Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords is a unique puzzle/RPG hybrid, released in 2007 for the PSP, PS2, Wii, DS, PC and Xbox Live Arcade. In it players take on the role of an adventurer tasked with defending a fantastic world from an impending army of undead creatures. Players choose a profession, such as warrior or mage, and begin to travel the world, taking quests and battling monsters.

Battles are really what set Puzzle Quest far apart from other RPGs; battling opponents involves playing a puzzle game (comparable to Bejewled) that revolves around switching gems on a board attempting to line up three in a row. This causes the gems to disappear, and every type of gem has a specific effect as well. Colored gems get added to the player’s reserves and can be used to cast spells, while matching skulls does damage to opponents. Battles combine strategies reserved for puzzle games with those reserved for RPGs very smoothly, making a truly unique experience.

Puzzle Quest is also educationally strong in several categories. Players are given a huge amount of creativity as the game proceeds, becoming able to capture enemies, train mounts, learn new spells, create items and capture cities however they like as they proceed. Problem solving is also a natural strength of the title, as players who plan their moves carefully are ensured success over those who don’t.

Puzzle Quest’s fantasy nature leaves little room for classroom facts. Players navigate an overworld map as they proceed. Math is also involved in several aspects of the game, not the least of which is the buying and selling of equipment at the towns strewn throughout the game. Successful players will also plan out the number of each type of mana they need during battle and plan accordingly.

By the Gamer:

Players are given a huge amount of creativity in Puzzle Quest. The game begins with the player choosing from four classes, each with a different set of spells available to them as they level up, and as they proceed throughout the game they can play an often challenging minigame in attempt to learn new spells from enemies they’ve captured. Players can attempt to capture enemies by playing a different minigame, accessible any time the enemy is encountered after the player has defeated it at least three times in the past. Many enemies are captured as mounts, and the player can train each of these individually and choose one to ride as the travel the game world. Players uncover runes, which are combined in groups of three, to forge new items, again done through a sort of minigame. Players also have their own city, and gold can be spent to create new structures within it, eventually allowing them even to capture cities on the world map, done by winning a challenging battle against the city itself. And this is only a handful of the options players are given! Puzzle Quest makes certain that each player crafts a totally unique character as they progress, and the sheer amount of stuff to do ensures that the most diligent player will be kept busy a very long time.

By the Developer:

The thing that stands out about Puzzle Quest is the way it blends a huge number of standard RPG mechanics with a seemingly standard puzzle game together to create an experience that is anything but standard. The gem-switching, turn-based puzzle game is one of the most fascinating abstractions of battle yet, and the level of strategy it allows is much deeper than that of many other RPGs being released today. The often overwhelming number of options for developing a character gives the game a huge amount of depth as well, and while the story tends to lean towards the fantasy cliché it is rich enough to keep players entertained for the duration of the title. Really though, it’s the fusion of RPG and puzzle mechanics that makes Puzzle Quest a truly stand-out title.

Business skills are definitely a factor of Puzzle Quest. Besides basic buying and selling of equipment at shops, players are also able to capture their own cities, which provide a monthly income for the player, paid whenever they travel through. Battles themselves involve a level of business skill, as they revolve around collecting the colored mana gems on the board in order to use spells. There are four colors of mana in the game, and players keep up to six spells equipped each with different effects an cost requirements, and planning what to use when becomes an interesting exercise in resource management.

Puzzle Quest offers multiplayer battles, but as the only combat available is one-on-one people skills don’t really come into play. The single player game is more of the same, and while there is plenty of dialogue from various characters between battles the player doesn’t get to change the flow of things at all.

The problems of Puzzle Quest involve the puzzle-based combat. Players have a grid of 64 gems before them at all times, and seeing how different matches will cause other gems to fall is what players spend most of their time dealing with. Players also have a number of spells available to them as well, many of which will change the current layout of the board, and deciding when and how to use these spells most effectively becomes something of an art as the game progresses. Players will need to decide between making available matches on the board, saving mana, and casting several different spells that will provide wildly varying effects on every one of their turns. Winning at Puzzle Quest requires a sharp eye and plenty of forethought, and the challenges it provides may be some of the most challenging available.

Puzzle Quest is not a simulation game.

Puzzle Quest has received generally favorable reviews from critics, scoring mostly between 80% and 90%, and has received considerable acclaim for wrapping traits usually associated with "hardcore" gaming (the game’s complex RPG elements) around a more casual puzzle game core so successfully.

Puzzle Quest offers three difficulty levels, as well as a hint system that can be turned on and off.

Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords received an E from the ESRB with a descriptor for Suggestive Themes.