Puzzle Quest

I'm going to be perfectly honest with those reading this review. The sole reason I bought this game was because Penny Arcade (www.penny-arcade.com) wouldn't shut the hell up about it. I trust their judgement on most things, so I took a risk and bought the game.

Puzzle Quest starts off pretty boringly and didn't leave me impressed at all. Not only did the main menu make me want to cry (based on the fact that it's VERY cheaply made) but I felt like there should be a dungeon master supervising the game when picking my character. You can choose from 4 different classes, and each class has 3-4 different looking characters of different genders and names. Sadly enough, "Icthor, Destroyer of Worlds" was not one of my choices as a character.

The game itself is pretty simple. It's set in the medieval era (commonly reffered to as "Oldy Times") and is an RPG. Now here's the kicker, the game's battle system isn't turn-based or anything seen in games such as "Vagran Story" and "Final Fantasy XII". Puzzle Quest's battle system is that of Bejeweled, the annoying as sh*t game you'll constantly find coming as one of the games on your cell phone.

If you're the one guy in the world who lives in a cave (commonly reffered to as "Luxembourg") and has never played or seen the game Bejeweled in all of its slow and depressing glory, I'll lay down the concept. There is a board and a bunch of jewels (or in Puzzle Quest's case, spheres) will fall into place. Your goal as the "Bejewler" is to line up three jewels that mach each other. Doing this gets you points and the grand prize is a message saying "Congratulations, you just wasted 2 hours of your life."

Strangely enough, that doesn't seem to be the case with Puzzle Quest. The main problem I had with Bejeweled by itself was just that, it's only Bejeweled. This game provides at least some story line and side quests to complete. Don't get me wrong, if you're gonna watch someone else play this game it'll be boring as balls.

The battle system works like this. There are 4 different colored "spheres" that can appear on the board: Red, Blue, Yellow, and Green. Matching up three red spheres gets you a certain amount of "Red Mana", matching up three blue spheres get you a certain amount of "Blue Mana" and so on and so forth. The board also consists of cashmoniez, skulls(z), and little purple stars. The cashmoniez represent just that, some gold. Lining up three skulls(z) allows you to perform a physical attack on your enemy, and lining up three little purple stars gets you +3 EXP in which to level up your character. Lining up four of any of these mana spheres, skulls(z), cashmoniez, or purple experience points allows you to perform another move. This is important to know for this next paragraph.

Let me delve even further into the battle system though. If you take too long to take a move, the game has a "nice" little feature in which it gives you one possible move you can do as your turn. Seems generous right? Wrong. One Hundred-Freakin'-Percent wrong. This so-called generous tip is actually sent directly from the deepest part of hell itself to trick you into performing it. You see, once you play the suggested move it will set up the greatest possible move for the ENEMY. Nothing will definetely line up when jewels fall from the unseen top part of the screen, but it'll line up in a way so that the person who goes next (i.e. the skeleton who raided the donkey caravans) can absolutely destroy you in one swift move. The enemy will first start off by performing the simple physical attack, then jewels will fall down forming a 4-of-a-kind lineup so the enemy can go again. He then will find ALL of the possible 4-of-a-kind lineups and it will begin to rain skulls. He'll then make one move with the skulls, more skulls will fall down and line up with the other skulls and suddenly you're left with 4 HP and a stick up your ass.

Honestly, the only reason to keep playing this game as long as I've played it is to see if the quests get more interesting as the game goes on. The main quest seems to be a recurring "Old Timey" legendesque theme, and that is that the "Undead" are rising up and attacking castles and cities and donkey-driven caravans. These undead aren't acting on their own though, they are following the whim and call of LORD BANE (Dun Dun Dun). Lord Bane is possibly the most cliche and ridiculous name I've ever heard, even by my standards.

Something that is kind of cool is the multiplayer feature. Quite honestly, I think this game can actually only be enjoyed to its full potential when playing with someone else. The joys and the sounds of both of you yelling profanities at each other because of a game that SHOULD have been kept on your cellphone is probably the only reason I'd buy this game.

Oh yeah, and the graphics totally suck.

3 star(s) out of 5

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