Now here’s a game I have been looking forward to for a while. Galactrix didn’t do it for me, neither did Puzzle Kingdoms, let’s hope a genuine sequel offers up enough new game play to enthrall me all over again.
Due in 2010 on 360 & DS as far as I can tell. Hopefully PC is soon to follow.
Hopefully they ignore the stinker that was Galactrix and make it like the first puzzle quest.
I bought Puzzle Kingdoms DS for my wife but neither of us have even played it yet – the lukewarm buzz here didn’t help. Here’s hoping they recapture the mojo for PQ2 (the first PQ is still the only computer/video/handheld game she’s ever played to completion).
I actually liked Puzzle Kingdoms for what it’s worth. I think it could have been great if they’d been able to spend more time on it. As it is, I think it was good. And I found things about its design a bit inspiring.
I understand why others were disenchanted with it, but I do think it’s worth an open-minded try.
I’m starting to think they just got lucky with the original PQ and have no idea what made it great. I hope I’m wrong though.
I’d rather Steve Fawkner make Warlords 5, in the style of Warlords 3, but I realize that will never, ever happen. Still one of my favorite multiplayer strategy games ever.
Galactrix was flawed but good, and had some good mechanics. PQ 2 should adopt the “no lockout” mechanic if it can. It should definitely take away extra turns on match 4s. And it should consider that shields worked great in Galactrix (it made it easier to stay in a fight), and see if there is a way to work a similar mechanic into PQ 2.
I wish they’d go back to the Warlords Battlecry series. Maybe making a few more Puzzle Quest games will give them enough money. I don’t even mind if they re-use all the art assets from Battlecry 1-3 and Puzzle Quest again. (They re-use art a lot in their games).
After spending time with Gyromancer, I’ve become convinced that my central problem with Puzzle Quest is one of the things that makes it Puzzle Quest - I don’t like two player Bejeweled. I like being in control of my game, and no version of Puzzle Quest that I have ever played failed to make me feel fundamentally out of control. I’d be interested in Puzzle Quest 2 if they were going to move toward eliminating the second player as an active mover on the board, but I have my doubts. I wish them the best, but I think it’s probably just not for me.
No hex grid nonsense, thank god.
That’s interesting and I have to say that I also was not enthralled by puzzle quest for a variety of reasons, though one is definitely what you stated. The AI controlling the same board makes it very difficult for you to plan more then just one or two moves ahead. You can’t create good cascades and any that do result feel like pure luck. I also found many of the classes/skills to be very imbalanced.
I wonder if each player having their own board wouldn’t be better?
I liked the shared board aspect of Puzzle Quest. It does make it impossible to form detailed plans, but you’ve still got a fair bit of strategy going on: Not leaving good matches for the opponent’s next turn, balancing your desire for certain colors with your desire to keep the opponent from getting other colors, and so on. I don’t think I’d like separate boards as much at all.
Of course, I don’t really like vanilla Bejeweled at all; Puzzle Quest is the only variation on it that I’ve ever really enjoyed.
I’m not a vanilla bejeweled fan either. I did like Twist, and the Squaresoft puzzler’s Twist gameplay is pretty good (enemie moves are charged as you go. when they fire “evil” gems are placed on the board with timers, and if you fail to destroy the gem or win the fight before they go off, they go off and damage you . Otherwise, it’s just you on the board).
I’m not opposed to different playstyles (particularly in terms of variants like crafting), but I did like the versus nature of the PQ and Galactrix fights. I think what hurt the gameplay was:
match-4 extra turn: just set up too many “god it feels like the AI is cheating” scenarios. I’d rather either keep extra turns to match 5, or possibly have an extra turn chance on 4 that never gets too high (Puzzle Kingdoms did something like this).
No More Moves - it could help you, sure, but many builds relied on large mana stores, and I found this frustrating more often than not. That also leads to. . .
The strategy was fascinating but a number of builds relied on not just building up large mana stores but sort of priming via buffs and whatnot. This tended to drag out fights IMO, and the scaling enemies (not inappropriate per se) combined with #2 meant a lot of fights could drag out too long. And having to replay them got obnoxious quickly (which is why I’d often play 15-30 minutes 2 to 3 times a night for weeks and weeks).
I posted the following on my blog on the 26th (note this was before the press release announcing the 4 classes):
Gamepro.com has word of a Puzzle Quest sequel and a lone screenshot. I was a huge fan of the first PQ game (if you’ve never played it, which seems impossible to my feeble mind, it is a ground-breaking combination of a role-playing game and a Bejeweled-style match three game) and own it on PC, 360, iPhone, and DS. It stands as one of my favorite titles of all time. Unfortunately, while many have tried to duplicate the PQ formula, none have achieved that greatness, including Infinite Interactive’s own efforts, which have been rather lackluster. So now we have word of a sequel, finally. Let’s have a look at that screenshot, shall we, and see what we can learn from it.
The first thing of note is this is clearly a UI from the 360.
The character portrait seems to be that of a barbarian or berserker type. Note what appear to be offense and defense icons in the portrait square (perhaps bonus damage and damage absorption?).
There appear to be 5 kinds of mana, up from 4 previously, and the bars have been changed from horizontal to vertical. I like how the way Enrage is lit up indicating it is available for use. Before, purple was experience gems (pointless) and this screen is notable for the absence of both those as well as the coins (also pointless). The colors appear to be more distinct this time, which is a welcome change and the runes on the gems will be a boon to those with difficulty differentiating color.
On a side note, I’m playing Might & Magic on DS and really like it so far, though I can’t say I fully understand everything that’s happening yet.
You have that already? You jerk!
Oh man, how did I miss that? That looks good!
Now they just need to figure out a way to share save games across all the platforms… so I can play it on my 360 then go on a bus play it on my iphone! Oh is that too much to ask for?
It looks like the only platforms for Puzzle Quest 2 will be 360 and DS. (At least before they begin porting it to every system under the sun, anyway.)
If the Kindle can do it then they could do it. It would be awesome if a cross platform game could do it.
A Puzzle Quest game with side-by-side boards like in Puzzle Fighter would be amazing.
