Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords

Rating Everyone Genre puzzle Publisher D3 External Links Official D3 Website

Combining gaming genres can be a difficult thing to achieve, especially when combining genres that don’t even fall in to similar categories. You wouldn’t expect to see a basketball game combined with Cooking Mama’s Cookoff, nor a successful marriage between a first person shooter and a turn based strategy game. But every now and then, expectations are shattered and surpassed as one of these genre-fusing games proves to not only be successful, but also a great deal of fun.
Imported from both the Nintendo DS and PSP, Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords joins the always addicting puzzle gaming genre with elements of role-playing games to make for an addicting experience. Before you begin Puzzle Quest, players must create their own wizard, knight, or other character. Once this begins, they are thrown on their feet in a series of demo “battles.” During these instructional battles, players learn how to manipulate pieces around the puzzle board, how to properly gain “mana” and also how to use the magic spells they posses.

Picking up on the gameplay in Puzzle Quest isn’t anything that requires a steep learning curve like many RPG’s do. If you have played Bejeweled and have a basic understanding of how RPG’s work, then Puzzle Quest should be a cake-walk. The game is nothing more than a refined version of the popular PopCap game. Matching three of the same colored pieces in a row results in players gaining a certain amount of “mana.” Matching four or more of the same pieces gives them an added boost as well as an extra turn. Matching up skull pieces results in damage being given to the opponent.

As they win battles, players earn experience points as well as money, which they can use to upgrade their weaponry and even build their own castle. By building these castles, players can then ambush opponents and capture them. Once captured, players can lock these baddies in to their dungeon and solve a sample puzzle. By mastering the sample puzzle, players can learn new magic spells from their opponents. This keeps Puzzle Quest a challenging, rewarding experience.

While the thought of a puzzle game fused with a role-playing game may seem like a turn off to many gamers, myself included, Puzzle Quest is a breeze to learn and loads of fun. While some may complain that the $15 price tag is a bit much for a Live Arcade game, the replay value on Puzzle Quest makes it more than worth it. Players looking for a challenging game that will make them think and continue playing needn’t look any further. Quite possibly one of the best titles of 2007.