Puzzle Quest 2 Review: Saving...

I adored the original Puzzle Quest. The appeal, for me, was that Puzzle Quest knew what it was. It combined the tonic water of a simplistic RPG with the gin of bejeweled to create an intoxicating beverage / game which entertained, occupied one's time, and prevented malaria.

The problem with Puzzle Quest 2 is that adds features to both the RPG and bejeweled components of the game. While the bejeweled enhancements, like enhancements to gin, bring with them flavor and appeal the enhancements to the tonic water RPG leave one wondering, "Why the fuck did you add all of this shit to tonic water?"

We shall begin with the good, as there is not much to cover: The bejeweled battles are pretty much exactly the same as in the first game.

Alright, that's the good news. Now for the bad: This game is stupid and ruins the Puzzle Quest franchise; I want my damn money back.

First off, the updated and "enhanced" RPG components of this game are only enhancements in the sense that fake tits are enhancements. Heft and weight are added, but the heft and weight are a burden rather than a boon. This was the main of the first Puzzle Quest:


It was your basic A-Cup style RPG. One clicked upon locations to automatically wander there by the designated path. If a monster appeared on the path a battle ensued. Simple, to the point, fun.

This is what the new game does:


Puzzle Quest 2 tries to present itself as a C-cup dungeon crawler. Rather than traversing an entire continent one delves into dungeons and sub-levels one screen, one room, at a time. The problem is that rooms are unnecessary and tedious. One enters a room, battles the monsters, and then clicks to navigate to the next room. In a 15 or 20 room dungeon one spends the majority of one's time walking through empty rooms to try to progress to the end of the level. The only thing this adds to the game is time between battles. The rooms and new navigation style are about as exciting and interesting as, say, Tara Reid's boob job; your main thought is, "How could someone fuck them up that bad?"

Another problem with the dungeon crawler style is that the maps are fuck-damn retarded. Nothing is labeled, including the game's "waypoints". One has to memorize waypoint locations, causing a headache when one needs to quickly return to town. Oh, and town? Yeah, it is 9 screens each of which contain one useful NPC. The guy who upgrades your gear is on a different screen than the guy who sells items. Why? Because the developers of Puzzle Quest 2 wanted the game to be a huge fucking pain in the ass.

Speaking of pains in the ass, if you've ever thought to yourself, "This game is pretty fun, but what it really needs is an god-damned annoying auto-save function which activates after I fucking do fucking anything." then Puzzle Quest 2 is the game for you. The game auto-saves after battles, talking to NPCs, loading your inventory screen, loading your quest screen, pissing, and being thrown at the wall in frustration. Whenever you do FUCKING ANYTHING be prepared to count "one one-thousand, two one-thousand" while the game auto-saves, lest you lose the data from that time when you checked your quest log.

To the quest log: In the original game one could click a quest and the location of its objective would sparkle on the main map. This made completing quests simple. In Puzzle Quest 2, clicking on a quest results in nothing. You click the quest, the game stares at you as it prepares to auto-save once you close the quest menu in frustrating.

Two other "enhancements" are a new loot feature and a key feature. Occasionally a boss will drop a chest clicking upon which will start a loot game of bejeweled the pieces of which are bronze, copper, and gold coins. A match of four or five coins will spawn a rare or unique loot piece, which is only useful when matched with 2 other loot pieces of the same kind. This is only a minor inconvenience. The "pain in the ass" part of looting is that every 15 seconds the bottom row is blocked off. If one has two unique loot pieces in the bottom row and can't quite match them to anything in time? Well, fuck you! The pieces are gone once that row is blocked off.

The key feature is the same sort of thing. When confronted with a locked door one must unlock it by matching gems to different designated patterns or by matching a specific quantity of specific gems in a limited number of turns. Does it fit the style of Puzzle Quest? Sort of. Is it fun? No. Is it tedious and a waste of time? Fuck yeah!

The original Puzzle Quest was a delightful blend of RPG and Bejeweled combined in a perfect ratio. Puzzle Quest 2 is a watered down trainwreck of stupid which basically just frustrates the player and ruins the franchise.

Think of it this way:
Puzzle Quest 2 : Puzzle Quest :: Quake 3 : Quake 2

That about sums it up.

In conclusion, I wish I had purchased Monster Hunter, instead.