Fri 2 Nov 2007
Puzzle Quest is the latest breed of intelligent RPG games that blends in a high-octane Bejeweled atmosphere with a medieval fantasy adventure. It’s an innovative design that uses your mental prowess instead of the classic single-turn fighting structure. What you are really getting for 1200 Microsoft Points is the best of role-playing and puzzle-solving properties have to offer. Puzzle Quest moves at a relatively fast pace and is quite addicting once you get familiar with the mechanics. Unlike the traditional RPG’s, you don’t have to deal with a combination of steps just to perform one action. Most of your battles, in this game, are dictated by coalescing identical patterns. That alone can keep you at the edge of your seat.
Puzzle Quest does a good job of maintaining the RPG elements throughout your adventure. You’ll explore castles, villages, and enemy forts, where you’ll take on several monsters that obstruct your direction towards opening a new kind of quests. As you progress through the various stages of the game, you’ll be able to upgrade many of your combat equipments, including armor, weapons, and spells just to name a few. Later on, you’ll be capturing wild creatures and domesticating them as suitable transportation. You’ll also discover special runes that you can carve out to create a barrier between colonies. Puzzle Quest can be an explosive game at times! The tag-of-war sequence of piecing together same block strips that are taken at each turn requires you to contemplate ahead of time. You see, you want to avoid giving your enemy those auspicious tiles that could dramatically drain your hit points.
Let’s backtrack, conjuring up four or five similar tiles provides you an extra turn. To attack your opponent, you must line-up the skull-shaped tiles. Spells can also be employed during the match as long as you have them in your reserve. To charge up your (mana) reserve, simply piece together blocks of yellow, red, blue, and green on the board. There are gold strips and purples strips. These pieces act as multiplier or bonus points at the end of a battle. It’s very easy for someone to get hooked with the game the first time playing it, but what you’re not prepared for is how unforgiving your opponents can get. You’re going to be facing the same opponent a few more times before you can get passed him. Fortunately, whether you win or lose, you still get XP points after the battle. These XP points are spread among your character attributes such as gear, mount, spells, and party members.
Graphically, Puzzle Quest looks a bit more cutting edge than it’s PSP or DS counterpart. That’s because the visuals for the Xbox Live version has been upscaled to fit those with HDTV. The background is a lot nicer here with smoother textures and bigger 2D artworks. It’s easier to distinguish the pieces and patterns on the board. The particle effects are incredible in that they have great subtleties. Sound effects are amazing, too! But you can only hear them during a match. The music is nicely done, giving you the sense that you’re really playing a regular RPG game! With Puzzle Quest’s impressive graphics and sounds, you are definitely getting an exceptional package. Yeah, there are several puzzle games out there but this one gives you the best in RPG and puzzle-solving. Though the artificial intelligence can be extremely unforgiving to say the least, you can’t help stay away from its fighting puzzle frenzy! This is one game you don’t want to miss out on your Xbox Live collection.
