That is the world imagined in D3 Publisher’s new PSP (and also DS) game, Puzzle Quest. Set in a futuristic fantasy land, your chores are slightly different to those of the 21st-century, but completing them successfully does all come down to beating your opponent or a set challenge through the puzzle. The idea of merging what is, for all intents and purposes, a role-playing game with a puzzle system is such a great idea it seems peculiar that no other developer has done it previously.

The basic storyline is that your character’s city is under increasing threat from the undead and it is up to him to go out and make sure that the threat is averted as soon as possible. This is done by taking up mini-quests, initially from within their own city and travelling to the necessary village or other city to carry out the request. As with any game of this nature, what starts off as a seemingly short story opens up as more information and places on the map become available.

Puzzle Quest manages to steer clear of a lot of the endless searching and talking to people that tend to bog down some standard role-playing games. Although some of the missions do involve searching out people or objects, it is only a case of travelling to the correct place via the map and then selecting an option to search. This will be a great relief to many people. Skipping through pages upon pages of text, speaking to townsfolk, shop owners, prostitutes, witches, and all the other weird and wonderful characters you find dotted around the towns and cities of most role-playing games would not have been enjoyable on the move.

When not searching around, the activities of your character are mainly of the enemy-slaying nature, be it Goblins, Orcs, Orges, Giant Rats, Dinosaurs, or any of the other strange creatures found within the game. All these battles are handled by the puzzle grid, an eight-by-eight square of, well, squares, each of which encloses a playing piece. The different types of piece include: four different colours of gem known as mana; purple stars which increase experience points; coins which give money to spend; and skulls which do the damage to enemies. Matching up three or more of the same type of piece eliminates them from the board and gives the corresponding benefit. Spells require a certain number of each type of gem before they can be cast. The battle ends once one of the players has no life points remaining.

The puzzle system works incredibly well, as it takes a lot of thought to plan ahead so as not to leave opponents with an easy skull or a chance to collect the coloured gems they require to cast the spell that could bring about the end of the game. It is a system simple enough to allow first-time players to take to it almost instantly, whilst also making it perfect for just dipping into whilst on a journey, as there is no need to reacquaint yourself with a complex system.

Just like any normal role-playing game, your character has certain skills that can be levelled up throughout the game. Experience points are gained during battle and are also often rewarded when you complete one of the quests. New spells are unlocked as you progress through the levels, but the game also offers another way to learn spells - by capturing enemies that have been defeated three times and learning their spells. Learning them isn’t easy though. In order to do so, a board of all gems must be cleared by matching them as on the battle board, or a specific number of each colour must be matched. There is a need to meticulously plan each move, much more so than on the battle board and these challenges can become extremely infuriating.

The only issue that stops the game from reaching near perfection is the complete unevenness of the difficulty level early on compared to the later stages. For the first couple of hours of playtime there will be many a frustrated player who will be cursing the game for being so ridiculously hard. Many players will falter when they reach the first boss, Dugog, simply because they are sorely underpowered at that point in the game. There are plenty of levelling up opportunities that many will miss before they reach this stage, simply because the game design fails to lead the player in the right direction. This is just a structure issue and will hopefully be looked at by Infinite Interactive, if and when they decide to make a sequel. Once Dugog is out the way, the game remains challenging, but isn’t the impossible task it seems to be near the beginning.

Unfortunately, the PSP version of the game has an annoying bug that makes fighting enemies harder than it is designed to be. Along his travels, your character becomes friendly with various other creatures who become his companions. Each one has a specific ability which is useful in battle. The problem is that in the PSP version there is no way to use their abilities, whereas DS players get the full advantage of their companions' skills. This obviously adds towards the difficulty level and should be taken into account if overly frustrating games are not your thing. Also on a comparative note, it should also be mentioned that the UMD loading appears to take some time to warm up, after about twenty minutes it is hardly noticeable but before then there are a lot of pauses and the inevitable whirring sound that accompanies them.

Puzzle Quest PSP does exactly what it sets out to do, masterfully combining the role-playing and puzzle genres into one game that is perfect for handheld gaming. Whilst other publishers continue to use the PSP as a home for inferior PS2 ports or graphical showpieces, D3 understands what works on the portable market and has delivered a deceptively simple game for all occasions, something that all PSP owners should be very thankful for.