Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords Review

Since Puzzle Quest got another port, to the PS2, PALGN decided to take another look. They give it a 7.5 and note that while the game is best on handheld, this is a pretty good port.
But the meat of the game is the puzzle based battling. The basic idea is to move jewels in an 8x8 grid to form lines of three, which makes the jewels disappear and those above fall down to take their place, and making three skulls disappear constitutes and attack on the enemy. Between skull opportunities, you match other colors to gain mana (which powers your spells), money to build up your stock of cash, or experience points. Even before spells there is strategy to 'combat', as you look for opportunities to get four in a row or combos (where the fallen jewels from one move create another line-up of three). Add in strategy from spells and from equipping gear, and you've got a compelling system.