There was a time you could see the name of a few game companies and then assume what you are receiving is quality, or at least what can be conceived as an attempt at quality. In fact, some would say that the Puzzle Fighter that came out over a decade ago was not a bad game. With the emergence of mobile games, those diminishing times have all but crumbled away and companies will happily slap their names on excrement filled bags. I tried out Puzzle Fighter by CAPCOM CO., LTD. and I will try to review this thing.
The Game:
If you are familiar with Puzzle Fighter of old then you have a really good idea of how this game plays. You will play as the chibi fighter of the Capcom Universe dropping 2 connected blocks on a grid that allows for 6 columns. You are trying to connect blocks of similar colors then dropping a circle on them that causes all the connected ones disappear. Your fighting hero then does an attack against the enemy who is playing the same game against you. If you are successful in pulling enough of the character's move sets off you are able to do a super move that does a ton of damage to the enemy. Once their life is gone you win.
Each hero has a special color that allows them to do more damage. They also have different moves for certain patterns. Each of these moves can be upgraded with cards that are collected through the game and an amount of gold. After leveling up the move it will go to the fighter's overall level. You will also be able to bring along companion fighters for added benefits.
There is a PvP mode and a PvE mode. After winning in PvP you will be rewarded with random loot. There are only 3 PvE maps that reset after 12 hours and only so many PvP loot sets on a similar timer. The shop contains some rather expensive premium currency that you can use open loot chests and upgrade items where you fall short of the in-game gold currency. There is also a small selection of cards in the store that can be bought with in-game currency.
My Thoughts:
Apparently today we have just gotten past the idea that any free game is anything other than a pay to win model. It seems nothing that makes it to a free market on mobile has even shown the slightest hint of wanting to be something more than a cash grab for a quick fix from the player base, which will usually just drop the game in a few weeks and move on. Puzzle Fighter has hit the pinnacle of this and completely gates you from even enjoying the experience of playing it.The time gating in this game is absolutely fucking ridiculous. Most games will only make you wait somewhere around 3 hours for your next set of loot boxes where this game will make you wait a whopping 12 hours. The 3 PvE events you get will take you maybe 5 minutes to do and the PvP not much longer. Then that is it for half of a day if you for some reason wake up playing this game early in the morning so you can play for a short time in the afternoon. That is unless you want to pay for their overpriced currency then you can play to your wallets desire.
The game itself doesn't make up for this and lacks any real content. There is PvP and PvE and that is it. No challenges, no adventure, nothing. The game does not even play all that well. I found that when I tried to be quick and swipe down I would find myself swiping sideways just enough to send my piece a column over, completely fucking me up. It also seemed to have an issue trying to figure out if I was moving the block or just tapping to spin it. The controls just did not feel very tight or clean and it leads to frustrating moments.
The graphics were okay and the sound was okay. They have voice actors in there and even some of those were meh. The soundtrack for this game felt like something they stole from the older version, which could be the case. I only played a little of them back in the day and it was a while ago.
What finally killed the game for me is in the VS select. For some reason, it decided to match me up against players that had a skill level a thousand over mine. I was around 200 points fighting people in the 1200s and just getting my ass handed to me. This isn't fun. Playing games to be fodder for other players is not what most of us want to do. Especially in a mobile game where the market is saturated, to say the least.
I don't really know what they were hoping to do with this game besides maybe pulling on the nostalgia strings of a few wallets. It wasn't a very engaging game because you couldn't be engaged with it. It was simple and bland on top of frustrating. This is something I would recommend passing on unless you really just need the nostalgia kick or hate yourself. After I post this review it's coming off my phone.
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