at Digipen Institute of Technology to be a programmer. I am a huge pop culture nerd, so movies, music, tv, podcasts, and games are all important to me, in fact if I often post about such topics on my twitter.

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Comments

2 Responses to “Puzzle Quest Challenge of the Warlords – Game Review”
  1. Bruce Moyle Bruce Moyle says:

    As I write this, Tiarne is trying to finish this on the Xbox. I don’t even want to know how many countless hours my poor HD-LCD TV is endured this game. Addictive is the understatement of the century here.

    March 12, 2009 at 9:45 pm
  2. Jon Hammer Genuwine Jon Hammer says:

    Well, all I can say is get ready for Galactrix.

    March 13, 2009 at 5:22 am

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