Puzzle Quest

Here's GZ's great review of the Puzzle Quest game that you can find on multiple consoles. I just recently purchased Puzzle Quest for the Sony PSP after months of great word of mouth and pressure from my friends to try it out. They claimed that it's a great new style of game with an interesting mesh of RPG and Puzzle style game elements. I saw it at Best Buy for a few bucks and figured what the hell let's give it a shot finally. I'd have to agree with most of the praise it's been getting. The gameplay is truly unique, I have never played anything like it. I think of it as a cross between an RPG and Bejewelled, which i know might sound stupid, but the guys at D3 pull it off remarkably well.

The whole idea of the game is you can pick your main character from one of 4-5 different classes and you pretty much go on a pretty generic sword and sorcery type of journey. But really it wasn't the story that really grabbed ahold of me, it was the aforementioned puzzle elements mixed with RPG battles that really makes me want to play this game for hours on end. The game is pretty easy to figure out after about an hour or so of playing. With that said the game is extremely long, especially for a puzzle game, by RPG standards its about a normal length.

OK, so riddle me this, what is the point of the extra characters that tag along with you on this journey? I have gotten a few so far and they literally add nothing to the game besides dialogue and plot development. I read in the manual that these guys are supposed to do something in battle depending on who's in the party, but I have seen no difference in the way the battles turn out or happen. I don;t know if this a bug in the game, but it's a pretty massive one in that it renders that part of the game entirely useless and my guess is that it will come back to haunt later on.

Why? Because this game is hard as shit. Literally harder then week old shit. I either suck really really bad or this game is really that fucking hard. The computer seems to know exactly what is coming next as far as the jewels and skulls and all the other shit. Seriously there are times where I do not get to do anything for 10 minutes because the computer sits there and gets extra moves from 4 of a kinds for freakin ever. It's the same as playing pool with a professional, once someone is on a roll you will lose without ever actually playing the god damn game. This infuriates me, I don't think i have ever been so pissed off at a game in my life. It's insanely difficult, but that's part of the allure of the game, there really isn't any penalty for getting your ass kicked every time you pick the game up. It tricks you into still playing the game even after you just claimed you would put a baby's head on a pike if you don't win this time around.

Just writing about it pisses me off.

3/5

Good: Great and interesting gameplay, the music is awesome.
Bad: Extreme difficulty curve along with random noticeable bugs
Ugly: Orcs