Three years ago we gamers saw it all happen. We watched with glee as it spread like a virus, first infecting portable gaming systems and not long after it spread to Xbox LIVE Arcade taking over the best sellers list. The PC and Steam were next with the Wii console following shortly thereafter. It was everywhere, and avoidance was futile. In the end, most gamers were afflicted. Huge blockbusters like Halo 3, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Assassin’s Creed, Mass Effect and Super Mario Galaxy made 2007 an epic year for gaming. The original Puzzle Quest was there too, a surprise indie hit that no one expected to do so well.
Now, thanks to the original’s success, lessons learned from a blundering sci-fi spin off and a larger budget, Infinite Interactive brings us Puzzle Quest 2!
*Insert epic fantasy music*
Now the reason the original went viral as it did (as proof I have the original Puzzle Quest on four different platforms) is because of how ridiculously addictive the gameplay is. Puzzle Quest 2 returns to that style with the same core concepts while adding a few new twists to make gameplay fresh for veterans of the series.
If you’re a stranger to the series the basic gameplay combines a match-three system ala Bejeweled, and combines it with traditional RPG elements like spells, abilities, a strong leveling up system and a fantasy setting. I’m sure there’s someone you know who spends an endless amount of time playing Bejeweled on their phone or Facebook maybe. Just like there’s someone tucked away in a basement or attic right now playing a Final Fantasy game. If you marry these two up they produce Puzzle Quest, a game thoroughly enjoyable and time consuming for either party. As proof, when I downloaded Puzzle Quest 2 on XBLA I encouraged my wife to give it a go. I didn’t get my controller back for three hours.
In the beginning of the game you must select a hero class and gender of which there are four: Assassin, Barbarian, Mage and Paladin. This is a bit disappointing from the first game which had eight classes, but at the same time I can see why they narrowed down the choices. The quest mode of the game begins with a cinematic of slowly panning and fading well drawn artwork that is pretty to look at but fairly boring by today’s standards. Fortunately you can skip past all that. In fact, to give it to you up front, this game shares a similar trait with the original; the story is there simply because games today are expected to have stories. The story may as well not be there, and if it wasn’t you probably wouldn’t notice much. It reminds me a lot of Infinite Interactive’s older titles in the Warlords series, RTS and turn based strategy games you might remember from the computer gaming days in the nineties. Those games were fun, but I can’t really remember what they were about. Oh well.
Instead of an overworld map like the original we are now presented with a 3D/2D world with a visual avatar based on the class you chose. Unfortunately this avatar remains the same throughout game play regardless of what weapons or armor you equip. The graphics aren’t much to speak of although they definitely provide a dimension the first lacked. The creatures you fight are visible on screen before approaching them and the environments are well done, making you feel as if you are on a journey in a different world. The controls for this on XBLA are a bit sluggish with the control stick acting a mouse cursor for most of the world navigation. I can see how it would work better on PC or DS touch screen.
Changes from the original include no more gold stacks and no more experience purple stars. Instead, purple gems giving mana and big gauntlets of steel are present providing action points. Action points can be spent on offensive or defensive actions; attacking with an equipped weapon or defense with a shield. Defense points give you a high chance of blocking all incoming damage and halving it (rounded down). The gameplay feels faster than the original with much less time spent on gathering mana by matching gems before the fight comes to finish. In all the game feels tighter and much more polished than its predecessor along with having a well paced level curve that never leaves you feeling overpowered or pitted against an impossible foe.
The core concepts are still the same: match skulls to cause damage, match colours to gain mana, spend mana to use skills, obliterate your enemy, get XP, money and on to the next fight. Abilities differ from class to class and range from spells that do direct damage, to others that eat gems on the board or manipulate other elements of the game. Two or more abilities which would be useless on their own can become game winners when combined with some quick and clever thinking. Matching gems still provide the same bonus as in the original: match four and get an extra turn, match five to get an extra turn plus a wildcard.
Cascading gems resulting in five or more matches in a turn will result in a “Heroic Effort!” giving you a quick +100 XP. These instances are rare during normal play and usually have more to do with new gems falling onto the screen than your original decision. But you always feel proud and happy when it does happen, because we all know heroes need at least a little bit of luck now and then.
A very welcome addition to the new game is the appearance of treasure chests and other mini-games using a puzzle board with different parameters. With only three types of gems on board for treasure chests, wild cascades occur (making them feel like a bonus round of pure fun) as you match goblets and treasure chests to accumulate gold and items. Locked doors and searching for treasure have their own variants emphasising the puzzle element of the game.
Somewhere in the middle of all this is where the addictive fun comes in with something in the formula making it incredibly hard to put the controller down once you’ve started. It could be the narrowly escaping death using a clever combination of abilities, cascading gems for high damage and mana gain, finding new items, or leveling up and learning new abilities. Whatever it is, Puzzle Quest 2 is hard to put down, and that is truly what makes it a good game.
You can expect to spend an infinite number of hours playing Puzzle Quest 2. Multiplayer lets you go up against a friend on XBLA, and you’re allotted multiple hero slots so you can experiment with all the classes on the same gamer profile. Your character hit level cap at 50, and after around 10 hours of gameplay I haven’t gotten halfway there.
I bought this on XBLA because the graphics are much shinier than its DS counterpart but I will probably be picking that version up as well for questing on the go. I would expect to see PS3 and PSP ports for this in the near future similar to the viral nature of its predecessor and PC and Wii shouldn’t be far behind either. It’s not perfect, but for the 1200 points I spent I feel like I’ve made a solid investment knowing I have a huge number of hours ahead of me, involving fun and addictive gameplay.
VideogameUK verdict: 8/10
