I have had a Neopets account for 8 years now. Granted, I haven't kept up with my poor pets like I should in recent years, so it was really nice to get Neopets Puzzle Adventure to get me back into Neopets again. My pets are sure happy about it since they're no longer starving!
Graphically, not much has changed with Neopets over the years, which is a good thing. The pets (and pet pets) in Neopets Puzzle Adventure look pretty much exactly like they do in the web game. Some of them, like the Kougra and Lupe, have been redrawn so that they could walk on 2 legs instead of four, but they still look the same. The places that you visit have the same look as the web game, but with a lot more detail. They all have a lot more places to visit, so there's a lot more buildings. The one thing that I found funny was the way your hero walks from place to place. It's just not quite as smooth as some games I've played, so it looked like the character was shuffling their feet along.
The background music is pleasant, but you don't really need the sound to play the game, which is something I prefer on a handheld system since I don't always have my headphones on me. If you do leave the sound on, you'll also get sounds each time you place a piece, flip pieces, and use pet pet abilities. I like the pet pet sounds the best.
Gameplay:
Neopets Puzzle Adventure is a puzzle game, but of course you could have guessed that by the name. The puzzle in this case is a variation of Reversi (also known as Othello). Now I've got to say that historically, Reversi has been one of my least favorite puzzle games, probably because I've never been able to get the hang of it, so I almost always lose. But for the Neopets, I was more than willing to try it again.
Neopets Puzzle Adventure is very linear in Story Mode. You are given a place to go where you will have to battle someone. After you win this battle, you will report back to the person who sent you there. They then give you a new place to go or a new person to see. Once you've beaten an enemy at a location, you can't go back and play against that enemy again. You can potentially find an unlockable if you complete certain goals. These unlockable codes can be entered on the Neopets website here to win prizes there also. Each code I entered gave me a random item (one of which was selling for 85,000 NP in shops), a random amount of NP, and a puzzle piece of achievements. All of them were very nice bonuses just for playing a fun game.
Sometimes you'll find that instead of an opponent to beat at the normal puzzle, you'll be given a mini-game. The first of these doesn't come until about halfway through the game. You'll get a couple more at 70% completion, but it doesn't take as long as it sounds. You can beat the story in less than 10 hours. However, since it is a puzzle game, there are infinite replay opportunities. It is very easy to know how far you are since it shows your completion percentage on the pet selection screen. You can have multiple pets with their own adventure, but the story is the same every time. There is an option for a random name for your pet, some of which are very funny sounding.
If you just want to play puzzles and not worry about the story, you can choose Instant Action. This will give you the opportunity to play the puzzle or mini-games whenever you want to. You can even play the mini-games before you come across them in the story. They don't have to be unlocked.
Difficulty:
Even though I'm not very good at Reversi, I did not have too much trouble beating the game. There are a few things that add twists to the classic puzzle. You can have different board shapes, blocked spaces, and different starting positions, all of which can completely change your gameplay making it easy or more difficult.
You also gain pet pets to help you after completing some of the levels. The further you get, the more useful some of them are. They can only be used once during a battle though (unless you then use the pet pet, Ponka, which will wake up one of your previously used pet pets). You also gain the ability to take more than one pet pet into battle with you when you hit certain levels. This is quite useful. Unfortunately, if you don't lose very often, then the enemies are going to be a much higher level than you so they'll get more pet pets. I got to the point that they had 4 pet pets to my 2 in battle. Luckily, when you lose, you still get the experience that you earned in that fight, so you'll level up and catch up to them quickly. Plus, once you've lost to them once, you know how they play and what the board looks like, so you'll find it easier to beat an enemy the second time around. You will develop your own strategies and find your favorite pet pets to use in your battles. For the most part, I kept using the same few pet pets over and over since I found them to be the best for my way of playing.
Game Mechanics:
Neopets Puzzle Adventure is very easy to play. You use the stylus for almost everything. In Story Mode, you'll know where you need to go next by the big yellow star above the location. Simply tap the star to go to that location. You might have to use the D-pad to scroll around the map to find the star if you don't see it.
For the puzzle, you'll see red and blue markers on the screen. You will be blue. You want to change all of your opponent's red markers to blue, or at least end the game (fill all the squares or have the board locked so no one can place a marker) with more markers of your color than your opponent has. To flip your opponent's markers to your color, simple place your marker so that their markers are in between and touching another one of yours. If you cannot place a piece so that you will flip at least one of their markers, you will have to use a pet pet. If you're out of pet pets, your turn will be skipped. After you place and pieces are flipped, your opponent will then place and try to flip your pieces. Doesn't sound too hard, right?
The mini-games are all played with the stylus too. In Quickdraw, you simply have to draw the shapes in black that the Neopets move across the board. If the shape is red, don't draw it though because you'll lose points. You have to draw the shape without picking up the stylus (except for the X) or it will not read correctly. Other than that, you don't have to be very exact as it is quite forgiving. In Forging, you match tiles of the same color. Touch a group of tiles to clear it off. You will want to make the largest size groups that you can because they are worth more. The fire tiles are worth more than the regular tiles. Training is a simple game of memory. You'll be shown the screen. Memorize it and touch the screen to flip the tiles over. Touch the pairs to clear them. Be careful though, because the further you get, some of the tiles will move around on you changing the order that you are remembering.
Neopets Puzzle Adventure was a lot of fun for me to play. The puzzles are simple to learn, but quite difficult to master. Given the variations and pet pets thrown in there too, there is a lifetime of replay value available, especially when you consider that you can play with a friend as well. This has definitely been added to my permanent collection of puzzle games that I replay over and over. Thanks to it, I finally learned how to win at Reversi even. You can try the game below just to see how much fun it is. If you're a fan of puzzles or Neopets, I recommend you go pick up Neopets Puzzle Adventure today.
