Marvel Puzzle Quest: Dark Reign Review

Console fans get ready, the hit game Marvel Puzzle Quest is now out available on Xbox 360 (Xbox One coming soon) and Playstation 4/3, bringing with it all the fun of the portable smash onto the big screen in a really enjoyable outing.    This role playing colour puzzle game features many classic Marvel super heroes like Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor and villains like Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin and Venom.

In between the different levels, we get told a variety of classic stories like Dark Reign, through a comic book style, making it feel much more interesting that simply jumping through level after level, which brings that Marvel feel to the game, more than just having Marvel characters on the screen.  When you face your opponent, it is interconnected with the story and a different experience to other puzzle games I enjoy like FreeFall or Candy Crush.

 

There is plenty of strategy required for this game, its not just about putting the same coloured lines together, you have to attack the strongest opponent first or worry about bombs and what special attacks your enemy has.

Playing a puzzle game on the big screen always brings me back to when I was a kid with games like Columns on my SEGA console, rather than playing it on a tiny screen on a mobile device, so I’m really excited for some of the most popular mobile games being transferred to consoles and this continues the trend of bringing very popular mobile games to consoles, such as the recent Frozen Free Fall and while while this game has been out for a couple of years on other devices like IOS and Steam, the Dark Reign console version is a full retail version, which unlike its Free to Play counterpart, which makes the whole experience much more enjoyable as you don’t need to keep getting notifications to buy additional items.

While it might look weird to have to buy a game on a console that other devices get for free, that style of game funding is different on mobile device and doesn’t work on consoles where gamer’s are more happy to buy a game outright.   And I agree with this system for consoles, I’d rather pay a single flat fee for the game and enjoy it, rather than micro-transactions, whereas mobile gamer’s, are more used to the free to play model.  Though I do wonder if the price on consoles should be slightly lower due to the age of the game and how the game is seen by the casual fan.

One issue I have with the Playstation version, is why this isn’t a cross-buy version for the PS Vita, which would have made this a almost most have for any Vita owners because its perfect for mobile devices and the natural home for Puzzle Quest.

I also feel this game should have been released a year or more ago, hopefully we will see some of the best puzzle games come to consoles earlier, but this game could be overlooked because it has been around a long time and that would be a shame as this is a really enjoyable game.

While the game starts off pretty easy and learning how the game works, takes a little practice, especially with all the secret special moves and when you are defeated a few times, its nice to just be able to jump straight back into the action without having to wait for a certain time period or buy extra time before the mobile version would let you play again, which again plays to the strength of this not being a micro-transaction style game.  And not hitting that paywall means the player can just keep going without any restrictions.

However once you’ve gone through the first chapter, things start getting much more tricky and I made a mistake in rotating through the different characters, resulting in all my characters being too weak to move onto the next chapters. So I replayed those earlier missions a few times to level up to offer a good fight in later chapters. This again isn’t a issue since each game is a lot of fun, but the skill level of opponents seems to increase very quickly at the start.

There are some DLC additional add-ons that bring in new characters and stories, which aren’t essential but add plenty of additional hours of gameplay. And I’d recommend picking these up once you’ve either completed the game or got your characters leveled up, since the DLC kicks off with level 50+ opponents, which led to me being destroyed when trying out the DLC for the first time. So its a great additional content to add once you’ve mastered the game.

Puzzle Quest is a lot of fun, playing through the different levels and leveling up your characters offers hours of entertainment and a game that can be jumped back into at any time, this is a enjoyable experience on consoles, sitting back and playing on the big screen for 20 minutes before heading to bed or just a casual blast with your friends (online or in person), gives Puzzle Quest a massive advantage over its mobile counterparts.

Marvel Puzzle Quest is a very addictive game that I have really enjoyed spending time playing and would happily recommend to any Puzzle fan. I’ve spent most evenings this week just thinking, I’ll just try one more time or I’ll just try the next mission and suddenly I’ve lost an hour. If your a puzzle fan and want to experience it on the big screen, you can’t go wrong with Marvel Puzzle Quest.

Here are some gameplay videos of Marvel Puzzle Quest: Dark Reign: