When developer Infinite Interactive's Puzzle Quest first hit the DS and PSP it did so to rave reviews, both professional and across the Internet. For those of us that don't own a DS or PSP we could only watch somewhat enviously as our friends enjoyed this RPG/Puzzler hybrid.

Much to the joy of many 360 owners, publisher D3 decided to port this amazing title over to Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade service, bringing the Puzzle Quest experience to console owners for the very first time... and at half the price of the original portable PSP/DS version. Even better yet, the XBLA version has been refined from the original PSP/DS version to provide better balance and playability.

Gameplay:

For those of you that don't already know the premise and ideas behind Puzzle Quest, it's rather simple really. Puzzle Quest is essentially what the lovechild of Bejeweled and a JRPG would look like. The game operates on the surface like a top down RPG. You pick a class of warrior, druid, wizard or knight, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Like most RPG's there are cities to visit, quests to solve, items to buy and/or forge, treasure to find and an overarching story to complete. Like most RPG's you can "level" up your avatar through constant battling of creatures around the "world map", gaining new stat points to add to your attributes. The difference between traditional RPG's and Puzzle Quest is the manner in which combat is resolved. When you encounter a monster, instead of traditional JRPG combat, you instead go to a Puzzle board. Like Bejeweled, you attempt to match same colour sets of 3, 4 and 5 gems together to clear them from the board. In Puzzle Quest, breaking these gems give you "mana" which then power your spells. You can throw direct damage spells at your opponent, hurting their life total, or alternatively match "Skull" gems to zap your opponent's life score. The match ends when you or your opponent's life total reaches 0.

Everything in the game revolves around the puzzle element of the title. As you get deeper into the game you can upgrade your citadel, which allows you access to new abilities and Puzzle Minigames. Want to capture a monster to ride as your mount? Build a stable and play a Bejeweled puzzle variant. Want to train (level up) your newly captured mount? You have to puzzle for it. How about learning spells from monsters you have taken prisoners? Puzzle. Capture runes to create items? Puzzle. Create items with runes you've captured? Puzzle.

It's worth noting that each puzzle game variant plays slightly differently than the main "Battle Puzzle" variant you will be doing for most of the game. Training a mount for example plays like a regular battle except you have a time limit per turn... and the time limit gets smaller and smaller the better trained your mount is. Capturing enemies requires you to eliminate all gems on the board, like the similar variant included in the XBLA version of Bejeweled.

It's really hard to describe how the RPG and Puzzle aspects of the game mesh together so extremely well, yet mesh together they do, creating an addictive gameplay experience. There is no doubt in my mind the core gameplay will appeal to hardcore RPG fans who like to micromanage every single stat point of their avatar, as well as puzzler fans who also enjoy the occasional JRPG.

Graphics:

Upon seeing the World Map I was initially reminded of many of the older top down RPG's I used to play. The World Map graphics aren't astounding but they are colourful. More importantly the sub menus are easy to scroll through and look sharp in HD despite the small font. The actual puzzle boards are also bright and colourful, with clearly laid out spell bars and life totals. When you hit Primary Quests there is also some nice looking anime artwork that pops up to move the main storyline along.

The graphics aren't going to blow anyone away, but they really do capture the whole RPG vibe Infinite was aiming for. Puzzle Quest looks great in HD, and the game really does shine on a nice big HDTV. The port is a flawless translation (PSP version) graphics wise, which folks that played the original will appreciate.

Audio:

I never get tired of hearing "YOU ARE VICTORIOUS" every time I win a Battle Puzzle against a CPU or human opponent. The spell effects sound great, with suitably big explosions when spells are cast, and sizzling electricity when skulls gems are broken.

The actual music in Puzzle Quest is your "epic fantasy score" that is seen in most RPG's. It fits really well with the feeling of the game and there is a decent amount of tunes depending on what puzzle you are playing, location you are visiting, storyline you are revealing, and so forth. There are also some voice overs that may not win any Grammys but are well done compared to what I've seen in some other JRPG's.

Longevity:

Bang for your buck, you don't get much better than Puzzle Quest. The game features over 40 hours of gameplay assuming you only play with one class... multiply that by 4 if you decide you want to play through the game with each of the four classes. Puzzle Quest manages to take the tired JRPG genre, and introduce fresh new gameplay elements... while at the same time doing exactly the same thing for the tired Puzzler genre. Combining the two genres while meshing in an almost "Magic The Gathering" style duel metagame, has created a truly addictive gaming experience.

It should also be mentioned that Puzzle Quest features awesome online play both ranked and unranked, something that the DS and PSP version did not have. The AI in Puzzle Quest can be extremely frustrating at times due to it's uncanny ability to predict what's about to drop. Sometimes it's nice to play against flesh and blood opponents, who you know are prone to screwing up just as much as you are.

You carry your single player stats over to multiplayer and any earnings (both XP and Gold) earned in multiplayer will carry back to your single player game. There is a handicap feature that allows lower level players to stand a chance at beating high level one's as well. Seeing all the great spells your high level friends have gives the player even more drive to play the single player game and level up their character.

Bottom line, I can see the online portion of Puzzle Quest keeping the game alive for months if not years to come...

Overall:

At 1200 Microsoft Points - less than half of what it retailed for on the DS and PSP, it's hard to find really anything wrong with this incredible package.

The game takes the best of the RPG and Puzzler genres and infuses both with fresh new ideas combined with super addictive gameplay. The sheer amount of fun things to do in the single player part of the title will keep you busy for hours upon hours, and the competitive online duel mode will add even more replayability.

This is probably one of the best XBLA releases yet and at half the retail price of what the DS/PSP version launched at Puzzle Quest a must own for 360 owners.

Go buy Puzzle Quest right now. Thank me later.