Lost Levels

I’m an hour into Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes for the DS, and so far the game is way better than a game with that generic title really deserves to be. The comparisons to the JRPG-and-Bejeweled mashup Puzzle Quest are totally apt, and just like chocolate and peanut butter, the two great tastes contained here do indeed taste great together.

By layering RPG and battle elements on top of “casual game” (my fingers recoil as I type those cursed words, saved only by the healing salve of scare quotes) gameplay mechanics, it totally changes how you approach the game—and more important for many gamers, it gives each of your actions purpose and meaning. My wife will play Bejeweled on occasion, but it’s primarily as a time-waster and she’s completely content just matching jewels as she sees them. But when an opponent looms on the top screen in Clash of Heroes, matching his or her own units to bear down on mine, the simple match-three gameplay takes on whole new levels of strategy. It becomes chess, Risk and Magic: The Gathering. You choose a loadout of warriors to tailor to your playstyle; you stack units and chain units and enact offensive and defensive combos; each jewel you manipulate has personality and ammunition and freaking Hit Points, man.

These are the minutae that dedicated gamers adore, the complex layers that wait to be peeled back, analyzed, practiced, mastered and shoveled into the engine as you speed your way toward the end of the game. And by serving up this experience via those tainted “casual” methods—ones that gamers may not be familiar with looking at through their A-game lenses—developers can create beauty.