Puzzle Quest 2: Xbox Windows Phone Review

Puzzles games often characteristic enjoyable gameplay, only they rarely give users a reason to proceed on playing beyond chasing high scores (or Achievements). That's what made the original Puzzle Quest so special. Australian developer Infinite Interactive (later bought out by Firemint) had the revolutionary idea of combining the cadre gameplay of a puzzle game with a sizable RPG take a chance. Naturally a slightly less-inspired sequel followed, this fourth dimension branching out to even more platforms. Namco handled the Windows Telephone port of Puzzle Quest 2, squeezing the lengthy console game into a tiny mobile package.

Puzzle Battles

What sets the Puzzle Quest series apart from other role-playing games is that the battles take identify entirely on a match 3 puzzle field. Recollect Bejeweled, simply with two opponents taking turns and attempting to defeat each other. Mixed in with standard colorful gems are skulls that harm the enemy when matched. In one case either side runs out of life, the battle ends.

Puzzle Quest's mana system works differently than a typical RPG, but plays to the puzzle game'south strengths. Matching gems of whatever colour adds to that color's mana pool. Both player and enemy can bring up to five spells and techniques into battle, each requiring different combinations of colored mana to use. Spell furnishings vary from destroying all gems of a specific color to healing the caster. Constructive spell employ becomes an important part of the player'south boxing strategy every bit the game goes on.

The kickoff game's feel and gold tiles are gone, replaced with gauntlet gems that provide activeness points when matched. Action points fuel the use of weapons, shields, and potions; these items no longer provide persistent stat bonuses (though other armor pieces do). Basically, sword and the like give players some other pick for attacking and defending when they tin can't notice a good motility to make on the gem board. The bodily buttons for these weapons and such are needlessly tiny in this version, only you get used to it.

PQ2 also mixes things upward a bit over its predecessor with playing field variety. In add-on to the standard precious stone field, ii zoomed-out views pack a lot more gems onto the screen. The larger fields can make some spells much more effective, but unfortunately both fields are quite uncommon. I would take liked the option to select these as the default playing field since they amend fit my spell-oriented playing fashion.

Minigames galore

Speaking of multifariousness, numerous actions initiate their own minigames: bashing doors down, picking lots, searching for and disarming traps, and looting chests for treasure. Each of these cleverly switches up the standard match-three mechanics to fit the theme. For case, in the looting minigame your rewards are determined past the types of chests you're able to friction match. The annoying capture puzzles from the first game return, merely at present they're solely tied to learning spells. Yous tin always await up their solutions or skip them (as I did).

One big dungeon

Now nosotros reach Puzzle Quest 2's most significant departure from the original: game structure. Office two eschews a vast overworld map in favor of up-close-and-personal dungeon exploration. Players travel from screen to screen by tapping on hotspots. On the plus side, this creates a sense of location and exploration that the predecessor lacked. However, PQ 2'south world contains so few singled-out locations that it hardly matters. Instead of taking identify across an entire kingdom like before, the sequel is confined to a single village and a gigantic multilevel dungeon.

The modify in scope applies to the story, too. Puzzle Quest ii's intro describes an adventurer's descent into the giant tower, and that's pretty much the whole setup. Quests, whether of the chief or side multifariousness, are relatively few in number for an RPG. As the dungeon is so huge and spread out, I oft forgot what I was supposed to be doing other than moving toward the next checkpoint. By the fourth dimension the last level of the dungeon rolls around, you are finally given a sense of purpose, but it'southward as well little too tardily. Don't get me wrong, Puzzle Quest ii doesn't need a clever story to be fun; it but falls a bit short this fourth dimension.

The longest journey

RPGs tend to be longer than other types of games – normally a good thing. But Puzzle Quest two feels too long for a diversity of reasons. First off, battle length. About halfway through the game, the battles start to elevate on longer than a dragon'due south tail. Single fights tend to concluding 10 minutes or more. The reason: enemies take manner too much health. Worse, they oftentimes block physical attacks, reducing damage taken by half or more. Y'all tin't do much to hasten a loftier level monster's demise other than keep pecking away at them.

The overly lengthy battles really cut into the title'due south portability. You can save at whatsoever time except during battles. Fine. But like all Namco Windows Phone titles, PQ 2 simply lacks the standard tombstoning feature – nor has it been updated to support Fast App Switching. Resuming an interrupted game simply restarts from the initial company logo sequence. That means if yous press the Home or Search buttons or demand to step away from your phone for whatever reason during a fight, you lose any progress made in the (lengthy) battle. Since fights comprise 80 or 90 percent of the game, Puzzle Quest 2 tin scarcely be played in short spurts or on the go.

Finally, by the end of the game this PQ2 overstays its welcome. Remember, the dungeon is gigantic and the story bare bones. Once I reached the end of the third floor of the dungeon, I was ready for the game to come up to a satisfying decision. Picayune did I know the dungeon still had several more than levels and x hours of the exact same gameplay in store. The developers merely spread the content likewise sparse in favor of creating a lengthy 30+ hour experience.

Depression cost artwork

The original Puzzle Quest featured attractive anime-inspired art courtesy of the talented Susan Luo. With the sequel, pb designer and Space CEO Steve Fawkner chose a more western-fantasy inspired approach in order to lucifer the dungeon-crawling gameplay. That might not be so bad, just the new character designer Alister Lockhart'due south fine art looks so flat and artificial. As the comparison above reveals, the original characters have much meliorate faces and more realistic proportions. Some of part ii's monsters look okay, but they all have that low-finish fan art quality and poor figurer coloring. The view exterior of battle fares better, except the sprites don't animate all that well.

Achievements

Puzzle Quest ii has the aforementioned crappy Achievements as the XBLA version. Several rely on pure luck, like the ane for losing during the first turn of a battle. You could play through the whole game and miss it (every bit I did). The non-random 'Gate Hacker' is no amend thought out. To earn it, players take to choose the bashing minigame at every unmarried opportunity in the game. If the devs want us to bash everything, why even offer other options of lock-picking, etcetera? Remember, the game takes dozens of hours to complete – i mistake and yous'd miss out on the Achievement.

Equally another strike confronting portability, PQ two'due south Achievements will only unlock when the phone has a Wi-Fi connection. I met the criteria for ane while offline and it really popped the next time I connected, and so it could be worse.

Overall Impression

Okay, so Puzzle Quest two isn't quite as stellar as the original. The story, game construction, and art all took a plough for the worse. This version also cries out for tombstoning and Fast App Switching back up. And however, I don't hesitate to recommend the game to fans of Bejeweled-like puzzlers and fantasy RPGs.  It all comes downwards to the tried-and-true match three gameplay. Battle length aside, matching gems to defeat an orc or a werewolf, casting spells and techniques every bit necessary, is just more than compelling than playing for points. Purchase into that and you'll detect hours and hours of gameplay here. But because the high asking price and slightly rough port, you may desire to wait till information technology goes on auction once again.

Puzzle Quest ii costs $six.99 and at that place is a complimentary trial. Pick information technology up here from the Store.

Special thanks to Sam Mayo at Firemint and Ben Lichius at Spark Plug Games for providing background details on this crawly serial.

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Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/windows-phone-xbox-live-review-puzzle-quest-2

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