Puzzle your way to bigger adventures

Here’s hoping you all have fresh screen protectors on your devices. The newest Android game from Indiez Global, Monsters and Puzzles: Battles of God, is packed with loot to fight for as you complete puzzles and fight fast-paced battles.

Click ‘Em All

Players jump right into a campaign mode that sees them assemble a team to fight monsters and save a host of elemental-themed islands. And when I say jump, I mean you are sped through introductory tasks up to Level 20 before you even pick a name for your savior. Safe to say, subtlety is not the name of the game, but the lack of unnecessary dialogue is welcome.

Battle With Puzzles

It’s a little dizzying at first as the game hurries to get you familiar with the different currencies and activities that your adventures fuel. The combat system revolves around matching colored gems a la Bejeweled. The different combinations of which allow your RPG monster defenders to execute different attacks and skills against other monsters. It’s kind of like two games in one, and you have to be quick so as not to get turn-skipped and get hit with a full-powered combo. Monsters and Puzzles isn’t the kind of game you can play if you’re only sort-of paying attention (this reviewer found out the hard way). That said, it’s also simple enough to jump into and play casually. The hybrid style invites gamers of all skill levels.

There are a few different main modes to compete in. Each supplies varying rewards to help bolster your fighting crew, a crew which includes about six monsters (sound familiar?) in an adventuring team. Being a gacha-style game, your options for getting better items by playing the adventure and its companion modes are limited.

The different wheel spins (silver, gold, and Fame), and Orb Summons helps fill your inventory with the Shards and upgrade consumables you need, while allowing you to progress without spending money on IAPs. Monsters and Puzzles also has a number of recurring prizes. These range from daily and weekly login bonuses to quests and giveaways that make jumping into the game less difficult. You can subscribe to get better/and more plentiful rewards, although it’s not really a problem if you don’t unless you have competitive aspirations.

Building a Better Squad

One thing I was confused about is the relative challenge level for each mode. The Adventure scales its difficulty well, with increases in difficulty as enemy monsters become more powerful with each level. By comparison, The Tower of Trial game mode offers a slow, steady climb to the top with increasing rewards. However, even though monster levels were on par with mine (as in the campaign), there were very few times my opponent did any damage to my monsters at all. This happens very quickly in terms of player progress. Even as high as floors 70 and 80, I was still  winning battles without a scratch. It almost didn’t matter if I missed my turn once or twice.

The Coliseum mode doesn’t seem to scale one bit; instead, the battles are completely random. That means sometimes, you will match up against monsters that can eat all of your puzzle attacks without breaking a sweat. This can be frustrating if you’re trying to progress through the ranks. At at the same time, it’s a competitive mode, so it’s not something you should expect to ace as a new player.

Monsters and Puzzles: Battles of God is a bit grindy at times. It could be localized more smoothly, but overall it is a light, enjoyable game despite its lack of overall depth.