PFunked

Puzzle Quest

I picked up Puzzle Quest for the DS on Friday.

It's basically multi-player (competitive) Bejeweled. Easy to pick up, but you have to pay more attention to combos and setting up traps (and not setting up bonuses) for your opponent. It's hard to put down.

I'm playing a fire mage. It's a risky strategy, because I have to build up a pile of mana before I can execute. When I finally do, though, I'm almost guaranteed victory.

Nerd details: I start the match by picking up 9 blue mana, so my greater troll ring will give me 2 health every turn. This usually holds me up while I build up the rest of my mana. Then I need 10 green, at least 22 yellow, and max red mana. Once I hit that, I stack two damage buffs and start fireballing the whole game board. Every skull I fireball in a 3x3 area does 15+ damage at that point, so in two turns I can do about 100 damage.

My biggest vulnerabilities are (1) anything that reduces mana, and (2) my own inattentiveness. I wouldn't want to play another human at this point, especially someone who's been addicted to Bejeweled for a while.

I find the story too generic and stale. After carefully reading for the first half hour of the game, I now mostly skim through dialog. Playing with the stylus is great, but every other match I'll accidentally tap the board and lose a turn. If you take too long on your turn, it will give you a hint at a next possible move -- I wish there were a way to turn this off. Finally, the music is appropriate but gets old fast. There is the option of turning the music down, thankfully.

I recommend it if you like puzzle games and are at least tolerant of the fantasy RPG setting. Be warned, you'll be telling yourself "oh, I have time for one more game...".

PFunk Recommends: 8/10