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Welcome to the very first post on my blog! As you may have seen this is a gaming blog. Here I will mostly talk about games that I have played or am currently playing. For my first post, I’ve chosen to write about Puzzle & Dragons Z + Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Edition because I just recently bought it. I have played roughly one hour of each part of the game and I am ready to give you my first impressions of it.
I remember playing the demo of this game back in 2015 and really enjoying it since the gameplay was similar to Pokemon Shuffle, another game that I played often back then. However, at the price of 34,99€ (yes, I’m European) I didn’t feel like it was worth it. Since one of the games looked like a bad port of a mobile game, there’s a reason for it.
To make this game Nintendo partnered with GungHo, the creator of the Puzzle & Dragons games, which were only released on mobile until then. In no shape or form would I buy this game at full price but the other day I saw it on sale for 10€ at an online store and I couldn’t resist it. Since the store was nearby I decided to walk there and get the game instead of ordering it online. However, when I got to the store the game was not on sale anymore even though it clearly said that it was at the store’s website. So what did I do? I ordered the game online and picked it up at the store to get free shipping. Smart move from me.
After all this, I felt like I sharing my experience with everyone and that’s what led me to create this blog! Now let’s skip the boring part and talk about the game itself.
PLOT
Both games have a very generic and simple plot, although Puzzle & Dragons Z has a deeper one when compared to the Super Mario Edition that is.
In Puzzle & Dragons Z you play as a young boy, or girl, who wants to become a Dragon Tamer. After becoming a Dragon Tamer it’s your job to gather strong allies and train your dragons to defeat Paradox, an evil organization that threatens the balance of the world. I know it sounds like Pokémon. The game even has a small mascot that follows the main protagonist around called Syrup. He’s very lively but a bit annoying.
On the other hand, the Super Mario Edition is just like any other generic Mario game, Princess Peach gets kidnapped and you have to go save her. I haven’t seen any dialog so far other than Toad explaining how the game works, which is a bit lackluster since sometimes a bit of plot is welcomed to enhance the overall gaming experience.
GAMEPLAY
Both games have the same core gameplay, you enter a level or a dungeon where you’ll find enemies to fight until you reach the boss. You beat them by clearing orbs and to do so you need to match three or more orbs of the same color, which can be moved freely. By doing so your helpers or dragons will attack if the orbs cleared match their color. There are six types of orbs, water, fire, wood, dark, light, and hearts. Like Pokémon, these elements have a rock, paper, scissor, relation. Water beats fire, fire beats wood, wood beats water, light beats dark, and vice-versa. The only exception is the hearts, when you match three or more they heal you instead of ordering one of your helpers or dragons to attack.
There’s a key difference in the battle system from both games though. In Puzzle & Dragons Z every time you match orbs a meter will fill and if you have enough points you can use your dragon’s skill, In the Super Mario Edition that meter is gone and is replaced by a countdown in every skill there is a number that goes down each turn you match orbs. Removing this makes the game a bit more challenging, in my opinion, since you can’t spam skills often.
At end of each battle, you will be awarded exp to level up your allies and also drops. The drops that I have found more useful thus far are the blocks/eggs, that allow you to get more helpers/dragons and the transformation items, used to transform/evolve those same helpers/dragons.
There is also the option to power up your creatures by feeding them other helpers or feeding eggs to dragons. By doing so they’ll gain exp and level up!
FINAL THOUGHTS
I’m at the point where the difficult curve has started to increase and to surpass this I need to grind a bit. I still haven’t figured out how to move the orbs properly to get the combos since I am still used to the way Pokemon Shuffle plays but I’ll get the hang of it soon!
After playing the game I can say that I was wrong about Puzzle Dragons Z. I bought this because of the Super Mario Edition and ended up enjoying the Puzzle & Dragons Z more. I like Pokémon games so much that I end up liking Pokémon clones as well. The appeal of capturing and evolving over 200+ dragons is too much for me! But, nonetheless I enjoy the Super Mario Edition too and I will complete it as well.
Overall I am happy with my purchase but still, I would not pay full price for it. But should you buy it? You should buy it if:
-You enjoy puzzle games
-You like RPG’s
-You like capturing monsters and evolve them
-You do not mind grinding a bit
-You do not mind play a game with a generic and simple plot.
Hope this post was helpful!