Looking for closure with Puzzle Quest

by Eric Caoili { Jun 9th 2007 at 6:00PM }

For all its charms, Puzzle Quest is not a game that ends well. Once you've completed every mindless fetch mission and julienned the anticlimactic final boss, you're dropped back into the worldmap with hardly any ceremony save some brief epilogue text. The landscape appears just as you left it, unaffected by your victory or valor.

The New Gamer laments in its review, "I keep hoping that, finally, my character will have some complete and utter impact on the lands, that all those I've interacted in will pronounce the lands free of evil, free of conflict and that they can finally live their lives in peace." But your deeds are quickly forgotten by the townspeople you've saved, and there's little to indicate that you've had an impact on the kingdom of Etheria. In short, it never feels like the Challenge of the Warlords has actually been completed.

Though this lack of finality isn't exclusive to Puzzle Quest, we really expected more from an otherwise fantastic game. Hopefully, Infinite Interactive will take pains to address the issue before putting out its next puzzle/RPG hybrid, Galactrix. Until then, we'll be haunting Etheria's dusty roads, matching gems against any soul that stumbles across our path, sighing no matter what the outcome.

Tags: closure, ds, finality, hybrid, infinite interactive, InfiniteInteractive, nintendo ds, NintendoDs, pq, puzzle quest, PuzzleQuest, warlords

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Eric Caoili @ Jun 9th 2007 5:43PM

Just as a disclaimer, these observations are based on our experience with the "good" ending. We're aware that the "evil" ending is slightly different.

Forcepath @ Jun 9th 2007 6:55PM

You know, I feel the same way!

However, I haven't beaten the game yet. I've been playing the Wizard class and I was looking at the later level spells that Wizards get and I was completely underwhelmed. You're supposed to be AWESOME not weak.

I've restarted the game playing a druid, and I like the spells a bit more, and I've also tried the Knight.

I think what frustrates me most about the game is the extreme lack of consequences for picking a certain path. If I choose the evil path, I really don't have that much to lose. If I min-max good and evil, I can really get great items with little to no impact with the storyline. It just makes you pick which companions you want. I find that frustrating.

Even so, I'm addicted to Puzzle Quest. Plain and simple.