Puzzle Quest: The Legend Returns

Bejeweled: The RPG

The year 1990 saw the release of the computer wargame Warlords, the brainchild of developer Steve Fawkner and the Strategic Studies Group (SSG); the franchise would receive three mainline sequels and the spinoff series Battlecry. At the turn of the millennium, Fawkner developed a fondness for the match-three puzzle game Bejeweled, consequentially proposing a hybrid puzzle/RPG title that would eventually become Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, which would receive several ports and spinoffs such as the science-fiction themed Galactrix, not to mention a direct numbered sequel. A few years after the Nintendo Switch came into existence, the original game would receive a port entitled Puzzle Quest: The Legend Returns, which included the original game’s expanded content. Is it worth experiencing?

The story of Puzzle Quest occurs in the Warlords universe, players able to choose a protagonist of one of various classes. The background to the primary plot is very intricate, supplemented by rumors in taverns, many of which require a payment. There are also some twists such as female dwarfs having beards, although there are a few asinine aspects such as pegasi having eggs. Regardless, the narrative never feels forced down the player’s throat, with potential variations depending upon which character class the player selects, sidequests adding further story. The only real major complaint is the somewhat-shallow nature of the “present” storyline, but otherwise, the plot rises well above average.

Mercifully, solid gameplay backs the experience, with The Legend Returns occurring on a dot-connected world akin to titles such as Final Fantasy Tactics. Primary quests and sidequests form the chief narrative structure, with many involving one-on-one encounters between the player’s character and an enemy. Combat occurs with an eight-by-eight grid with jewels of different types, including those colored red, green, yellow, and blue, respectively representing the elements fire, earth, air, and water. Other jewels include those indicating money and experience, as well as skulls which, when three or more the player or enemy matches, damages the opponent.

Matching money or experience tiles gives points to the player, the amounts matched remaining even if the enemy wins the battle, and elemental tiles grant their respective points to either side, with each having skills that require certain amounts to execute and have various effects such as damaging the other side, curing ailments, and so forth. Before using skills, however, one must consider the enemy’s elemental resistances, since if they have at least a certain percentage, skills composed of at least one of the used elements can randomly fail if the player attempts to use them, with the same sometimes going for the enemy’s use of their own abilities.

Matching four or more tiles grants the player’s character or the enemy an additional turn, with these mercifully not stacking, given the possibility of endless matching combinations when tiles fall, and should the player score a combo of matches enough, they gain an additional hundred experience points. When there are no possible matches on the jewel grid, it empties and refills with new jewels, with the player and the enemy losing all their mana points, which can at times be a blessing or a curse. The player wins a battle by exhausting all an enemy’s health, with defeat occurring when the adversary does the same to the player.

Regardless, Puzzle Quest is mostly accommodating towards players of different skill levels, given the indicators of the relative toughness of the game when choosing a class as which to start, and before facing enemies, they can choose one of three difficulty levels, which seems in many cases to affect the A.I. of the enemy, which can at times seem to be a cheating bastard depending upon the situation, given their typical matching of fours-of-a-kind when available, and on occasion making the player miss a couple of turns with certain skills. Other features include the ability by the player to build a citadel that can allow them to train mounts, siege other towns, “capture” enemies to learn skills from them, and the like. Generally, the puzzle/RPG fusion works well.

Control in many cases serves the game well, given the general difficulty of getting lost, what with yellow fog around towns indicating the next story objectives and blue fog indicating how to advance sidequests, of which there are definitely many in Puzzle Quest, players able to have four at a time active. However, there are some quality-of-life features that are absent, such as the inability to save and quit in the middle of battle, which can be a burden since they can take some time, no in-game clock, and there is noticeable lag when navigating the game interface on the overworld. Ultimately, interaction is above average, although there are definitely kinds the developers could have ironed out.

The rerelease has a fitting fantasy soundtrack with many good tracks such as the overworld theme and battle themes, although there is noticeable pausing and looping with whatever various tunes alternate in combat. The music further changes whenever the player’s character is low on health or when they’re on the brink of defeating the enemy, which isn’t a bad think, although the female voice that warns players that they’re low on health and inform them that they’ve lost, if they do, will definitely enrage many gamers. Generally, the aurals are good, but the tracks could have been more diverse.

The visuals are nice and colorful, with decent art direction and character portraits, although for the most part they’re static and don’t change emotions. Puzzle Quest, I should mention, is mostly one of those games that relies on interface design in terms of graphics, and in battle, there isn’t any kind of window that actually shows whatever actions either side takes, if any. Overall, the visual presentation is generally nothing about which to write home.

Finally, one won’t be able to gauge total playtime without a stopwatch, although there is plentiful lasting appeal in the myriad of sidequests and different character classes that will undoubtedly give gamers a great bang out of their gaming buck, but completionist players definitely won’t appreciate the lack of any percentage completion indicators.

On the whole, Puzzle Quest: The Legend Returns is a great remaster of a game that was already good to begin with, given its addicting puzzle/RPG hybrid gameplay, intricate lore, good soundtrack, and plentiful side content. Granted, it does have a few issues the developers could have definitely worked out such as the luck and randomization involved in battle, the interface lag, the finite musical selection, and the simplistic graphics that largely rely on interface design. Regardless, while it was one of the very first of its kind, it was perhaps definitely the highlight of whatever limited experience I’ve had with the fusion of genres, and I very much wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it.

This review is based on a playthrough of a digital copy purchased and downloaded to the reviewer’s Nintendo Switch.

The Good:
+Great puzzle/RPG hybrid gameplay.
+Good mythos.
+Nice soundtrack.
+Plenty of extra content.

The Bad:
-Some luck and randomization involved in battle.
-A little lag.
-Limited music selection.
-Graphics somewhat simplistic.

The Bottom Line:
One of the best of the hybrid genre.

Score Breakdown:
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Game Mechanics: 8.5/10
Controls: 6.5/10
Story: 7.5/10
Music/Sound: 7.5/10
Graphics: 6.0/10
Lasting Appeal: 8.0/10
Difficulty: Adjustable and depends on class.
Playing Time: No in-game clock.

Overall: 7.5/10