Aggrogate

PAX East 2010: Puzzle Quest 2 Preview

I got a chance to sit down at D3Publisher's booth for some face time with Puzzle Quest 2. After the entertaining but unfocused Puzzle Quest: Galactrix and the deluge of Puzzle Quest rip-off games crowding the shelves, I was worried that the genre of RPG-puzzle hybrid had come and gone. Now I'm just worried that Puzzle Quest 2 will eat up several dozen hours of my life and that I'll once again see those damn jewels shuffling around when I close my eyes.

Puzzle Quest 2 doesn't radically change game mechanics from the first game, but it does make some fascinating tweaks to the dynamics of combat and character growth. Gold and experience have been taken off the board entirely, and are instead solely given at the end of every fight. Replacing them are a fifth mana color, purple, and fist-shaped weapon points.

Purple mana is just that: another color of mana for using skills and spells. Weapon points are a little different. Instead of weapons simply granting bonuses to players, they now can directly deal damage to enemies. Each weapon needs a set number of weapon points to activate, and when you have enough you can trigger a direct attack. These are welcome changes, because now every gem on the board is a potential boon or threat. The experience and gold gems in the first Puzzle Quests were benign filler gems, usually only useful when your character had a gem-wiping or -shifting skill that could affect them. Now, everything on the board can give you or your enemy an edge.

Exploration gets a pretty big change, and I'm still not sure if it's for better or for worse. The sprawling world map of the first Puzzle Quest is gone, replaced by a Diablo-like town that serves as your hub. You guide your character around the town to directly interact with NPCs, triggering events and moving the game forward. I couldn't get a good feel of how this dynamic changes the game's scope in just half an hour, though. It might be a more immersive experience, or it might just make Puzzle Quest 2 feel small.

Puzzle Quest 2 hits XBLA later this spring, and arrives on the DS in June. It looks like we're going to get addicted to the mutant combination of Bejeweled and stat growth once again.