Post by Gilvan Blight on Jun 4, 2007 9:43:32 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300]Quickly[/glow] - I'm totally hooked and can't stop playing.
I recently picked up a DS and was looking for a couple games at EB. I picked up Kirby Canvas Curse as I heard it was a good example of the DS, but wasn't sure what else to pick up. The guy at EB suggested Puzzle Quest and went so far as to let me try it out on his PSP. It was in the price range I was looking for so I went with it. I wasn't disappointed.
[glow=red,2,300]Summary:[/glow] a bizarre mix of RPG and puzzle game. You create a character from 4 choices of classes and then 4 characters in each class (giving quite a bit of options for a portable game). You then go through a quick tutorial that shows you the ins and outs of the system. The game is played on two levels.
The first is the overland map, which contains a set of cities, dungeons and other sites of interest connected by a set of lines or roads. You just tap on a site to move there. The game starts with very few sites and grows quickly to be a rather large map. At each city you can listen to rumors, get quests, shop (or once you buy siege equipment you can siege them). Shopping lets you buy one of 4 types of items, headgear, armor, weapon and misc (filled with a variety of magic items). All items effect your game in the other mode.
The second mode is how all conflict is resolved and is the puzzle mode. At it's most common form this is a two player game where you play one side and your opponent plays the other (often the pc, though you can play two player via WiFi). You take turns trying to match coloured orbs, skulls, piles of coins and purple crystals, in a very Bejeweled like fashion. Each turn you can swap two items on the field and if you match 3 or more they go away and give a reward. Matches of 4 or more give you an extra turn. When you match items different things happen. Matching the 4 different colours of orbs gives mana, matching skulls does damage to your opponent, matching gold gives you gold and matching crystals gives you xp. You add to this a selection of spells. Each takes a certain amount of mana and when used do a WIDE variety of things. Some spells change the colour of orbs, some do direct damage to opponents, some convert mana from one type to another, some protect, etc. There are a ton of spells you can play with.
Added to these modes are come Strategy elements. You can upgrade your main castle giving you more abilities. You can build a dungeon, that lets you capture opponents (beat the same type three times and you get an option to capture, complete a mini game that involves clearing a set puzzle to actually catch the mob). You can then build a mage tower that lets you learn new spells off captured mobs (in a different single player mini game where you need to match scrolls along with the other normal puzzle elements). You can build a stable, and turn a captured mob into a mount, and challenge them to battles to level them up. You can build siege weapons to attack other towns. You can build towers to defend your cities. There's probably about 5 things I'm forgetting off hand as well.
Over all of this is a very D&D style story that starts with a city being attacked by Undead, that eventually grows to all out war. You of course play the main hero, and throughout the game through the various choices you are given you make a party of six to take on the evil Lich Lord. You will meet the usual fantasy types, Dwarves, Elves, Orcs, Minotaurs, and some new ones like the evil Mechotaur.
[glow=red,2,300]Screenshot:[/glow]
[glow=red,2,300]The Good:[/glow] what a great game. Excellent RPG elements. The character selection blew me away for this style of game. The variety of strategies and spells means no two players would have the same style or way of building a character. There doesn't appear to be one right way to build your character. There are a few quests that actually give you a choice (save the princess from her pre-arranged marriage or deliver her to the evil husband, keep the relic you help the goblin forge or return it as hired, etc), which is a good change from what I expected. You could spend hours just trying to capture monsters to get a certain spell, or searching for runes to craft the ultimate crown, or you could just keep doing the main story quests and rush through the plot. The Anime/D&D style graphics fit the game well. The sound is good, though you will get sick of the music that constantly plays. There is even a minor amount of voice acting. The controls are as simple as can be and lend themselves well to the DS touch screen. The ability of having 3 separate saves is nice for families like mine where both my wife and I enjoy these style of games.
[glow=red,2,300]The Bad:[/glow] a couple bugs. About three times now while playing the game has hung up on me. Never in battle though, and always when moving between the town screens. The game auto saves after every battle, so the most I have actually lost is maybe some travel time (which is very short in this game anyway) or maybe the last purchase at the shop. It's annoying but not game breaking. I once had a graphical glitch as well where everything on the puzzle screen got a white outline. It wasn't easily to look at but it didn't actually affect the game play. Miss tapping can be very annoying, where you don't quite aim right and make a move you didn't want to. Sometimes it feels like the game cheats, where the next items to drop on the puzzle seem to really favour the opponent. Not sure if this is true, or just the frustration of loosing a battle. The mini games can be damn hard. The mini games are just you vs the puzzle, no rpg elements, you level means nothing and you get no spells, so if you aren't a puzzle person you could have a hard time with it, and even if you are a puzzle person, the ones that say they are Hard and Very Hard, really are! No hot seat. This game has WiFi play enabled, which is great if you know someone else with a DS and the game, but not if you don't. I don't understand why, in a turn based puzzle game, they didn't put in a two player, pass the DS mode.
[glow=red,2,300]The Ugly:[/glow] too addictive. I find myself bringing my DS with me everywhere now and when I have even a few moments pulling it out, like when my wife goes in the bank, or when picking someone up and waiting in their driveway. At home I have taken to playing while watching DVDs even. It's an evil game in that regard.
[glow=red,2,300]Overall:[/glow] if you have a DS or a PSP I suggest you pick this up. It's only around $30 new, and you will get a ton of game time for your money. This is a perfect mix of two genre's I would have never expected to find together. Best recommendation from an EB employee
I recently picked up a DS and was looking for a couple games at EB. I picked up Kirby Canvas Curse as I heard it was a good example of the DS, but wasn't sure what else to pick up. The guy at EB suggested Puzzle Quest and went so far as to let me try it out on his PSP. It was in the price range I was looking for so I went with it. I wasn't disappointed.
[glow=red,2,300]Summary:[/glow] a bizarre mix of RPG and puzzle game. You create a character from 4 choices of classes and then 4 characters in each class (giving quite a bit of options for a portable game). You then go through a quick tutorial that shows you the ins and outs of the system. The game is played on two levels.
The first is the overland map, which contains a set of cities, dungeons and other sites of interest connected by a set of lines or roads. You just tap on a site to move there. The game starts with very few sites and grows quickly to be a rather large map. At each city you can listen to rumors, get quests, shop (or once you buy siege equipment you can siege them). Shopping lets you buy one of 4 types of items, headgear, armor, weapon and misc (filled with a variety of magic items). All items effect your game in the other mode.
The second mode is how all conflict is resolved and is the puzzle mode. At it's most common form this is a two player game where you play one side and your opponent plays the other (often the pc, though you can play two player via WiFi). You take turns trying to match coloured orbs, skulls, piles of coins and purple crystals, in a very Bejeweled like fashion. Each turn you can swap two items on the field and if you match 3 or more they go away and give a reward. Matches of 4 or more give you an extra turn. When you match items different things happen. Matching the 4 different colours of orbs gives mana, matching skulls does damage to your opponent, matching gold gives you gold and matching crystals gives you xp. You add to this a selection of spells. Each takes a certain amount of mana and when used do a WIDE variety of things. Some spells change the colour of orbs, some do direct damage to opponents, some convert mana from one type to another, some protect, etc. There are a ton of spells you can play with.
Added to these modes are come Strategy elements. You can upgrade your main castle giving you more abilities. You can build a dungeon, that lets you capture opponents (beat the same type three times and you get an option to capture, complete a mini game that involves clearing a set puzzle to actually catch the mob). You can then build a mage tower that lets you learn new spells off captured mobs (in a different single player mini game where you need to match scrolls along with the other normal puzzle elements). You can build a stable, and turn a captured mob into a mount, and challenge them to battles to level them up. You can build siege weapons to attack other towns. You can build towers to defend your cities. There's probably about 5 things I'm forgetting off hand as well.
Over all of this is a very D&D style story that starts with a city being attacked by Undead, that eventually grows to all out war. You of course play the main hero, and throughout the game through the various choices you are given you make a party of six to take on the evil Lich Lord. You will meet the usual fantasy types, Dwarves, Elves, Orcs, Minotaurs, and some new ones like the evil Mechotaur.
[glow=red,2,300]Screenshot:[/glow]
[glow=red,2,300]The Good:[/glow] what a great game. Excellent RPG elements. The character selection blew me away for this style of game. The variety of strategies and spells means no two players would have the same style or way of building a character. There doesn't appear to be one right way to build your character. There are a few quests that actually give you a choice (save the princess from her pre-arranged marriage or deliver her to the evil husband, keep the relic you help the goblin forge or return it as hired, etc), which is a good change from what I expected. You could spend hours just trying to capture monsters to get a certain spell, or searching for runes to craft the ultimate crown, or you could just keep doing the main story quests and rush through the plot. The Anime/D&D style graphics fit the game well. The sound is good, though you will get sick of the music that constantly plays. There is even a minor amount of voice acting. The controls are as simple as can be and lend themselves well to the DS touch screen. The ability of having 3 separate saves is nice for families like mine where both my wife and I enjoy these style of games.
[glow=red,2,300]The Bad:[/glow] a couple bugs. About three times now while playing the game has hung up on me. Never in battle though, and always when moving between the town screens. The game auto saves after every battle, so the most I have actually lost is maybe some travel time (which is very short in this game anyway) or maybe the last purchase at the shop. It's annoying but not game breaking. I once had a graphical glitch as well where everything on the puzzle screen got a white outline. It wasn't easily to look at but it didn't actually affect the game play. Miss tapping can be very annoying, where you don't quite aim right and make a move you didn't want to. Sometimes it feels like the game cheats, where the next items to drop on the puzzle seem to really favour the opponent. Not sure if this is true, or just the frustration of loosing a battle. The mini games can be damn hard. The mini games are just you vs the puzzle, no rpg elements, you level means nothing and you get no spells, so if you aren't a puzzle person you could have a hard time with it, and even if you are a puzzle person, the ones that say they are Hard and Very Hard, really are! No hot seat. This game has WiFi play enabled, which is great if you know someone else with a DS and the game, but not if you don't. I don't understand why, in a turn based puzzle game, they didn't put in a two player, pass the DS mode.
[glow=red,2,300]The Ugly:[/glow] too addictive. I find myself bringing my DS with me everywhere now and when I have even a few moments pulling it out, like when my wife goes in the bank, or when picking someone up and waiting in their driveway. At home I have taken to playing while watching DVDs even. It's an evil game in that regard.
[glow=red,2,300]Overall:[/glow] if you have a DS or a PSP I suggest you pick this up. It's only around $30 new, and you will get a ton of game time for your money. This is a perfect mix of two genre's I would have never expected to find together. Best recommendation from an EB employee