Puzzle Quest 3 reviewed, plus the 5 best puzzle adventures

Original Puzzle QuestThe game, which was released in 2007, is one that is full of genius. You can solve puzzles and go on a journey. They had an idea that was simple and were able to execute it very well. BejeweledMatch-three-style puzzle game that serves as the engine of a role-playing experience. You fight enemies and level up while following a story. Steve Fawkner’s Australian studio Infinite Interactive created this hybrid genre. His incongruous salted caramel mix of two flavors was even more inspiring. Gaming at its best is a casual, abstract, bite-sized genre that is infused with an intricate storytelling style known for its depth. It worked.

A flood — alright, maybe a stream – of copycats followed, and then slowed to a trickle, before drying up completely. The rest was history. There remained an alchemical brilliance to Fawkner’s discovery, but the subgenre fell out of fashion, as subgenres often do. Puzzle Quest arrived just too early to make hay on smartphones, where GungHo’s similarly themed, free-to-play Puzzle & Dragons cleaned up a few years later — but even that game is no longer available on the iOS App Store.

This all led to the release of Puzzle Quest 3 a curiosity — not to mention a beacon of hope for people, like me, who like matching colors and watching numbers get bigger. But, I’m sad to report, in the intervening 15 years, Puzzle Quest has lost its way.

Image from Infinity Plus 2/505 Games

Puzzle Quest 3, which is available on Steam, iOS, and Android, can’t find the magic in that same simple connection of gems and stats anymore. It’s a polished game, with smoothly animated 3D characters unleashing flashy attacks on either side of the game board. However, its core match-three gameplay is basic and unvarnished. The pace at which it interacts with the combat system (you match gems in order to boost spells of the same colour) feels slow. It also suffers from a bland story and a lot of RPG tweaking. It doesn’t help that it’s a free-to-play game, with the attendant confusion of currencies and resources to regard with suspicion as you attempt to track them, wondering when the other shoe will drop.

Playing gives you a new sense Puzzle Quest 3The reason is that designers care more about the role-playing aspect of the game than puzzles, and more about the monetisation. It’s been designed from the wrong end. It’s not the right end of the spectrum. In good puzzle RPGs, it is all about the gameplay. The RPG acts as a structure that gives meaning and stakes to the puzzles and shapes your experience. But if the puzzling is boring — and it is in Puzzle Quest 3 — the rest of the game will be too.

The more immediate satisfying option is the simple, three-step match-three puzzles. Puzzle & DragonsIt is instead available in a new Nintendo Switch edition that’s decent. In the last fifteen years, this subgenre was able to go far beyond its original purpose. Below are five top puzzle RPGs available today.

Gyromancer

Image by PopCap Games/Square Enix

First Puzzle QuestSquare Enix and Square Enix teamed up in an unlikely collaboration to make clones of the traps in 2009. Peggle developer PopCap. It takes the gameplay of PopCap’s The Bejeweled Twist This adds levels and creature collection to the game, along with beautiful artwork and an RPG-style storyline. One of the most innovative aspects of the game is the battle mechanic. It allows you to work through the board and not waste moves waiting for your opponent.

Puzzle Quest 3 can be found onComputer (Steam, free demo available) and XboxXbox 360 version backwards-compatible

Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes

Image: Capybara Games/Ubisoft

For my money, Capybara’s Clash of Heroes — which first appeared on Nintendo DS in 2009, and then in a definitive “HD” version for PC and consoles in 2011 — is the greatest puzzle RPG ever made. Perhaps it would be better to refer to the game as a puzzle tactic or strategy game. Its battle system rivals that of Advance WarsFor sophistication. It’s simple to stack and combine color-coded units. This concept is extended through five distinct factions of rules and a 30-hour campaign. It’s a shame publisher Ubisoft is unlikely to give this the full reissue treatment, as it’s a stone-cold classic.

Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes Available on PCSteam, free demo available) and XboxBackwards-compatible Xbox 360 version Note: some PC players have said that the game doesn’t work well on Windows 10/11.

A boat must be built

Image: EightyEightGames

If you fancy something more bite-sized and frenetic, EightyEightGames’ 2015 sequel to its mobile hit 10,000,000 The tile-matching dungeon crawl is stripped to its bare essentials, but with some endless runners added. While your character moves from one side to the other, you will encounter chests and monsters. You’ll also be frantically scrolling tiles to try to make attacks, key sequences or buffs. You can’t lose, but you can get pushed off the screen, whereupon you go back to your boat to upgrade and regroup. A boat must be builtIt is fast, funny and moreish.

A boat must be builtIt is now available Computer (Steam), iOS Android.

Grindstone

Image: Capybara Games

Capybara Developer once more proves its form-creating genius and mastery with original puzzle mechanics. This color-matching, creepy dungeon diving dungeon dive is available in 2019. This is as in GyromancerYour true enemy is you: You attempt to build ever longer chains of colored-coded monsters while earning grindstones that make even more chains. Grindstone may not be as rich in RPG elements, however it has an extensive system for crafting items that will allow you to break and bend its rules. There are also daily challenges, meta challenges and a boss rush. Its animation and art are both hilarious and unmistakable. Capy is the best at this.

GrindstoneIt is also available via Apple TV and iOS Apple ArcadeThe PCEpic( Nintendo Switch.

Ancient Enemy

Image: Grey Alien Games

Grey Alien Games, ex-cautious games developers, are truly outsiders who managed to make a unlikely transition from casual gaming success to Steam success through their Jane Austen-inspired fun-waste. Regency Solitaire. Ancient Enemy’s brooding dark fantasy theme isn’t quite so charming. But it makes up for that by developing a sophisticated, finely balanced RPG system around the simple act of clearing runs of cards, with the hand of solitaire you’re dealt standing in for the dice rolls. That wouldn’t count for as much as it does if the tactile pleasure of clicking on the cards, refined by Grey Alien’s Jake Birkett over many years and games, wasn’t so irresistible in itself.

Ancient Enemy Available on PCSteam, Epic, GOG).