Gamertell Review: Samurai Puzzle Battle for iPhone, iPod Touch

Title: Samurai Puzzle Battle
Price: $1.99
System(s): iPhone and iPod Touch
Release Date: December 02, 2008
Publisher (Developer): Vivid Games
ESRB Rating: Rated 4+
Pros:A good mix of puzzle and strategy, plenty of game modes to satisfy any fan
Cons: Takes a little while to grasp concept
Overall Score: One thumb up, one thumb sideways, 89 out of 100, B+, * * * 1/2

What happens when you mix a little bit of puzzle, a dash of strategy and a whole lot of alternate world Feudal-era Japan? Why, you have Samurai Puzzle Battle, of course.

Samurai Style Match Game

Developed by the folks over at Vivid Games, Samurai Puzzle Battle gives iPhone/iPod Touch owners yet another puzzle game but this time offers a twist to the gem-breaking gameplay in the form of turn-based strategy. By using a variety of units, the ultimate goal of Samurai Puzzle Battle’s campaign is to take over the game’s world of Feudal-era Japan.

During the strategy phase of the game, players will pick what units they can afford to place on the battlefield and spend turns moving them into position or flat out attacking neighboring clans or even mystical demons. If players succeed in beating out the demons or areas in combat, either the land will be claimed or that demon will join your forces.

The combat phase of the game is the puzzle phase. Players will engage in a duel where turns are spent trying to make combinations of three or more stones. Different stones carry different properties such as the blue ones restoring Mana or the red ones restoring health, and the Yin-Yang symbol restoring Ki.

Samurai Can Be Smart, Too

One of the best things I find about this game is that the AI isn’t dumb by any stretch. To me it felt trained to annihilate my army at any opportunity and wasn’t going to simply roll over. For instance, you can’t expect to take a handful of archers and beat out a dragon, that dragon will totally crush your units in no time flat.

Another thing that caught my eye was the sheer depth of the world map. There are plenty of areas to conquer and each one of them offers different incentives such as taxes for money or blessings from the gods to ward off bad events.

But if campaign modes aren’t your thing, the game also offers up plenty of Arcade modes such as a Time Attack mode or just the Battle mode.

However there are a couple of down sides to this game. Gripping the concept of the game’s world successfully will take players a few tries and a lot of lost campaigns. There is a tutorial mode to help walk through players and I highly recommend they use it, because this is not a game one can just pick up and play.

Another thing was during the puzzle battles, I often had problems dragging stones were they wouldn’t register as moved and I lost my turn. This was easily fixed by simply clicking the individual stones I wanted to move, but I imagine most people are accustomed to swiping, especially if they are fans of Aurora Feint.

Adopt a Samurai Today

Outside of those two little complaints, the game really is worth the $1.99 Vivid Games is charging. Even if the whole Feudal-era Japan theme isn’t their thing, I would recommend this to iPhone/iPod Touch puzzle game fans.

Site [Samurai Puzzle Battle]