Games I Am Playing: Puzzle Quest

Puzzle Quest has been usually enjoyable, sometimes frustrating, but always addicting. At first glance, I thought it was just a crappy Bejewled derivative with a gimmicky game mechanic. But, as with most first glances, there is so much more to it.


Puzzle Quest is a Puzzle RPG game. As far as the RPG aspects go, they are all there, and they get relatively deep. There are multiple classes of characters with a traditional leveling system, customizable abilities, spells, and equipment. There is an overworld, with multiple cities, some of which you can “siege”. You can build up a city by adding forges, stables, mage towers, and many other things that will aide your quest. Now, if we just stopped there, Puzzle Quest wouldn’t be anything special. Granted, it would be my kind of game, but nothing that other games haven’t done.

Luckily, this is when the Puzzle aspect comes in. All of your battles, whether they are random, or key to a quest, take place over a puzzle grid. If you’ve played Bejeweled, you will instantly understand the concept. Swap objects’ positions on a grid to line up three or more in a row. I tried out bejeweled, but it was too slow and boring for me. I didn’t really feel I was thinking at all, but merely lining things up. What makes PQ different is that your opponent is using the same puzzle to battle you, so you must think ahead and not leave any big moves open to your opponent. The different types of objects in the playing area are: Fire (Red), Air (Yellow), Water (Blue), and Earth Mana(Green), Gold, EXP, and Attack. Depending on what items you link up determines what you get or do. You can collect Mana, attack your opponent, or get Gold or EXP. After gaining enough mana, you can cast spells that affect you or your opponent.

Now, I don’t expect you to instantly understand the entire concept, but the game plays a lot like a cross between Bejeweled and Magic: The Gathering. You will need to pay attention to a lot of factors to be a successful player, and you will have adjust your strategy depending on the pieces on the board. The game is really fun, and addicting, and is a perfect fit for the Nintendo DS. But there is one shortcoming. The AI can be unbearably frustrating to play. It will always know the best move, and will always be able to construct combo chains that no human could see. Still, I would rather have painfully difficult AI than horribly stupid AI. PQ has taken two existing and even tired game concepts and combined them into something that is new, challenging, and entirely fun. Any puzzle or RPG fan should give this one a go.