Customer Reviews

Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords [Online Game Code]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Puzzle Quest will suck you in. The gameplay is simple, but it has that "just one more" aspect to it that keeps you playing for hours and hours. A truly remarkable blend of puzzles and RPG elements. Some parts of the story are corny, but how serious should a puzzle RPG be? This game is a solid five-star title.

This is a relatively simple puzzle game, similar to Hexic, wrapped around a decent RPG system and storyline/graphics that almost reach the level of mediocre. Oh, and it is as addictive as crack.

It's difficult to stop playing, and it's the type of game you'll go back to regularly for a long time afterward. The puzzle game is simple, on the surface, but the designers of the game have managed to extend it to all of the game elements in a way that makes each feel fresh. Battles avoid repetition by introducing spells, element affinities and strengths/weaknesses to each enemy. The RPG background of the game doles out rewards (more power / spells / etc) to give all the strategy & puzzling a purpose, even if the story elements aren't anything special.

Dollars per gaming hour - this is the best deal on XBLA and on the XBOX 360 itself. It's a great game and worth every penny.

I had downloaded the demo for this game and thought it was interesting. The mix of the puzzle element with the RPG element mesh together perfectly. I ended up buying the the full game, and am glad I did. I also bought the expansion pack for this game because it was so much fun to play. You can spend hours on this game with all the spells to learn, creatures to capture, cities to siege, and the story. And this is just the single player mode.
The head-to-head mode is loads of fun as well. The one gripe I have with the game is that I could not figure out how to bring someone elses profile over so that they could use their character on my system at the same time that I was using my character. The game always forced them to choose a generic character. We tried recovering the gamertag on my system, as well as using a memory card, and both did not seem to work.
Other than that little flaw, this is a gret game.

To look at the cover you may think this is another lame puzzle game, which is what I did. But when Xbox had this game on sale several months ago I played a demo and was extremely surprised to find a solid RPG game that uses puzzles for battles.

You do everything you would in a normal RPG: create a character, travel, accept quests, earn gold and experience, upgrade armor and weapons, level up, etc. Battles are turn based icon swapping game (a take off of Bejeweled, but more complicated.) In the battles you get the icons you clear on every turn. So clear 3 skulls and you attack, clear three red and you get Red Mana, clear three experience and you get experience. So there is more to this than simply trying to clear icons. Earn enough of the required Mana colors and you can cast spells (using the Mana.)

This game is much deeper than I expected and I highly recommend it as one of the must own Xbox live downloads.

If Bejeweled and Fable got together and had a baby, that baby would be Puzzle Quest. Combining the quest and character customization of an RPG with the addictiveness of a puzzle game, Puzzle Quest is the must-have download from the Xbox Live Arcade.

Outside of combat, the game plays like an old SNES-era RPG. Players go from town to town, collecting rumors and optional quests, building a party, customizing their equipment and their abilities as they level up.

The true genius of the game lies in its combat mechanic. On its surface, it's like Bejeweled or Chuzzle: the player and their AI (or Xbox Live) opponent have to move adjacent pieces to form rows or columns of at least three identical pieces, with extra turns and/or wildcards awarded for matching four or five in a row. But where those games get repetitive after a while, Puzzle Quest ensures each encounter is different. There are seven types of pieces: Skulls (which damage your opponent), Coins (which give you gold to spend outside of combat), Stars (which give you experience for leveling up), and four colors of gems, each color filling one of your four mana bars. This mana is used to cast spells, with each character being able to learn dozens and equip seven (six from themselves and one from their "mount," a captured animal). In addition, each player can have up to four pieces of equipment, each of which has a various effect on the battle, and can be resistent to certain types of spells. Add this into the fact that each character has seven traits, all of which have an effect in combat, and you're certain never to have the same encounter twice.

There are a few other game mechanics that flesh out Puzzle Quest, like the ability to capture enemies to learn their spells, building a citadel, and a few other odds and ends.

As far as gamerscore goes, there's the standard 200 points spread out over 12 acheivements, all but one of which are available to get from the single-player campaign mode.

As for downloadable content, there's an expansion pack available that doubles the number of character classes and expands on the number of quests, enemies and areas. It adds another 4 achievements worth 50G.

I can't recommend this game highly enough: I would have gladly paid double what it cost me for all the enjoyment I've gotten at it. Prepare to be addicted.