A Dungeon Worth Crawling, Puzzle Quest 2 Review

In 2007, D3Publisher created a role-playing/Bejeweled hybrid called Puzzle Quest that took the gaming world by storm.  Puzzle Quest became famous for being ridiculously addicting and fun.  The cross-genre title had the appeal of an RPG with the replayability of a puzzle game.  On the surface, it may not have made sense, but after spending some time with it, gamers agreed that it was a blissful combination.  Three years later, the true sequel has finally arrived, but has it brought with it the elements that made the original so delightful?

For those that are unfamiliar, Puzzle Quest 2 is a quest-based game, in which you battle enemies by playing a puzzle.  The puzzle is a match-three format, and matching colors will build mana to cast spells, and matching skulls will deal direct damage.  New to the series, you can match gauntlets which you can use toward action points for attacking with your weapon.  It’s a system that may be a bit confusing at first, but after a few battles, you’ll have gotten a feel for what your optimal strategy should be.

At the very beginning, the player will choose one of four available heroes: a barbarian, a templar, a sorcerer, and an assassin.  In true RPG fashion, each of there characters has a different style that suits them best.  For instance, a barbarian may be optimized through use of melee weaponry, but an assassin may work best with poison-based attacks.  It’s really up to the player’s personal preference, but each class is well-equipped to perform the task at hand.

The visuals of Puzzle Quest 2 have received a tremendous upgrade over it’s predecessor.  While the original employed a top-down camera, Puzzle Quest 2 puts you right up by the action.  This allows you to get a better look at your surroundings and somewhat adds a more personal and engaging feel to the overworld.

One of the weaker aspects of Puzzle Quest 2 seemed to be the story.  The fact that the town needs to be saved is abundantly clear, but the nuances of the tale may be somewhat lost in translation.  I found myself running around and completing several quests for reasons that were unknown to me.  Given that RPGs thrive on their ability to tell a story, you’d think this is a crippling blow to the game.  Amazingly, it didn’t end up detracting from the overall experience even a little bit.

The reason that the lacking story doesn’t subtract from Puzzle Quest 2 is because the gameplay is just so damn addictive!  That’s really all there is to know about this game.  The RPG elements aren’t super strong, and I’m the type of guy that gets sick of Bejeweled quickly, but when the two are added together, D3Publisher and Infinite Interactive have found a formula worth capitalizing upon.  It may not completely make sense, but I know that there were several times that I said to myself “just one more quest” or “just one more battle”, and guess what?  98% of the time I was lying to myself.  So while none of the parts of the whole are particularly amazing, Puzzle Quest 2, as the sum of those parts, simply is amazing.