Puzzle Quest: Immortal Edition

I came into Puzzle Quest: Immortal Edition fully aware I was going to lose an evening to it, and I lost three. That's the curse and the charm of this thing: the mechanical hook is so elegantly simple that the "one more turn" spiral starts before you've even unlocked your second spell. You match colored gems on a shared 8x8 grid, build mana in four elemental types (fire, water, earth, air), then spend it on class abilities while your opponent tries to do the same. Skulls deal direct damage. Coins fund your gear. XP stars push you toward the next level. It's a system that takes about five minutes to learn and many, many hours to genuinely master. The Immortal Edition packages this with all three prior releases: the original Challenge of the Warlords, the Revenge of the Plague Lord expansion, and The Legend Returns, plus a new exclusive class, over 40 new items, and assets fully redrawn for 4K displays. With 14 classes available at character creation, ranging from your archetypal Warrior and Wizard through to the Assassin, Blood Mage, Monk, Elementalist, and the new Swordmaster, the build variety is real. Each class prioritizes different gem colors, which means your whole board-reading strategy shifts per class. A Monk chain-punching with skull-multiplying gear plays nothing like a Runic Elementalist who converts incoming damage into mana and effectively becomes unkillable in the late game. Community discussions about top-tier builds are already deep and nerdy, which is a very good sign for long-term legs. Beyond the combat loop, there is a citadel to build and upgrade (mage towers, blacksmiths, a jail for captured monsters), enemies to mount as steeds, and craftable gear via blacksmith puzzles where you match rune tiles against the clock. The side content is broad if not especially deep. The quests do their job of pushing you across the fantasy map of Etheria toward the undead villain Lord Bane, but anyone hoping for Disco Elysium levels of narrative craft will want to recalibrate expectations. The writing is functional at best, cheerfully wooden at worst, and that has always been true of this series. Two criticisms that have followed Puzzle Quest across every re-release follow it here too. First, the AI. The falling gem RNG has always seemed weighted in the enemy's favor, producing suspiciously convenient cascades on the opponent's turn. The Puzzle Quest faithful call it a skill issue; the rest of us call it what it looks like. It is manageable, but it will cause frustration, especially against enemies two or three levels above your current cap. Second, the lack of multiplayer is still a baffling omission for a game built on a shared board. It plays well on Steam Deck, supports both Xbox and PlayStation controllers, and the new gem shapes are a quiet but meaningful accessibility improvement. As a pure single-player PC experience with no microtransactions and no energy timers, the overall package is generous. Monika, Scout Team