Puzzle Kingdoms (DS)

Puzzle Kingdoms is the best game I've ever played that mixes RPG style tactics with casual game style block matching.

It's also the only game I've ever played that mixes RPG style tactics with casual game style block matching. That's right, in order to attack your enemies and cast spells you have to match coloured blocks. Lots of them.

What interests me about this idea is the blending of two genres with fairly successful results. The story is hardly as deep as the story in some RPGs, but the gameplay is, considering its nature, impressively enjoyable. Most of the time spent playing is on the battle screen, where the tile matching is done, but in order to win here you must also prepare your forces well before battle.

It's interesting to see the two elements working together. If you really focus on the tile matching but don't prepare your army well before the battle, you're not going to have the firepower or spells available when you've matched enough tiles to use them. If you spend plenty of time organizing your forces and unlocking new troops, but don't play carefully when matching tiles, you won't get enough chances to use this force.

It's also a good example of how a simple mechanic can be used over the course of an entire game without getting overly dull due to the addition on new elements. Matching blocks forces you to make difficult choices about which blocks you need the most, which blocks you have to avoid your enemy getting, whether the move you're considering will give the enemy an even better move next turn... it's hardly deep tactical strategy, but does admirably well with what it's got.

Puzzle Kingdoms, then, was an enjoyable game. I think it serves as an example to designers that simple gameplay can be embellished to more interesting and challenging levels with the addition of other ideas, which is something we can surely do with our adventure games. I enjoyed beating the main campaign, and will keep these thoughts in mind for future games that I design.