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IGN Review of Neopets Puzzle Adventure
Last year Puzzle Quest was bestowed upon the world, and there was much rejoicing. Capcom and developer Griptonite have taken that game's puzzle-meets-RPG design and skinned it with Neopets, which is apparently a popular Nickelodeon website where kids can rot their brains adopting virtual pets. The result, Neopets Puzzle Adventure, is basically Puzzle Quest for youngsters. Ostensibly a similar experience, it lacks the depth, the customization, and the freedom of choice offered by PQ. It's still a fun little puzzle game, though, and a good one for the younger players.
After choosing a pet to serve as your avatar, you move them from location to location on an overworld map, running errands for other pets and getting into confrontations along the way. These conflicts are settled in games of Othello, or Reversi, a strategy game that has been around for ages. The game is played with coins, with each player represented by one side of the chips. Each side attempts to claim a majority of the game board by placing pieces one at a time. If you sandwich one or more of your opponent's coins, they will be flipped to your side. This is a time-tested game that is well-suited to the DS touch screen.
Neopets Puzzle Adventure switches your usual game of Othello up a bit by changing the playing area from battle to battle. Certain tiles may be blocked, creating new strategic possibilities and challenges for claiming your territory. Setting up combos might result in a "shockwave" that will flip even more of your opponent's pieces. You also pick up PetPets along the way, which act as your special abilities in battle. There are quite a few to find, and they each assist in different ways like flipping your opponent's coins or locking one of your own so it can't be turned for the rest of the game.
What Neopets lacks, as compared to Puzzle Quest, is a sense of character progression. You do earn experience from battle and will arbitrarily level up, but it doesn't seem to have any effect on your character. You don't have stats and there aren't any items to find or buy. The game also doesn't give you a choice of what to do. You only get one objective at a time, eschewing the freedom to tackle quests in the order you choose. With 150+ quests to be accepted (plus multiplayer) this is a lengthy adventure, but it would have been nice to let players pick their own paths.
A nice little feature for the Neopets fans is the ability to unlock codes in the game that can be entered back at the pets' official website to…do whatever it is Neopets fans do.
©2008-11-20, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
After choosing a pet to serve as your avatar, you move them from location to location on an overworld map, running errands for other pets and getting into confrontations along the way. These conflicts are settled in games of Othello, or Reversi, a strategy game that has been around for ages. The game is played with coins, with each player represented by one side of the chips. Each side attempts to claim a majority of the game board by placing pieces one at a time. If you sandwich one or more of your opponent's coins, they will be flipped to your side. This is a time-tested game that is well-suited to the DS touch screen.
Neopets Puzzle Adventure switches your usual game of Othello up a bit by changing the playing area from battle to battle. Certain tiles may be blocked, creating new strategic possibilities and challenges for claiming your territory. Setting up combos might result in a "shockwave" that will flip even more of your opponent's pieces. You also pick up PetPets along the way, which act as your special abilities in battle. There are quite a few to find, and they each assist in different ways like flipping your opponent's coins or locking one of your own so it can't be turned for the rest of the game.
What Neopets lacks, as compared to Puzzle Quest, is a sense of character progression. You do earn experience from battle and will arbitrarily level up, but it doesn't seem to have any effect on your character. You don't have stats and there aren't any items to find or buy. The game also doesn't give you a choice of what to do. You only get one objective at a time, eschewing the freedom to tackle quests in the order you choose. With 150+ quests to be accepted (plus multiplayer) this is a lengthy adventure, but it would have been nice to let players pick their own paths.
A nice little feature for the Neopets fans is the ability to unlock codes in the game that can be entered back at the pets' official website to…do whatever it is Neopets fans do.
©2008-11-20, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved