Puzzle Quest 2 - DS Game (Retro Fam)

In a genre that has been rehashed and redone ever since Final Fantasy appeared on the NES, along comes a game like Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords that challenges your perception of what an "RPG" is.For starters, you literally are building not only a character but a city which helps build your characters. Eventually in the game you'll be forging runes you've earned from searching into new weapons, armor and accessories, training "mounts" which boost various combat skills, and being able to lay "siege" to kingdoms which are the BEST way to raise gold in this game. Everything ties in together seamlessly, and all are very important to make the game easier to tolerate.The main quest, if that is your interest, can be quite short; however, this game has serious legs when it comes to the side quests, probably the biggest set of those on the DS. Not only do those side quests add additional experience and gold as rewards, but you can also earn weapons and armor from them as well, saving your gold for upgrading your abilities.Who hasn't played an RPG that requires a great deal of "level grinding" in order to complete? You can actually get around this in PQ:COTW by simply "donating gold" to increase your abilities, in fact, I would recommend you do this for abilities that normally would require 2-3 upgrade points and use your normal "level up" points for the ones that require only 1.And now, the thing that makes PQ:COTW most unique is the way you conduct battles, in a "bejew.

I'm an adult and have been playing this game for about a month now. I love "bejeweled" and wanted to get something similar for my DS. This game is a lot of fun! It is different from the online versions that I've played in that I'm playing against a computerized opponent and need to look ahead to make sure I don't set him up to whallop me.Minor irritants: the game has gone "black screen" on me 3 times and I had to restart the system; can't play against my kids on their DS's; the puzzles seem to frequently start off the same (I know what the layout is going to be before the game starts) though I suspect the jewels that fall in to the screen are random. Other than that, I've really been enjoying this game. It's tied with Clubhouse Games for my favorite DS game!

Let me start by saying this is one of the best puzzle games I've ever played. I absolutely love this game, and have played many like it (e.g. Bejeweled, Candy Crush, and all the various spinoffs of these). You create a character from a small number of classes and progress through a story, and while some call this RPG, it's really just a standard adventure game where you make small choices, like whether you will force a king's daughter into marriage to another hateful king in order to preserve peace, or let her go free to make her own life. If it were down to just the adventure portion of the game it would be very standard and less than noteworthy, but the battles - the puzzle portion of the game - are what makes it stand head and shoulders above the rest.I've always looked at these games, and thought, "How could you blend RPG and puzzles? It seems like such a manufactured idea for a niche group." I couldn't have been more wrong. You spend the vast majority of your time in the puzzle mode, fighting enemies by taking turns. Destroying certain colors gives you that particular type of mana in order to cast "spells" (special moves). You can also gain experience or directly attack your opponent by moves on the game board. It sounds simple in theory, but in action this concept is incredibly fun, even several hours into the story. I've found myself going out of my way to locate and challenge enemies I could otherwise avoid just because the experience is unexpectedly t.