MOBILE GAME REVIEW
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the WarlordsA real gem |
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No-one can resist supermarket offers. Whether you've only gone in for a can of beans or your entire weekly shop, the temptation of splashing out some cash on whatever bundle the store has put together is a tough one to resist. Even if said bundle happens to be a couple of flatscreen TVs for the price of a luxury family holiday abroad, our love of bargain hunting is one that the big stores rely on.
And it's not just the supermarkets, either. With Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, THQ is clearly counting on the premise that the more it offers, the more attractive a proposition the game becomes. In Warlord's case, what's put forward is a fairly standard gem-puzzler wrapped up in the clothing of an adventure title.
But THQ needn't worry about its appeal to bargain hunters, or anyone else for that matter: Puzzle Quest is a quality package.
At its heart this is a puzzler that focuses on players matching gems of the same colour in a line. Getting three in a row is the main aim, though there are bonuses tied to other achievements – clearing different types of gems brings its own rewards, with gold coins equating to money, purple stars to XP (or 'experience' to the uninitiated) and skulls to perform attacks on your rival. Yes, Puzzle Quest is a turn-based puzzler, so this isn't a case of simply clearing the board.
Rather, each battle is tied into Puzzle Quest's plot, which takes on the form of a young apprentice learning the ropes from a faithful old master. The latter regularly sends you off on quests to either hunt down enemies or investigate a particular area, with each one naturally resulting in a trade-off on the puzzle board. The aim of each contest is to ground the opposition's health score down to zero – each set of three helps achieve that end.
But stringing together combinations – where the removal of one set sees others fall into place, setting off a chain reaction – really does the damage. Find a set of four and you're handed another chance to score an attack against your rival's score. Topping things off, however, is the addition of spells, which can wreak all kinds of havoc on the board.
At the very beginning, players are asked to pick from a score of eight different characters – male and female versions of Druids, Knights, Warriors and Wizards. Each type of character comes complete with its own assortment of spells, which can be used in battle when enough 'mana' has been earned – Puzzle Quest's currency, netted through successfully matching up chains of three.
Spells become all the more important as the quality of opponents ramps up, with battles beyond the first few green encounters sometimes concluding in a matter of seconds if you're not equipped with the right set of charms. Such spells are simply a way of aiding your headway mid-battle, clearing the board of all gems of a certain colour, for instance, or switching them for skulls. Though not especially magic in any sense, it does provide a neat way for the developer to hand out power-ups within the context of the game's narrative.
In fact, such tactics are the perfect example of how the game's quest elements – character, plot and wizardry – fuse perfectly with what is at the title's core: a smart gem puzzler. Though it sounds like a complicated companionship on the page, Puzzle Quest is the product of a skilled developer successfully combining the appeal of Tolkien-esque storytelling with the grounding of a solid, and most importantly, engaging game. There's no hint of tagging on here – this is a seamlessly smooth and complete package.
It's a truly rare occasion when a developer manages to produce a title that treads the fine line between knowing its format's limits and pandering to over simplicity. If all buy-one-get-one-frees were of this kind of quality, we'd spend our lives at the checkout.
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords |
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Part fantasy, part puzzler, Puzzle Quest is the result of a perfect marriage and bastion of real quality
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Joined:
Feb 2008
Post count:
287
One of many games that Nokia really should've tried hard to bring to their new N-Gage. This is a smash-hit puzzle game that will most definitely appeal to a lot of gamers.
Joined:
Feb 2008
Post count:
7
Yeah, I have to say I have spent more hours playing Puzzle Quest than any other game in a long time. Love it! Great review too, the integration of the quest into the puzzle really does add value to the puzzle element, I usually find that type of puzzle quite dull, but adding the mana and spells and different types of opponent really adds a strategy element that makes you want to look for chain reactions to match the right type of runes/gems.
Joined:
Feb 2008
Post count:
287
I do hope that their _next_ game in the series (Galactrix) will make it to N-Gage ^^ That'd be oh so sweet - really looking forward to the sci-fi theme.
Joined:
Nov 2006
Post count:
572
Great game. I found this game more fun than the Might and Magic and Blade rpg. Seems to be a game that works on any format.
Joined:
May 2008
Post count:
58
Here's a quick gaming quiz for you…. What would you get if you mix an intuitive puzzle game like Diamond Twister and a well crafted RPG game like Blades and Magic together? Chemistry isn't my strongest subject but to my brief introduction to atoms, hydrogen's and water compounds in school, I do know if you blend two of the biggest selling games on mobile you would probably ignite an instantaneous combustion of total addiction!!! Your phone suffice to say, will suffer a bad case of battery draining and you'll be carrying your phone charger everywhere just as a precaution. Puzzle Quest Warlords, the new game from THQ Wireless is the result from that spontaneous mixture.
When one of my colleagues recommended Puzzle Quest I was very skeptical about playing it. The technological art of cloning in the real world has started to become a norm in duplicating farm live stock (there must be like about 100 cloned Dolly Sheep now!!!) for breeding and human consumption but the art of cloning is more practiced and traditional in the gaming market than in the real world. We have all experienced playing clone games some time or the other but Puzzle Quest has camouflaged its entry in the mobile world as being a hybrid Puzzle game that takes elements from a role playing game. I was really surprised by the ingenuity that made this game different from other puzzle games.
The game has a selection of 8 different characters with their own tactics and abilities to acquire different spells .You cannot customize them though so the character classes and gender are pre-defined for you to choose. There are warriors, druids, mages etc each with their own tactics, abilities to learn spells at a certain level of cost. The core of the game play is based on a puzzle board similar to that of Bejeweled or Diamond Twister. The jewels however are replaced with cool skulls (which is part of your attacking strategy), purple stars (your experience), coins which represent gold (money to buy new learning points) and the colored blocks represent your mana (in order for you to cast spells).
You need to match 3 of the same type in order for you to accomplish your objective in decreasing the HP bar of your opponents to zero. There are 7 mastery skills which is compulsory for you to improve in the game in order for you to challenge more difficult opponents. The elemental skills are your Earth (Green gems), Fire (Red gems), Air (Yellow gems) and Water (Blue gems). The Cunning skill increases the effects of wildcard bonuses as well as the experience points gained and gold earned after every combat. The Battle skill increases your attacks and gaining extra turns and the Morale skill increases your HP as well as influencing y
