Strategy comes into play when more than one move presents itself on the
board. Do you take the one that will give you the color of mana you desperately
need or take the opportunity to cause damage to your opponent? You’ll also need
to look a move ahead and see if your move will have the unfortunate consequence
of setting up a nice opportunity for your opponent. There’s far more going on
here than in your typical Bejeweled clone.
The game’s RPG elements add a nice layer of depth to the puzzle play. As you
win battles you’ll gain experience and level up. With each level comes the
opportunity to customize your character much like in a standard RPG, but instead
of strength and dexterity you’ll have the chance to improve things such as the
amount of mana your character generates from red gems. You can also collect
magical armor, weapons, and more, all of which has some sort of effect on the
puzzle play. Lastly you’ll be given a castle that you can upgrade with
structures that bestow unique benefits, such as the ability to research new
spells. All of this works together to make the puzzle play dynamic and make for
an ever changing experience. This is the stuff that addicting games are made
from.
When you get tired of fighting monsters, you can go on Xbox Live and take on
human opponents. Competitive puzzle play is surprisingly enjoyable, especially
since you’ll be using the character that you created for the game’s story mode.
It’s interesting to see how that spell book that you refined for killing undead
does against another gamer’s character.
I’ve played plenty of XBLA games, and many are fun for a little bit and then
lose their appeal. That’s not the case with Puzzle Quest. The game has the depth
of a regular title and so delivers the kind of game experience that will keep
you coming back for more.
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated:
90%. It's the best puzzle-strategy-RPG game you'll
play this year. Well, it will probably be the only puzzle-strategy-RPG
game you'll play this year, but it's still that good.
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