by Staci Clark

Created on: July 05, 2008   Last Updated: July 08, 2008

2 out of 5 stars

Puzzle Hero is a new downloadable game from Genimo Interactive. You play the game as a young girl whose mother's garden has been taken over by monsters and whose younger brother Tristan has been kidnapped by an evil sorcerer. As you proceed through the game, you must solve a series of puzzles, slay the monsters, and rescue your brother in order to become, as the name of the game suggests, a puzzle hero.

Puzzle Hero initially allows you to create your own hero for the game. However, your choices in customizing that hero are severely limited. Male players in particular may be disappointed to find out that they cannot create a male hero at all. While you can enter a masculine name at the beginning of the game, you cannot change the character's sex. You can only change her hair, clothes, and skin tone. As the game progresses, you can purchase new accessories for your hero such as swords and shields in the game's shop and new hairstyles and skin tones in the game's salon. However, you cannot purchase a new gender.

Puzzle Hero's game play is as disappointing as its choice of characters. In fact, the game is so repetitive that it becomes boring after just a few levels. Instead of having to conquer a new type of puzzle with each level or as you make your way to a new location on the map, you must complete the same puzzle over and over again. The puzzle itself is a matching game. Your goal is to match three or more icons in a row as you alternate turns with the monster that you are trying to slay. To do so, you must first select two icons to trade places on the puzzle board. If the freshly aligned icons then match up, they will disappear, and new icons will fall from the top of the board to take their place.

There are six types of icons used in the game: a sword, a shield, a bull, a bag of gold, a crown, and a bottle of medicine. If you match three or more of the swords, you get to attack the monster immediately. Only one strike is allowed per match. Several strikes, however, will be needed to kill the monster, as each strike will only weaken the monster by a certain percentage. If the monster matches three or more swords, it can strike back and damage your health as well. You may replenish your health by matching three of more bottles of medicine. A larger bottle of medicine on the left-hand side of the screen helps you keep track of your health.

Shields and bulls must be accumulated before you can use them. If you acquire enough shields, you will get a super-shield power-up that will protect you from the monster's next attack. If you get enough bulls, you will receive a super-attack power-up. A super-attack power-up will cause twice the amount of damage the next time you attack the monster. Meters on the left-hand side of the screen allow you to see how close you are to acquiring the power-ups. The crowns, meanwhile, give you more experience in the game, while the bags of gold allow you to shop in the store and salon. Matching four or more of any icon will earn you an extra turn.

On top of being repetitive, Puzzle Hero gives you cheats along the way. If you don't select your icons quickly enough, the computer will tell you which two to choose by highlighting them. The practice is fine if you don't mind the hints. However, if you would rather solve the puzzle without any help from the computer, you can't. The game does not allow you to turn this function off. It does, however, allow you to turn the music off. The music, a semi-battle song, seems to speed up the worse your health gets in the game and can prove distracting when you're trying to plan your next move.

As I was bored by the game 15 minutes into it, I would not buy it for its full price of $19.99.

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