Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords

"A Puzzle/RPG that Shines Bright"

A breakout game from 1st Playable Productions, Puzzle Quest blends the RPG and Puzzle genres in a new and interesting way.

The point and touch accessibility of the DS makes Puzzle Quest as easy to control on the DS as Bejeweled was on the PC. Touch a puzzle piece, move a puzzle piece. Easy as that. The only buttons used are the shoulder buttons, which flip the top and bottom screens.

Praise aside, there are two issues with the control. When checking the specifics of a spell in battle the 'help' button must be pressed first, then the spell selected. Occasionally, touching the help button would not register causing a spell to be used accidentally. Also, touching cities or towns on the overworld could be a little flaky. These two issues aside, Puzzle Quest's controls are flawless.

Puzzle Quest's gameplay feels comfortable and well known. It takes a lot from PopCap's Bejeweled and adds enough of its own to keep it very interesting.

The most notable advancement of this puzzle type is the battle taking place between your avatar and an opponent. In this, you match three like colored pieces to build red, blue, green and yellow mana. Additionally, there are purple experience pieces, gold coin pieces, and skulls that deal direct damage. Mana is spent to cast spells that affect the board in drastic or minor ways. This could be as small as destroying a single puzzle piece, destroying a three by three of the board, or changing every yellow piece on the board to a purple experience piece before absorbing every bit of it for yourself. Each of the games four classes gain different abilities as the level, each with their own dependencies on certain colors of mana and strengths and weaknesses as a class.

Along with gaining their own class specific spells, enemies can also be captured. To do this, you must complete a different type of puzzle where there are a finite amount of pieces on the board and they must be matched in a pattern where none are left on the board at the end. Some captured enemies, such as spiders, griffins or giant rats can be used as a mount and grant you an additional spell and stat improvements. Stat improvements increase with a mounts level, which increases with puzzle battles with timed turns. Most captured enemies allow you to gain their main spell by completing a yet different type of puzzle. You face a full board with the goal of matching a minimum amount of red, blue, green, yellow, skull, and scroll pieces. The scroll pieces exist only in this puzzle type and they are not created until 4 or more of any piece is matched. This is before at least three must be matched together.

Needless to say, there is a lot to keep completionists playing this game for a long time. This combination of chance and old fashioned brain sweat in each puzzle type keep pulling on you to come back even after the main story is finished. Add the fantasy saturated humor with the puzzle/RPG combination and you have yourself a stand out game that shines just as hard for its genre blending as well as its distinct gameplay.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/26/09

Game Release: Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (US, 03/20/07)