Puzzle Chronicles

Puzzle Chronicles is a puzzle roleplaying game developed by Infinite Interactive and published by Konami Digital Entertainment Inc. This is yet another title in Infinite Interactives growing stable of puzzle games. You are a hero on a quest through the savage lands of the Ashurin Empire in search of your tribesman who have been taken by slavers. Your hero will combat fierce beasts and battle hardened warriors during your travels as you attempt to rescue your people, raise an army and topple the Empire. This being a R.P.G., you have the ability to customize your character but sadly this time there are no character classes to choose from. As you do battle your hero will accquire experience points which will allow you to upgrade a set of skills to suit your particular playstyle and liking. There is also an abundance of gear to collect or craft ranging from mighty weapons, enchanted armor, amulets, etc. to further enhance your character. One nice thing about Puzzle Chronicles that sets it apart from Infinite Interactives other games is that this title is not a match 3 game. The closest title that I can liken this to is some sort of sideways Tetris game. Stacks of colored gems instead of blocks enter the battlefield from the left side falling towards a wall that divides your area from your opponent's area. You can rotate the gem stacks and place them any way you choose to. Destroying these gems builds power also called "rage" in this game for your weapons and companion warbeast's attacks. That's right...you can accquire a doge, known as a warbeast, to accompany you on your quest. As you battle, you and your opponent are in a constant tug of war over the wall dividing the battlefield between the two of you. The fight ends when one combatant has no more room to maneuver the gem stacks entering their area because the wall has been pushed too far across their part of the battlefield. The gameplay sounds simple enough but when that divider wall is steadily taking space from your half of the battlefield and the gem stacks just keep coming as your opponent attacks and attacks you really start to feel the intensity of this game. Did I forget to mention the cool little animated fight sequences of your character and your opponent that take place just above the gem battlefield? Besides the story driven battles there are also some mini-games that you can compete in to unlock items and provide even more enhanced abilities. Graphically I like this game. It has a really nice looking artstyle to it as far as the cutscenes for the story goes and the animated fight sequences that occur as you puzzle battle are impressive and fun to watch. The musical score, like the scores in all Infinite Interactive games, is brilliant and does it job amply but none of the tracks really stand out of the pack to me. Most of the score has a middle-eastern sound to it and is executed quite well though. The sound effects, however, are very well done. Gem explosions and battle sounds are loud and crisp as they should be. The voice-overs in the cutscenes are excellent and do a great job of enhancing the story. While not my favorite puzzle R.P.G., Puzzle Chronicles does have a nice story that I felt compelled to see through to the end and I also found the deviation from the typical match 3 gameplay to be quite refreshing as well. With that said, one thing about this game that really bothered me is something that I mentioned in another recent review for a match 3 puzzle title...the lack of a good tutorial. Puzzle Chronicles suffers horribly in this failing as you'll quickly find yourself lost after the "so-called" tutorial ends. You'll have to search the internet for some fan written guides or just play the game and learn things by trial and error which can be quite frustrating. However, once you do learn how to play and what everything means then you can finally start to enjoy the game. This title definitely won't be everyones cup of tea but if you're looking for something a little different in the puzzle game genre then I suggest that you give this title a try.

The battles are designed in such a way that if you fall behind, the game gets harder, making any sort of come back nearly impossible. The result is that the winner is determined pretty much early on, but you still have to go through the rest of the match. As a result, battles feel tedious and highly random.

A somewhat predictable RPG, Puzzle Chronicles suffers from some mildly bad voice acting and fairly repetitive battles - once you learn how to play it's Tetris-esque combat and mini-games, it's pretty much just rinse, repeat, get better gear. The story has some amusing moments, but do not be fooled: you need to disengage your brain to play this game. I think the Puzzle Quest series does a better job of engaging you with its story, and has similar mechanics to progress with. That being said, it's nice to play a puzzle that isn't "match 3" and while the combat is repetitive (and despite what some think, you [i]can[/i] make a comeback from some very bad looking situations), it's different and interesting enough that while you're progressing the story and facing off against different enemies, it doesn't get tedious. It's worth a play, and will keep you engaged if you're after something light. I think the only unfortunate thing for me is that there is little incentive to play and get the final achievement (it's just grinding), and not enough of a community to really get anything going for the multiplayer since it's a little older now.

3 / 10. Tech demo. Puzzle Chronicles is probably the worst title in the Puzzle Quest set of titles, right behind Puzzle Kingdoms. For the most part it feels like a tech demo, an unfinished beta release of the full product. It focuses more on 3D characters models, but forgets the fun and general enjoyability along the way. The game has some basic ideas pinned down, but the execution is less then perfect. It's tedious, monotone, downright boring and grind-ridden at many times. What boggles me very much is how much the series has decayed from title to title. One of the worst part of this game and sadly, a core element, is the combat system. Unlike previous titles there's no concept of HP, just a bar that goes towards one of the players. A reminiscence of classic arcade split-screen titles. Still, this particular implementation is totally unfair and favors snowballing. It's harder to come back and win if the bar is closer to your side of the screen. Also, while previous titles promoted a concept of strategy by understanding tile movements, this game is purely RNG based. You can win and loose the same battle in a matter of seconds, on any difficulty. The sad part is that this is a wanted mechanic as you will get a award for constantly failing battles. Promoting bad mechanics and animosity towards the player gets a -1 in my book. Speaking of difficulty, the game in extremely hard and unfair at the beginning and becomes unusually simple by the end if you focus on getting equipment with rage bonus. The Warbeast and it's abilities are mostly useless and more so as you cannot respec it's skills. Minigames are unimpressive. Rehashes of the same concept. Most are optional and the ones that aren't are a bit forced. Overall, a very drab and mediocre experience that goes on and on, in a forced manner. 4 / 10 from my part and a -1 for bad intentions towards the player, means a solid 3 / 10. Just skip this game and play either of the Puzzle Quest games or a different Match x game altogether.

Juego penoso, no vale el precio que pone, he visto f2p de más calidad que esta basura.

One of the most boring puzzle games I have ever played; I do not understand why this game was made. Tedious. Un-fun. Ugly art. Forgettable sound and music. Dull character design. Uninspired voice-acting. The tritest of storylines. This is a lot like a facebook game from 2010 that would've bombarded you with microtransactions and bother your friends for in-game resources. I keep looking for the ulterior motive behind this, because just making it and selling it as a game doesn't make any sense.

I bought this game at full price because I loved another one of this devs previous games, and this was said to be similar... and aspects of it are but I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say, not the fun part of it. It is "puzzle" in the way that match 3 games are a puzzle, so that can be fun but they add too much into the puzzle "battles" for it to be enjoyable. Altogether the battles feel more tedious than anything. The mini game puzzles that aren't battles are more like a match 4 game. all in all I feel this game is kind of lackluster. I was pretty disappointed. 4/10

I played this on the DS, it was more suited for that. The mouse controls are pretty bad and just feels off. Pass.

Not memorable, but a good time waster, and the puzzle bits are actually kind of fun once you get the hang of them (and moreso near the ending, when things get a bit more complicated). They are more Tetris than Match-3, and a few battles were actually quite exciting (and I had to manage my equipment to better handle them). The biggest annoyance was the world navigating. While it takes only a few seconds for the character to walk form A to B, the actual walking is completely pointless, and there is lots of walking from A to B. It is even more irritating because the game shows you were you have to go by having a sparkling effect walking from A to B... So often you have to wait for the "effect" to go, and then immediately after you spend the same amount of time "going" there yourself. Maybe I missed a key which would skip all this walking? Another annoyance: loading times are a lot worse than they should. But again, mostly, an enjoyable experience, and actually less grindy (near the end) than Puzzle Quest. I would say 78/100.

Online Multiplayer with a friend had no issues and an X-input controller (logitech F310) worked perfectly. We dived into playing right away without learning the basics and had a good deal of fun. My first impression is that it plays reminiscent to puzzle fighter when matching up the similar colored blocks. The game feels underrated to me and I felt it deserves a higher score than what it got. Game tends to go on sale frequently for a low price and is definitely worth getting during that time.