DS Review: Puzzle Quest Challenge of the Warlords

Once in a while a game comes out that is a surprise hit; Puzzle Quest is such a game. Once in a while a game is released that tries to blend two seemingly-unmixable genres and excels at doing so; Puzzle Quest is such a game. Once in a while a game is addictive, fun, offers lots of replay value and becomes a cult classic; Puzzle Quest is, indeed, such a game. D3 Publishers and 1st Playable Productions have put together a great mix of puzzle and role-playing elements that will satisfy any fan of the two genres. The first thing you should consider if you’re interested in Puzzle Quest is how much you like Bejeweled, or any of the match-three clones of the popular puzzle game. If you do, you will love Puzzle Quest. If you don’t, retain your interest; Puzzle Quest is very similar and very different to Bejeweled at the same time, and the RPG elements and puzzle battle style will likely attract you. Kudos to the publishers for making a free PC demo of the game for everyone to try; you can download the demo here.

Being a solid RPG experience, Puzzle Quest offers you a variety of character classes, a huge world map with different towns, caves, and other locations, many types of enemies and a story that unfolds as you go. The only difference between Puzzle Quest and other role-playing games is the puzzle battle system found here, which is the core of the game. Battles take place in an 8×8 grid filled with different-colored gems. Players take turns matching three or more gems of the same color. Red, green, yellow, and blue gems give you Mana of the respective color; think of Mana as a magic meter of sorts. As you match gems, you get Mana Points for every one of them destroyed, building that color’s Mana meter. Once you meet a specified requirement of Mana of one or more colors, you may cast a spell, which will affect you or your opponent in some way, such as inducing damage or giving you an extra turn. That’s right; Puzzle Quest’s battle system includes HP (Hit Points), and your goal is to finish off your opponent before your hit points are depleted. To do so, you match three or more skulls together. Skulls are found randomly inside the playing grid, alongside Mana gems, purple-star experience points, and gold coins for your wallet. Skulls with a red aura surrounding them deliver extra damage and, when matched, destroy surrounding gems. There are also wildcards which can act as Mana of either color and multiply your Mana gain when destroyed, filling up your Mana bar much quicker.

The game, however, features many extras besides the basics of puzzle fighting. Joining four or five gems of the same color gives you an extra turn, which could be very handy in many situations. The strategy part of the game kicks in when you have more than one option of gem-matching; you must think before you act and see what would be the consequences of your move; you don’t want to leave skulls ready to be matched by your opponent. As you play, you build Mana, cast spells, join skulls to induce damage, and snag experience points and gold along the way. Spells vary by the character class you choose at the beginning of the game (Druid, Warrior, Knight, or Wizard). These classes offer differences; Warriors, for example, are attackers, always looking for those skulls trying to inflict damage, while Knights lean towards extra turns and experience point swaging. You may have up to six spells at a time, but you learn more and more as you level up, so you must choose the ones you prefer.

This enough provides hours and hours of entertainment, but the developers went beyond and expanded the RPG elements of the game. Once you defeat a certain monster three times, you may capture it. Capturing beasts is done in a puzzle mini-game in which you must destroy all the gems of the screen by any means necessary. You can also forge items. This is done in a more traditional Bejeweled style with no opponent; you simply match gems over and over, trying to destroy forging hammers along the way and avoiding a No More Move, which would end the game and force you to start the forging process over. You have a Citadel, in which you can spend some money on and build a stable for captured beasts, a church to use your money to improve your skills, and other features. Once you build a stable, you can train your mounts in a battle to level them up and make them faster, or research spells out of them in the Bejeweled-style ‘hassle-free’ game similar to the forging items mode. You can visit Taverns and listen to rumors which expand the story; you can shop for new, stronger items for your character, or simply tackle the game’s main story quest or one of many different side-quests.

As you can see, the game’s value is incredible, but it isn’t over yet. Besides quest battles and random battles against on-screen enemies around the world map, you can fight and siege cities to make your Citadel available at many locations. You can also fight enemies in search of Runes, which can be used to forge new items. The game’s side-quests are incredibly long and extend the main quest in a big way, allowing you to meet new characters that could join your party. These characters might affect battles in different ways, such as allowing you to move first or delivering a certain amount of damage at the start of a battle. Doing side-quests is a great way to get more experience, money, and even rare items. All of the game’s features might seem overwhelming, but worry not; everything is laid out very simply and well connected, allowing you to explore these features at any time, and once you do you will learn everything you need to know and you’ll be ready to tackle everything in the game.

Puzzle Quest is set in a fantasy world filled with Elves, Orcs, Ogres, and the like, and has you fighting undead creatures that are invading the kingdom, and as you fight you learn more and more of their appearance and true motives, unfolding the story as you go. Unfortunately, Puzzle Quest isn’t perfect. The story and dialogue are a bit shallow and will likely not hold your interest. The game’s audio is good and has a great medieval feeling, but there are only three main musical pieces that play during puzzle battles, making them somewhat repetitive. Graphics-wise the game isn’t anything impressive, especially compared against the rich animations of the PSP version, and lag during extreme battles can be a bit upsetting. The game also includes some random glitches, most of which won’t affect gameplay that much thanks to the game’s auto-save feature. Your game might freeze, gems might become ASCII characters, or text could appear blurry and overlapped. However, a puzzle/RPG mix such as Puzzle Quest must excel at gameplay, and this game does and does so very well, almost completely overshadowing the problems previously mentioned. The game might seem too hard at times, but it’s been confirmed, by the game’s developers themselves, that the A.I. doesn’t have any advantage over you; except, of course, the fact that your opponent will never miss a 4-in-a-row opportunity that your eyes might skip.

With such a huge amount of value and fun, addictive gameplay, many features to explore and a long journey, Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords is easily one of the best puzzle games for the Nintendo DS to date. The main quest alongside the many side-quests easily take over 30 hours to complete, and that’s only for the first class you choose; if you want to explore any of the other classes you can start another quest in the game’s second save file. Although it has a few flaws, Puzzle Quest is easy to recommend to puzzle and RPG fans, and a great pick-up-and-play game for anyone interested. The game’s word-of-mouth is making it extremely popular, and with good reason. If you’re still on the fence, try the free PC demo; more than likely, once you experience Puzzle Quest, you will want to add it to your DS collection.

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Final Score: 9/10