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Puzzle Chronicles
Let’s get this straight, Puzzle
Chronicles is not Puzzle Quest and although it’s an interesting
game, it fails to draw you in like the aforementioned title. Don’t get
me wrong, there are some aspects of Puzzle Chronicles that is
entertaining but in the grand scheme of things, it is lacking a little
in the gameplay and enjoyment department, more so in terms of challenge. None the less, it’s here and
if you’re interested in puzzle games and don’t own an iPhone, than this
may be the game to get you out of the doldrums. Like most puzzle games
of today, Puzzle Chronicles is real-time action, so you really need to
think fast and implement a few strategies to beat them.
Puzzle
games with a catch are cool and Puzzle Chronicles is no exception to the
rule that turns the gamer into a barbarian who must free his people from
a demon by completing puzzles for different people.
The main hub of the game is a map of the world which highlights certain
places that will assist you in your mission and when you access them, a
puzzle is brought to the player to solve. Apart from puzzle battles,
there are some interesting side questions to assist you make your
character more powerful but unfortunately the story of Puzzle Chronicles
is a little lacklustre at the best of times. Another issue that we found
is that the load times of the game are quite lengthy which does
cause an element of frustration.
In
terms of the puzzles, the game plays like traditional gem based puzzle
games and by rotating and matching gems, these will destroy other gems.
Add in a variety of power-ups such as rage and shield to up the ante and although your battling against
an opponent, there are a variety of strategies and
techniques to employ, including your war beast and weapons for additional
bonuses. Although during the first half of the game, power-ups
definitely give you an advantage over your opponent which does make the
game quite easy for the majority of play.
The controls of the game work well on the PSP, although
personally this would be more fun on the iPhone which has become the
dominant puzzle gaming machine at the moment. On the harder levels, the
weight of the PSP unit does get in the way, especially when your trying
valiantly to line up your coloured gems or unleash one of your special
powers.
Once you forced your enemy with no more room to move his gems,
you are the victor but of course it works the other way around as well.
Some parallels have been made to the game called Super Puzzle Fighter
which you can see in how the game is designed. Unfortunately it’s
the forced RPG aspects of the game and the loading times make the game a
tad disappointing.
Graphically, the title is quite competent with nice effects for the
puzzles, a good colour palette and some decent animation which is oozing
with anime references. Add in a soundtrack that suits the genre of this
game plus sound effects and these compliment the graphics nicely, it’s
just a shame that the gaming engine wasn’t sturdier. The cutscenes of
the game are fun to watch and even the voice acting assists in making
them fun and it helps spice up those sometimes too many levels of
puzzles and more puzzles.
At the
end of the day, Puzzle Chronicles did try to be different, however it
failed to successfully make this an exciting puzzle game. Perhaps the
developers tried a little too hard but even so, puzzle games are now
becoming part of online downloads which is a shame for UMD owners.
Definitely give it a shot but don’t expect too much. |
