VIDEO GAMES – 3 Reasons to play “Marvel Puzzle Quest: Dark Reign.”

There’s plenty of video games out there to play.  Too many in fact. Today I’ll be talking about “Marvel Puzzle Quest: Dark Reign,” the game I’ve been playing a lot lately.

I used to play a lot of video games.  I own hundreds of them because I was so obsessively playing them for so long, I ended up getting pretty burned out on them.  I don’t often play that many video games anymore.

If I play a game, I like it to be a table top game.

That said, one of the games I own that I really liked a few years ago was “Puzzle Quest”.  A month or two back, I decided to see if there was a Puzzle Quest type game out for my iOS devices.  That’s when I discovered “Marvel Puzzle Quest: Dark Reign.”

I was intrigued.  It seemed to have the Puzzle Quest game play but this time it had a Marvel Superhero theme.  I’ve been looking for a good superhero portable game for a while. It was free so I downloaded it.

It quickly became my “go to” game to play whenever I have a little down time.  Here’s why:

1. Simple Game Play

All the Puzzle Quest games are basically “Bejeweled”.  Or if that’s too dated a reference “Candy Crush Saga.” It has that game play. It’s that simple.

The brilliant thing about the Puzzle Quest games though, is that they attach a story and RPG elements to their games.  More on that below.

The point is, this game, like all the Puzzle Quest games, it’s really easy to pick up and play.  The better you are at these types of game, the better you’ll do in this one.

2. Fun Story

Like other Puzzle Quest games, this one has a story.  It’s taken from the “Dark Reign” story arc that happened at Marvel quite a few years ago.

Although it’s  an old story line there are plenty of “up to date” characters and character designs of the characters you play in the game.

The game starts you off in a standard group of quests that you play through to get your characters to level up and improve.  But there’s also unique two or three day quests that send you on different fun stories.

Many of which are inspired directly by stories from the comics.

RPG Game Play

This is what makes Puzzle Quest games awesome.  The fact that they combine “Bejeweled” game play and Role-Playing games together.

In the case of “Marvel Puzzle Quest: Dark Reign,” you tend to choose from group of heroes. Usually three maximum. These heroes tend to have foes which they fight in every game.

Each hero has special powers.  Each power has a meter with a color, like blue or red. The meter goes up anytime to rid the board of some of those colored pieces. Doing this also deals damage to your opponents. Once the meter is full, you activate the power by clicking on it and it gives you some sort of useful effect themed to the hero that posses it.

Knowing when what colors to get rid of and what powers to activate when, makes the game very strategic.

Each hero also has hit points.  Every time the computer opponent attacks, the character in your group who last attacked loses hit points.  Once that character’s hit point reach zero he’s out of the game and his powers cannot be used.  If all your characters lose their hit points, the game is over and you have to try again.

If you manage to reduce your opponent’s hit points first, you win.

It’s fun and thematic.  It’s what make playing the game fun.

BUT the thing that makes the game addictive is the rewards and the leveling up.

Each character starts at a certain level. Depending on the “rarity” of the character, it can be from Level 1 to Level 15.  After each battle, you might get rewarded with Experience points in the form of gems. These points are spent to increase you character’s levels.

But each character has a level cap, and you can only increase the level of a character past it’s level cap if you’re rewarded with a “Comic Cover” of that character which usually gives him/her a new power or a power increase on a power they already possess.

You don’t always get rewarded gems to increase your character’s levels though.  Sometimes you get reward boosts you can use during battles.  And sometimes you get rewarded “coins” that you can use to purchase different things. Among them, new characters, which you receive at random.  You also get the ability to receive new characters as rewards as well.

Many of these rewards are purchasable by spending real money.

The point is, the more you play, the better your character’s get.

But playing a lot is difficult unless you want to spend money.  After each fight, your characters may end up wounded.  You’re given five recovery tokens to get you back to full health, but once you use them up you have to wait a few hours to get them back.  Also, your characters recover overtime.  The time it takes for them to recover depends on the how badly they got damaged.

This is a good way, if your cheap like me and don’t want to spend money, to force yourself to quit playing and get back to your life.  I find it very useful.

My One Gripe

There’s only one thing I don’t like about this game, you have to be online to play it.  If you’re phone cannot connect to the internet or you have an iPod with no wi fi, there’s no way you can play this game.

I understand why, but it makes it difficult to play the game sometimes.

Do I Recommend It?

If you like Puzzle Quest games, this game is a no brainer.  If you like “Bejeweled” type games but you want a game with a little more meat on it, a story and addictive RPG elements and strategy, this game is for you.

If you simply want to play a straight forward “Bejeweled” type game, this may not be for you.

Like I said, I been playing this game a lot lately and I usually don’t play all that many video games anymore.  I like the theme and the game play is tons of fun.

Have you played this game?  Sound off on the comments below. What do you think?