I think so too, it opens up the possibility for longer term strategies in what moves you make and makes it feel less like luck when you or your opponent get a heroic effort. Of course players would need some abilities to interact with the other’s board but then that could cost them a turn collecting mana or inflicting damage to try and mess them up.
I think the dual-board idea is interesting, but it’s not Puzzle Quest. Part of the charm of PQ was the chaos factor of the board. It kept the game at just the right level of challenging no matter how sickeningly overpowered one’s character was, and motivated one to keep pushing that overpoweredness ever upward.
Yeah, unexpected four-of-a-kind streaks by the opponent is fundamental to Puzzle Quest, and if they remove it, it’s not Puzzle Quest anymore. That element of randomness is indeed core to the gameplay, even if occasionally frustrating. I find that the times it swings my way balance out the time it swings the beastie’s way.
I did not play the first game long enough to have an opinion on this, as my girlfriend stole it from me and has not given it back yet, but in Galactrix the computer is always getting these godawful lucky streaks and getting another turn, and then getting another streak and getting another turn and I never seem to get them and it makes me a little bit crazy like maybe I want to hurt something and then I wake up covered in sweat and bloody tufts of fur and I have to stop playing for a day or two, does this happen to anyone else?
Yeah it does really suck when you’re easily beating the computer and then BAM BAM BAM they get a bunch of uber chains from one special move and you instantly die. Of course when it happens to you it is fun though.
I think i remember the developer commenting on this and how they made the computer cheat specifically to reduce this effect in galactrix compared to puzzle quest, but it was some time ago so maybe i’m taking that out of context.
And yeah, i felt the same way. Even though i knew the computer didn’t cheat in my mind, it was hard to suppress the desire to call the computer a cheater after one of their instant kill combos.
Last I heard, Galactrix actually contains code to limit the AI ability to receive cascades. The main problem is that the AI takes it turns very quickly, while you take them slowly. Let’s say you get a lucky cascade at twice the rate as the AI, but you take four times as long to think about your moves. Per move you get more lucky breaks, but you get fewer cascades per unit time, so you think you’re getting shorted.
I haven’t been on the receiving end of a one-chain kill in a long time, probably since I upgraded to something more durable than that dinky starting ship. I’m fact, my current build lets me indefinitely stun-lock the other player with my first move.
- Alan
It doesn’t just look good, it’s fantastic. It might not compare favorably to PQ in the replay department since there are no classes, and it doesn’t have the sort of customizability PQ has, but the battle system is a lot of fun (very challenging btw) and there’s a more cohesive story so far.
How is the battle system in that Might & Magic game? I just thought it was another boring DS manga inspired RPG.
You position your dudes and attack through the enemy dudes to kill their leader, just like the enemies attack through your dudes to get to you. You can also build walls for defense, and you have a spell you can occasionally use. At the end of battles you and your dudes level up, and between battles you have to choose which dudes you want to bring into battle with you out of all the types you have, some of which permadie when killed in battle.
Oh also it’s a puzzle game.
The game was developed by Capybara. If you’re familiar with their Critter Crunch game it will be easier to picture. But basically there are columns of units on screen in a grid pattern. You can pull the bottom unit off of a column and drop it back onto the bottom of a different column. If you make a horizontal line of the same unit type and color, it creates a wall. If you make a vertical line it makes an attack formation. After a certain number of turns (depending on the unit type) the attack formation will launch its attack on the enemy.
Meanwhile, your opponent is doing the same thing on his own screen, making walls and attack groups. Your attacks can damage opposing walls and groups, but the attack strength of your units is decreased by a corresponding amount and your real goal is to get your attacks past those guys to the back wall, thus damaging your opponent (think of him as the general commanding the army).
In addition to plucking the bottom unit from a column, you can also selectively delete a unit from the middle of a column. Things get more complicated with a variety of unit types, including elite and champion units, which have special abilities and their own requirements to activate. Then you add in linked attacks (multiple groups of the same color attacking on the same turn, yielding bonus damage) and fusions (two identical groups stacked on top of each other get condensed into one more powerful group).
You are constantly trying to decide whether you are making attack formations, building walls, choosing which units to make those attacks with to coordinate multiple strikes simultaneously, etc. Everything has a cost to it, and I do mean everything. Even having too many walls up can be a hindrance because it limits your space and because it can prevent large numbers of your units from getting cleared off the board. Getting units removed from the board can be a good thing, because the number of units goes back into your reinforcement “pool” and you can use a movement point to call more in. Sometimes having a massive group to call at once is useful. As another example, I’m not sure how I feel about champion units. Yes, they’re strong, but the fact that they are 2 columns wide makes them harder to use and easier to attack as well as build defenses in front of.
The biggest downside to the game is a lack of a free look mode during combat, which is really a pain when you’re trying to figure out what everything does. You can’t view your opponent’s units or even your own.
Mark me down as another fan of Clash of Heroes. I like PQ a lot, but I felt like it didn’t require you to make interesting decisions often enough, mostly due to the underlying Bejeweled mechanics. I think Clash of Heroes is very much the opposite-- there’s never quite enough time to do what you want, unless you happen to be a bit lucky and a bit clever.
There’s some nice variation on the standard battle in single player, too-- one battle has you defending a certain unit from being hit, another has you trying to avoid from hitting a particular unit yourself. The boss battle at the end of the first chapter is a great example of how flexible the game mechanics are. They also include puzzle-type missions, the first of which I was happily unable to figure out for probably 20 minutes or so.
The only major flaw I’ve seen is the one Misguided mentions-- you have to go into battles completely blind. The continue feature is also a little wonky, but if you save often that shouldn’t be an issue. I’m wondering if some of the faction spells aren’t a little bit too strong, too, but that’s not really an issue.
One thing you can do is go into the free battles (outside of the campaign) and look at the units for the factions, including what their walls do, but it’s a lot to figure out at first.
Heh, in that boss battle you mentioned, I didn’t suffer a scratch thanks to prodigious use of unicorn troops. They might be a tad bit overpowered. As you said, there are some creative battles where you have to do things like hit targets that move each turn.
Not sure if you’re in the second chapter yet, but the difficulty has really ramped up. I keep wanting to do some of the side stuff and getting slaughtered. Some of the puzzle battles are downright devious, and I think of myself as pretty good at that sort of thing.
As Mark Bozon said at IGN, I’d also very much like to have been able to see what level an opponent was before a fight started (this really begins to matter in the second chapter). I’d love to tell you how long I’ve played, but the timer runs when the DS is asleep.
Hey folks, I’m from Capy, the little indie shop that made Clash of Heroes (and a long time QT3 lurker).
Just wanted to say thanks for the feedback - both kudos and criticism. Really interesting to hear what you guys are liking, disliking, and so on.
I’m going to go ahead and start a Clash of Heroes thread so as to not keep taking over this one!
So… at first this was pretty exciting news.
But then I noticed… something less than ideal, potentially, that tempered my excitement. I won’t ruin it for anyone, I’ll let it be a surprise!
Yep, opened the link and within one second I had lost interest. F2P
Right? Sigh. Ah well. Maybe I’ll still check it out, I guess. Maybe I should just play PQ2 again. Apparently it’s been 10 years.
Does it matter if it’s made by the original team, though? Infinite Interactive (now Infinity Plus Two) have made some pretty damn compelling games so even if it is F2P, they may have something really cool for us.
It really doesn’t.
FTP (besides PoE) games are balanced around monetization. Feeding you small dribbles of content, gating progress around events, etc.
There are great games behind MTG:Puzzle Quest, Marvel Puzzle Quest, and Pokemon Shuffle but they are tied behind the need to make money.
And I will give them money for a good game. So many F2P games are done badly though. They ruin what could have been a good game by making things gated and making me feel nickel and dimed.