Puzzle Kingdom

by Zoo Games

Product Features

• From the acclaimed designer of Puzzle

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B001EGJTFQ
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches ; 3 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: May 5, 2009
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,525 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Platform: Nintendo DS

Puzzle Kingdoms brings players engaging, classic turn-based gameplay with a captivating fantasy storyline. Fast and unique puzzle mechanics make building troops, managing armies, fortifying castles, and lauching assaults addictive in any campaign. Customizable kingdoms and innovative play combine to create one of the greatest games in the puzzle RPG genre.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Now that's more like it!!!!, May 10, 2009

By 

ojh333 "ojh333" (USA) - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Puzzle Kingdoms (Video Game)

After having been really disappointed by Galactrix, I was seriously hoping that this version would be a big improvement, and it is!

This game is an offshoot of Challenge of the Warlords....it uses the same empire map and gives you a chance to conquer all of the kingdoms while solving the main quest. The towns and locations are the same, and you find some familiar friends along the way...remember Drong??

Movement is MUCH faster between the villages and kingdoms. The game determines where you must go and when, but the puzzles are awesome!

Battles and mini-games are completed by matching colored tiles of three or more. You will slide the colored symbols along the edges to help make matches, which just have to be next to each other and not in a row or column. This has proven to be a good system and doesn't seem so grossly weighted in favor of the CPU as most other puzzle board games. Yeah, you have a fighting chance!

You are the "King" of your armies, and are given Heroes under your command. Your heroes level up individually, so you never get upset that you have maxed out your leveling options.

After having conquered all of the small castles within a kingdom, you are then able to play mini-game puzzles at the taverns or crypts, for which you pay gold and are rewarded with new spells, relics of power, and troops....which are warriors under the command of your heros.

You get to customize all kingdoms you conquer with your best heroes, troops, spells and relics. This is great because each kingdom has new and ever more difficult foes to defeat. You can use any of these kingdoms as your base to attack the next kingdom. So far, progression through these kingdoms has been fairly quick, and the story line is moving along at a nice pace.

Each hero, relic, spell and troops under your hero's command has a point value, which you have to consider when setting up each kingdom, as they allow only a certain number of points per kingdom. I've had as much fun customizing my kingdoms as playing the puzzles!

The ONLY even slight drawback to the fun on this game is that it is stingy with the gold, as I never have enough to play all of the awesome mini-games I want! The mini-games are so addictive, and I love the different variants of each. Foes cannot be battled twice to obtain more gold and experience, unless you want to lose all of the progress you made. If you need to change your heroes and troops, do it at the beginning of your quest to conquer a kingdom, and you will be just fine.

I've discovered a slight bug in the game....twice the puzzle battle has locked up on me while searching ruins. Since the game does not automatically save until the battle map is complete, the best way to save your progress (since you will lose it when you have to reboot) is to save and exit when you first enter the battle map, and then occasionally throughout the map while conquering your kingdom. It only takes a few seconds, and saves a lot of trouble!

This game rocks, I've barely been able to put it down to write this review! If you loved Warlords and cried in dismay at Galactrix, you will LOVE this one!!

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Even Better Than Puzzle Quest, May 12, 2009

By 

Carl (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Puzzle Kingdoms (Video Game)

Like the previous reviewer, I was disappointed in the developer's previous game, Galactrix. Puzzle Kingdoms makes up for Galactrix and now seems even better than Puzzle Quest!

Like Puzzle Quest, you need to put three or more similarly-colored blocks together to clear them and gain power. Unlike Puzzle Quest, the blocks no longer have to be in a row or column. Furthermore, you aren't forced to make a match. If it suits you better to move certain blocks around to make it harder for your opponent to make a good move, you can do so. Also, instead of just switching the positions of two blocks, you now shift entire rows or columns, so you have to give more thought to what you will be allowing your opponent to do. Lastly, you can see all of the blocks that might be added when shifting rows or columns, so you have to factor that information into your final decision for your move. These differences add a huge amount of strategic pleasure to the basic color-matching system.

If that wasn't enough strategy, you can build armies out of various units. Your goal is to wipe out your opponent's units. Each unit has certain color requirements in order to attack, an attack value, and a number of hit points. A unit can attack as soon as its color requirements are met. However, you might want to delay an attack until you have more powered-up units, because a coordinated attack gets additional damage bonuses.

For example, an axeman has a base attack value of 2 and 3 base hit points, and he requires three white power to attack. An imp has a base attack value of 1 and only 2 base hit points, but requires only two blue power to attack, and a goblin has the same attack and HP, but requires only two red power to attack. The imp and the goblin can each hit more often than the axeman, but they are weaker. On the other hand, the imp's and goblin's power requirements are lower, so if they make a coordinated attack, they'll each do more damage overall. Deciding which units to add and when they should attack adds even more strategy to this game.

And if all that isn't enough, you can earn gold by defeating opponents, and the gold can be used to play mini-games that unlock various items, spells, and relics that can be used to further customize your army. You can tweak your army so it can suit various strategies, and unlike Puzzle Quest, you can have multiple heroes leading the armies, and you can choose how those heroes develop through experience, so you can experiment with many different strategies.

I haven't played a strategy game this deep, customizable, and addicting since X-Com or Jagged Alliance 2. Puzzle Kingdoms is already in my top 20 of all time, and that's really saying something, since I've been playing computer and video games since 1977!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Most addictive of the three battle type puzzle games, May 21, 2009

By 

Mark Witt (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Puzzle Kingdoms (Video Game)

Having played Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords and Puzzle Quest: Galactrix all the way through, this game is more fun, addicting, and creative than the other two combined.

Learning to play the game takes a bit of getting used to, as you control the gems from the edges (which move entire rows) rather than moving the individual gems. This is a refreshing and smart change from the conventional match 3 gem game.

General gameplay: You go through kingdoms and battle the kings and villages to take over their kingdom. You then command the kingdom with the king you just defeated. You can then recruit new troops by solving puzzles (by clearing a certain amount of gems in a time limit). You can also discover new spells in newly defeated kingdoms (by clearing gems in a limited number of moves). To compare to hacking galaxies in Galactrix, the time limited puzzles here are actually relaxing!

Sounds: That brings me to the music. You don't usually expect much from the music on the DS, but this game actually has really outstanding music and great medieval sounds that go along with the atmosphere.

Troops: The main portion of the gameplay is battles of course. Your one leader controls troops as you conquer a kingdom. Your troops can die, and you can recruit new ones. You can customize what troops you want. For example, I recruited a Unicorn, Ogre, Knight, and dwarf. Who'd have thought these types would fight together? There are a large number of other possible recruits you can use, up to about 20-30.

Spells & unique items: This is another major aspect of the gameplay during battles. Spells do things like heal, change gem colors, give troops power points, etc. Unique items are a major help in battles as they do things like give bonus defenses, and extra turns.

Kingdom customization: As you obtain many kingdoms, you can customize each individual kingdom and go on fighting with different leaders. This is an awesome feature as different leaders have different skills. The variability in this game is incredible, that's what makes it such a fantastic game.

Leveling up: Each leader you have can gain levels as you conquer kingdoms. What's awesome is how fast they level up. For example, By conquering only one kingdom I was able to get my Dwarf leader to level 5, which he can now use spells and gains other nice stats. It's nice to change leaders when you want to experiment with other stats, and it doesn't take that long!

I'm very happy with this game as it blows its two predecessors out of the water. The only con I can think of is its not good for time management! The game is almost TOO addicting.

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