The handheld phenomenon Puzzle Quest has finally made its way to the Live Arcade, and it is certainly well worth the wait. While not much has changed from the DS and PSP versions, just about anyone that has spent any time with those versions will tell you that it is certainly a good thing. The blend of addictive, simple puzzler and RPG gameplay makes for the best Live Arcade title yet.
As the title suggests, it is essentially a simplistic match-three puzzle game. Gamers have a board filled with colored gems, treasure, experience bonuses, and skulls and must create a horizontal or vertical line of three like items to clear them from the board. Match four and receive an extra turn, or match five and earn an extra turn and wildcard multiplier. In many ways, the standard gameplay of Puzzle Quest is similar to Bejeweled. The game blows past every other puzzle game by incorporating RPG and battle elements into its standard puzzle game.
The game's blending of RPG elements makes it last quite a while longer than most puzzle games. Like any good RPG, there is a main storyline to keep you pushing through the game and side quests to help level up your character and fill your character's wallet. It goes so far as to allow you to party-up with in-game characters, each of whom has specific talents to help you defeat tricky foes. As impressive as this all sounds, it is only scratching the surface of the deepest game XBLA has to offer.
The game's standard match-three boards are battles, with your character matching up against a baddie in a puzzle-fight to the death. Players either match gems of the same color to build up the four-colored mana in their reserves to cast spells, or match skulls to deal damage to the enemy directly. Matching three regular skulls together, without weapon or item multipliers equipped, does five points of damage, while casting damage spells or matching glowing skulls can be much more effective.
The spells your character learns along the way are just below your character's mana and life points. You have the ability to equip six different spells, so picking the right balance of support and damage spells later in the game is vital to your success. Each spell requires a certain amount of two or three different colored mana. Once you have gained enough mana from the board to cast a certain spell, it lights up at your turn. Those still learning the game can hit 'Y' when hovering over a spell to see exactly what it will do. Some spells will do no damage to your enemy, and will instead either heal you or gather all of one color or item from the board for you. There is certainly a good deal of strategy involved in making sure you are not setting up your enemy for a powerful swipe at you.
Whether by spells or skulls, the object of the game is to drain your enemy's life. The enemies are typically very aware of this as well. While they may make a few obvious mistakes early on, like leaving plainly available skulls to match in lieu of colored mana, as the enemy 'cunning' skill goes up, so does their battle skill. It is likely that players who try to just blast through the main story quests in an effort to beat the game will eventually have to look for easier side quests to level up before taking on the harder bosses. When an enemy's life points run down to zero, the battle is over and your character receives experience points and gold. Like every RPG, your experience points go towards earning a new level for your character.
Once your character gains a new level, you earn four skill points to use towards your character's progression. In a nice touch, the game includes several different classes; all of which have different costs assigned to leveling up certain attributes. Increasing your skills for red mana as a Warrior might only cost you one point, but cost you two or three each skill level as a Knight. Each skill has its own strengths and weaknesses, along with its own set of automatically unlocked spells as you level upwards. Unlocking your class spells is not the only way to learn new spells, thanks to your own personal 'citadel' within your home castle.
