Puzzle Quest: CotW - Review @ Gamebanshee

Another review is up for Infinitive Interactive's Puzzle Quest, this time at Gamebanshee, who give the game a thorough look and a final score of 8.3/10:

As matching games go, the one employed by Puzzle Quest isn’t very complicated (since it doesn’t evolve in any way). But fortunately, Puzzle Quest has a lot of things going on outside of the battles. For example, there is a world to explore, and as you visit different towns you pick up quests and companions, and between the quests and the ensuing battles, you gain experience and levels…

Conclusion:

Overall, I enjoyed my time with Puzzle Quest. It’s definitely a bargain-priced casual game — it’s lacking enough variety to support its 40-hour campaign, it’s a little unbalanced (I went 284-9 in the battles), and it’s missing lots of bells and whistles like, oh, 3D graphics and voice acting — but as long as those sorts of things don’t bother you, then the game can be a lot of fun. Puzzle Quest is definitely a cut above the other matching games that I’ve reviewed, and it has a great addictive drawing power that keeps you playing for one more quest and one more battle. Usually, hybrid games that combine basic elements of two genres don’t turn out very well, but Puzzle Quest is an exception to the rule, and it’s easily worth its $10-20 price.

More information.

I was really liking this game up until the final boss. I have never played a game where the final boss is so insanely out of proportion in difficulty compared to the enemies in the rest of the game.

I beat him my second try.



I think I was down really low though. I kept using that spell that takes out 50% of the hit points and got lucky a few times getting past his resistance. I think. Its been a couple of months now.

I can't believe the reviewer won 284 matches and lost 9—that's insane.

My only issue is the level cap—I'm hours away from the end and already topped out—still, those four points a level aren't that big a deal, I guess. Some new spells would be nice, though…

Originally Posted by doctor_kaz
I have never played a game where the final boss is so insanely out of proportion in difficulty compared to the enemies in the rest of the game.

Titan Quest?

Nah, he's a pushover once you know how to fight him—unless you're strictly a melee build—then he's a bit tough.

Yeah, guess what? My first playthrough in TQ was a conquerer; i.e. warfare/defender class.

The game was really jawn, big time, killing the average boss was about as challenging as cutting my toenails, including the Telkines who were just "wait what, you're dead already".

And then you run into the big bad and he just starts one-hit killing you.

Took me lots of running away and back again to kill him. Very annoying fight, especially since the rest of the game doesn't really prepare you for it.

Very true—and Conqueror, while ruling absolutely elsewhere, is a hard build to use for duking it out with a one-hit killer. I don't disagree with you, BN—it's definitely a crappy balance issue. My paladin had the same problem and she could use spells.

But having killed him too many times to count with a brigand, haruspex, prophet, evoker and various other ranged builds, I maintain its all in your strategy.

Still, this is obviously not a good approach for people playing the game through once with one character and is one of the biggest flaws not just in TQ but in all Diablo clones.

Originally Posted by Lucky Day
I beat him my second try.



I think I was down really low though. I kept using that spell that takes out 50% of the hit points and got lucky a few times getting past his resistance. I think. Its been a couple of months now.

How do you get that spell? I seriously need that. I can get him to about 200 hit points at best before he completely annihilates me. Once he gets on a roll, he can empty out 150 of your hit points in a single turn. His spell resistance is ridiculous too.

Items also have benefits.

And you can craft your own with the runes, don't forget that.

Wasn't that the Death Gaze spell? The one that is learned from a Liche, and is insanely difficult to research? Btw, I also beat him on my second try, it does depend on strategy. The towns that had a mana node in them (specifically the elven ones) were way more difficult to siege than defeating Lord Bane.

I finally beat the bastard last night on about my hundredth try.

Glad to hear it, doctor_kaz. I still have that joy to look forward to, but I've hit the level cap and am having enough problems with arboleths and minions atm.

@Arma—totally agree. Some of the seige battles are painfully hard and the towns with four or so spells are the worst.

As mentioned elsewhere, fire bomb (borrowed from a dark dwarf) was my Bane of Bane. My warrior could keep pace reasonably well as long as Bane didn't get one of those "you @^%@#^ cheater" cascades, so the slow bleed of fire bomb helped out without having to cast multiple spells. Took me 15-20 attempts, although a few of those were punts after a Bane cascade made continuing the battle pointless.

Elven town sieges were the toughest battles. "Very hard" spell research was the most frustrating. Arboleths were the most fun since you had to completely re-evaluate your technique.

All of this discussion reminds me why I have spent *so* many hours on *so* many platforms playing this game for a year now …

That spell that reduces his hitpoints by 50% helps tremendously. I finally beat the guy when I captured a Liche and learned that spell. Then I finally got into a battle where I got a couple of lucky Wild cards early that gave me a bunch of green and red mana and I cast that spell and did about 190 points of damage to him. He still managed to knock off about 2/3 of my hit points at the end though.

doctor_kaz, you probably got lucky For me researching Death Gaze was a harder job than defeating Bane

As a matter of fact, by the end of the game I wasn't encountering that many tough enemies, but that may vary to different characters, spells and equipment.

I got my tail handed to me a few times today, suprisingly, by a giant wasp! Ive been kicking most things around without much problem, cruising around on my Griffin. The wasp tho, nailed me with it's "one point of dmg per every point of opponents red mana" sting.

All my stuff depends on red mana, so I have tons of it!

I found a couple of those city sieges to be pretty hard too. Especially the ones that have the Mages tower and can do 25 damage to you by matching three skulls. Ouch.

Do you remember which cities have such a thing? I only hated the ones that add +5 to all skills whenever I cast a spell …