When writing a video game review for Digital Lard, I like to presume a lot of things. I like to presume that the average Digital Lard reader is not a layman. I presume that s/he is on the ball when it comes to their games, clued-up and educated in the field. They don’t need simple things explained to them. Mostly, I do this because I’m awfully lazy, but secondly it’s because I know I’m not expected to cough up half-baked lumps of hype that treat you like you pick your gaming purchases from the entertainment section of The Sun. You come to us for quality, informed writing from experienced gaming experts, so we can confidently guess that you’re already familiar enough with the hobby. Therefore, if I say to you ‘picture in your head the puzzle game Bejewelled’, you will mentally create the grid of mixed-up coloured gems that you swap around so that they are matched up in sets of three or more and then disappear, earning you points and dropping further gems onto the screen, thereby giving you the chance to earn even more points. You won’t need any description at all, will you? None at all.
Now, take this image of Bejewelled, and throw into the mix a healthy dose of swords ‘n’ sorcery. We’re talking dragons, knights, wizards, ogres, castles and magic – in fact, pretty much anything you would find in a generic fantasy novel from the Eighties. Throw in enough RPG elements to make Final Fantasy go ‘woah’ and you’ve got Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords for the Nintendo DS.
If this sounds to you like the recipe for an awful game, you’re right. If it sounds like a really awesome game, you’re even more right. Put simply, Puzzle Quest is a competitive take on Bejewelled, where players battle each other, one turn at a time. While in a regular Bejewelled game, the gems are simply different colours that must be matched together, in Puzzle Quest they represent different abilities and attacks. Each type of gem (Red, Blue, Green and Yellow) represents manna points - match four red gems together and you will receive four fire manna points, for example. Collect enough of the right manna and you can unleash spells on your opponent, which vary in effect from inflicting direct damage to manipulating the remaining gems on the board. Along with the manna, there are Treasure Gems (which reward you with gold pieces), Experience Gems (experience points are allotted to your character) and Damage Gems (skulls which attack your opponent and reduce their health points). The bejewllin’ battlin’ continues until you or your opponent runs out of hit points and dies a grisly, undeserved death.
Why are you fighting to the death with jewels, then? This is where the role-playing comes into it. You control a character (a knight or similar reliable RPG role) who roams a fantasy world, stamping out evil and discovering ancient treasures. Most of this is portrayed on a simple bird’s eye view map. You control your avatar with the stylus and direct him between the cities, enemy camps and caves that make up the land of Etheria. Along the way, you will meet characters who will run their mouths at you about ancient evil coming from the north. The storyline is such wonderfully clichéd fantasy fluff that it’s almost post-modern, but the dialogue is scripted well enough to make it entertaining. When you’re not talking to your companions or friends around the map, you’re battling enemies ranging from giant rats to dragons, siege engines to forts. The different types of fight you can wage are incredibly varied – there are straight-forward rumbles, and then various puzzles and styles of play. Success lets you build up your dude in a variety of ways – boast up his magic powers, his combat skill, his inventory and even his kingdom.
Put simply, this is a golden nugget of gaming, wrapped up in an ingenious concept. The Bejewelled-style elements are addictive enough to make a decent title on their own, but the real genius comes from the ability to enhance and expand the gameplay through levelling-up. The fact that the storyline, setting and characters are complete cod actually works in Puzzle Quest’s favour – it means that anyone can get deeply involved in the game without needing to care too much about RPGs or their plot material. As much as it is a complete addiction to build up the stack of stats as much as you can, or taking over cities to develop your empire, or solving logical problems to train up your mounts (yes, there really is a lot of things to do!), it is just as fun for pick up and play gameplay – there is even a mode that lets you play a one-off battle when you have a spare ten minutes. This means it’s perfect for hardcore and casual gamers alike, with neither party missing out.
Even the graphics are exceptional for a handheld puzzle game. You can hardly expect realistic shadows or ragdoll physics engines from a portable block-pusher like this, but the fantasy graphics are nicely drawn and the playing area looks good. Just when you think the gushing about this game will never stop, however, there is one solitary major flaw – multiplayer requires two copies of the game. This was a massive letdown as the game is an excellent PvP oppourtunity, but if you don’t have a friend who owns the game, you can’t play against anyone real. Seems a shame as the game should be simple enough to transfer to someone else’s DS for Download Play, but no. Heck, being turn-based, it seems logical that two people could play by just passing a DS between each other. However, while the multiplayer is top quality when you have a game card each, it is a shame to see a potentially world-class multiplayer game losing out to some lazy programming.
All in all, this is a prime example of simple but moreish gameplay presented exceptionally. Whoever you are, hardened RPG specialist or Nintendogs enthusiast, there is little not to like about Puzzle Quest. You want depth, it’s got it. You want involving, addictive gameplay, it’s got it. You want a damn fine puzzle game, it’s got it. You want to level up and level up until the cows come home, it’s got it. You want to meet a dwarf with verbal diarrhoea, it’s got it.