Puzzle Quest started its journey back in 2007 with the amazing Challenge of the Warlords, which was developed by Infinite Interactive and published by D3 Publishing. It kicked off a franchise that quickly became a fan-favourite of players who love playing puzzle games, especially Match-3 games. It brought a brand-new concept of RPGs where the battles are fought on a tile set and moves are made by matching three or more tiles. Fast forward to today, and developer Infinity Plus 2 and publisher 505 Games have joined hands to bring this iconic franchise back to life in the best possible way. This is our review of the PC Steam version of Puzzle Quest: Immortal Edition, in which we match some tiles and defeat an annoying bat.
Puzzle Quest: Immortal Edition brings the Kingdom of Etheria to life in a brand-new, gorgeous 4K art style. You start the game by picking your class from a selection of 14 classes. Each class brings its own unique starting spells and items. Depending on your typical RPG playthrough, you can choose any one of these classes, which range from Paladin, Knight, to Mages and Rogues. These are your typical run-of-the-mill classes, and they are what you would normally expect from them. Once you are satisfied with your class, you can jump into the game and play through its main quest spanning over tons of quests all through the expansive kingdom.
Behind its Match-3 shell, it hides a proper RPG where you will actively spend time on building your character. As you engage in battles, complete quests, and explore the world, you will earn XP and level up your character. Earning XP and levelling up will allow you to tackle higher-level quests for more gold, unlock better spells for your character, and also upgrade its stats to make them more effective during combat. You can increase your mastery of the four main elements of the game: Fire, Earth, Water, and Air. You can also purchase, loot, or forge better equipment for your character to add some passive bonuses. This does not feel like a filler mechanic in place because things like items, spells, and your chosen stats actively change how your character behaves in battles.
The battles are fought in a 1v1 style, where each player gets a turn. The one with the highest Cunning goes first. Each spell that you have in your inventory requires mana of certain colors. It could need Red, Yellow, or Blue, and Green. Depending on their requirements, you will start matching the colors of their respective spells. Once you have gained enough colored mana for the spell’s requirements, you can unleash these deadly spells. The spells range from a variety of offensive, defensive, and support roles, and you are free to build them according to your playstyle. You have a decent number of spell slots, so you can equip a decent number of spells for a battle, once you have unlocked enough.
To win these battles, you will either need to match three or more Skull tiles or use offensive spells. Other than colored mana tiles and damage-dealing skulls, you also have gold tiles and XP tiles. Matching these tiles will give you their respective resource. Since you only get 1 move by default, you have to make a decision on whether you use a spell, get some gold, get XP, get mana, or match skulls to deal damage. These choices will vary depending on what sort of matches are available in a game, but it really ups the challenge, especially during late-game battles when the stakes are very high. You can use different strategies to extend your moves, like matching 4 gives a bonus turn, matching 5 tiles grants a wild-card, along with a free move. Certain spells also give you bonus moves, so you can always turn the battle in your favor despite the 1-move per turn mechanic in place.
You can adjust the difficulty of these battles, and it is also not a roguelike, so if you lose a battle, you can just retry it as many times as you want. For tougher enemies, you can always come back after levelling up and gaining some powerful new items in your inventory. Defeating powerful enemies and bosses will grant you better items, which can change the tide of a battle. However, we do feel that sometimes the enemies do tend to be a little unfair. While in a game like Match-3, you can only use your skills up to a limit, and after that, it mostly becomes a game of luck, especially when fresh tiles are falling from above. If your enemy gets lucky, they will start getting wave after wave of skulls, and certain enemies like Bats or Zombies have abilities that not only drain your mana but also lock you out of moves and drain your health.
With these enemies, it turns into a game of luck rather than skill. You are sitting there praying that you get a series of skulls in quick succession to bring down your opponent’s health, because once they get their mana up, they will start locking you out of moves and also drain your health. It does get a little frustrating sometimes, but ultimately, death has no permanent effect on the game, so you can just retry as many times as you want. The main quests in the game seem to be much easier than side quests, so it makes it bearable. It also shows how quickly a game in Puzzle Quest: Immortal Edition can change. One move, you are sitting comfortably, dealing damage to your opponent, but the next move, your opponent gets a four-match, and the bonus move lands him a five-match, which is a Heroic Effect, and it just turns the whole tide of the battle around.
As you explore the huge map of Puzzle Quest: Immortal Edition, you will visit many places. These include castles, cities, towns, villages, sewers, abandoned graveyards, and everything in between. In cities, you can visit different areas like the Inn or meet different NPCs. Puzzle Quest: Immortal Edition features a full campaign with quests and visual novel-style cutscenes. It is decent enough that it keeps you entertained to the very end of the game, and it also gives you a purpose to explore the world. While most locations are simple battle areas, cities and villages give you a chance to explore them as well. You can take side quests in these locations, visit the tavern to pick up some juicy lore, and even pay the innkeeper for some inside scoops. As you progress in the story, you will come across different people who will join your cause and travel alongside you. These party members grant you various bonuses during combat.
You can also build and maintain different structures in your Citadel. These include a forge, dungeon, stables, and more. This is an interesting mechanic in the game because you can also capture enemies and lay siege to neighboring towns and castles if you have the resources. If you lay siege on other castles, you will need to defend them from attackers as well. These structures provide you with different bonuses that are not available any other way. Forge allows you to create custom magical items, which you can equip for passive bonuses in combat, while you can learn new spells from captured enemies. You can also train and ride mounts, which provide passive bonuses in combat as well. Some upgrades provide defensive bonuses to your cities, while some provide offensive bonuses to your character in combat.
Puzzle Quest: Immortal Edition does not disappoint when it comes to content in the game. There is so much to do in the game apart from the main campaign. While most side quests are one-time only, there are a few side quests that you can repeat as many times as you want and grind for XP and gold. You can purchase new items from merchants, speak with NPCs, and learn more about the world around you. You can also challenge any enemies you encounter in battles at any time through a separate menu. The Citadel upgrades require time and grinding for gold. Even the battles themselves could take a decent amount of time as you trickle down the health of your enemies slowly. You can make the game easy at the cost of XP and gold gained, or you can make the game tougher for some increased XP and gold. All of these things combine to massively increase the replayability of the game.
While Puzzle Quest – Immortal Edition is the definitive way of experiencing this brilliant franchise now, it somehow missed a few key features of the original titles. One of the most highlighted ones is its co-op and online features. The original titles featured many multiplayer options for its time, and it was one of the reasons why it had a much longer lifecycle, because you could just jump into matches with your friends and random people once you completed the main story mode and unlocked a few of the endings. While Puzzle Quest – Immortal Edition is filled with hours of content, skipping multiplayer entirely is one big missed opportunity, considering the fact that online gaming is easy these days and every platform now offers cross-platform multiplayer as well. We are keeping our fingers crossed to see if it arrives in the game later as an update.
Apart from the missing online features, Puzzle Quest – Immortal Edition is no doubt one of the best releases for the franchise and has certainly brought it back into the spotlight. It will give a lot of new players a chance to try it out and understand what made this franchise so special. It combines two video game genres that are considered completely opposite to each other, Match-3 and RPG, but it manages to deliver the gameplay in such an amazing manner that it is highly addictive and smooth in every way. shows that a genre as generic as Match-3 does not have to be boring, and if the right mechanics are added in the mix, the results can be surprisingly entertaining.
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Final Verdict:
If you played the original Puzzle Quest titles, the new Immortal Edition is a must-have purchase for you because it not only brings the first game, but also the two released after it in one package, with tons of new content to explore. Coupled with an amazing new art style that looks fresh and a sound design that goes hand-in-hand with gameplay and visuals, Puzzle Quest: Immortal Edition is a unique mashup that you never thought you needed in your life. It is equally fun and entertaining for new players as well as returning fans.
Final Score: 8.5/10
Disclaimer: A PC Steam review code for Puzzle Quest: Immortal Edition was provided by Diva on behalf of 505 Games for this review. Read our Review Policy.
