Puzzle Quest: Immortal Edition Review - Back to a Better Time
Cast your mind back to the year 2007. It was a time when Apple had just released their first phone, Windows Vista was landing on computers, and The Sopranos said goodbye in a way that would always be remembered. It was also the year that puzzle gaming, for better or worse, changed forever. That is primarily because of one game. A game that had such an impact, it spawned a million micro-transaction-filled imitators that now plague our mobile devices. That game was Puzzle Quest, and now, with the release of the brand-new Immortal Edition, it is back to remind us of a simpler and perhaps better time.
If you have ever played one of the thousands of RPG/Match-three games available on your phone, you have Puzzle Quest to thank. It was the game that revolutionised this system. It took the simple joy of Bejewelled and then combined it with a host of traditional fantasy RPG elements and tropes to create something that the world had never seen before, and it struck a chord with the masses. Sadly, what followed was slavish imitation with the added sour note of free-to-play systems gumming up the works. But going back to the original, a game I spent about 100 hours on, according to my Steam Library, I have been reminded why such a simple concept had such a huge impact. The old saying, “Gameplay rings true”, has never been more apt.
Puzzle Quest: Immortal Edition is more than just a re-release. It does include some meaningful updates. The first is the most obvious: 4K resolutions. The simple hand-drawn art style didn’t need much in the way of updating, but the higher resolutions really make the charm of the game sing on a big TV screen. To enhance this big-screen ability, using a gamepad has also been improved, smoothing out some of the quirks and niggles of the original release. This, of course, lends itself to making the game the perfect addition to your handheld system, be it a Steam Deck, ROG Ally or Switch. There is a reason that so many of these sorts of games appear on mobile phones; they are perfect for on-the-go gaming.
The other inclusions for this edition are a brand new character class and a host of new weapons, armour and items to mix things up during the game. This version also includes all of the previously released expansions, adding 3 batches of new quests, which is, quite frankly, more content than you could ever ask for in a game such as this. Apart from that, though this is the same game you either loved or hated when it released back in 2007, so you really know what you are getting here. The gameplay still hits for me, and I found it so refreshing to play this sort of game in a pure form once again with no ads, no gacha and no microtransactions.
Of course, this does mean the things I didn’t like from the original release are back, and really, that is one major gripe. I know the developers have stated that the AI doesn’t cheat on numerous occasions, even stating that it would have been harder to code the game that way, but it is hard not to feel like that is just not the case when playing. The number of times the AI got a string of high-scoring, high-damage moves when compared to my own was easily 5-1, if not higher. Many, many games have caused me to swear over the years, but Puzzle Quest would be right up there in terms of f-bombs dropped because of this AI imbalance.
It is also hard to separate the game from its legacy at times. Over the years, I have become so callous to this sort of game thanks to the genre’s dive into free-to-play garbage that it was hard to just enjoy Puzzle Quest for what it is. Logically, I know that is an unfair way to think about things and that it certainly wasn’t Puzzle Quest’s intention to create a swathe of crap, but emotionally, it is hard to distance the two. Maybe I am just a cranky old games reviewer these days and grumble too much, but I have to say there is a little slice of resentment towards what mobile gaming became, and there is no denying Puzzle Quest’s unintended involvement with that.
That said, I still had a load of fun revisiting this game. The mechanics are tops, the game still looks wonderful, and despite my grumbles with the AI, the gameplay is addictive and satisfying. If you have never played a match-3 game without microtransactions, you owe it to yourself to get your hands on this release and see what the genre is in a pure form. If you already own Puzzle Quest and its expansions, there is probably not enough new for you to warrant rebuying, except, perhaps, a timely reminder. Once upon a time, you could play a puzzle game without being asked to open your wallet every 5 minutes, and frankly, that is not such a bad thing to remember.
Puzzle Quest: Immortal Edition was reviewed on PC with code kindly supplied by the publisher.
