Gyromancer

A true successor to the Puzzle Quest throne and the new puzzle game RPG champion.

Fans of Bejeweled will love this game. Fans of Square Enix's stories and art have a lot to enjoy, too. If you like both, I'll go call rehab.

Combines the addictiveness of Bejeweled with Final Fantasy -style graphics and a bit of Pokémon. One of the better offerings in the strange genre of RPG-puzzle hybrids. [Feb 2010]

Gamers looking for fast-paced excitement and thrills might find themselves nodding off, but there is quite a bit of depth to be explored if puzzlers and dungeon crawling is your thing.

Gyromancer has longevity, it's fearsomely addictive, and it's more absorbing the more you play it.

Gyromancer is fun though, despite the weird difficulty curve but playing against human opponents can be more entertaining. Here’s the skinny: it’s defiantly not as great as Puzzle Quest, but it’s defiantly better than the oft forgotten Puzzle Kingdom.

Despite the re-hashed ideas, there are more than enough unique tweaks to the formula to warrant giving Gyromancer a spin.

Popcap and Square-Enix's first joint effort isn't perfect, but damn if it isn't enjoyable.

Gyromancer manages to present itself as a worthy rival to Puzzle Quest but doesn't quite pack in enough to make it the new favored franchise in the genre

Gyromancer is an interesting game and puts a slightly different twist on the puzzle-matching-RPG spliced game play. The trouble here is Puzzle Quest can now be had for 400 MSP pummelling the 1200 asked for by Square-Enix, particularly given just how much entertainment can be had in the alternate game.

Gyromancer is not as complex or demanding as many of the big name titles on retail shelves, but high production values and polished gameplay carry it a long way.

While it doesn't grant a great sense of depth or progression, Gyromancer successfully leverages fantasy RPG elements to add an additional level of interest to a proven puzzle game experience.

In another hard-to-put-down game from PopCap, casual puzzles meet card games and role-playing games.

The game does have a surprising amount of content for its price tag. Beating the boss is only the beginning of each level, as the fights unlock additional parts of the map, complete with mini-bosses, unique puzzles, and new beasts to collect.

Great aesthetics and monster designs. [Feb 2010, p.85]

In the end, however, Gyromancer feels like somewhat of a wasted opportunity because of some poor design decisions, which is a major disappointment.

Gyromancer is an addictive puzzle game, yet the setting might feel a little stale.

A shameless clone of role-playing puzzle hybrid Puzzle Quest, but a slick and addictive one all the same.

PopCap and Square-Enix come together to create a successful puzzle-RPG. The well thought out game mechanics ensure that you keep on playing to get another reward. On the other hand, the game costs a lot of time and after a few hours you can’t help but wonder what on earth you’ve been doing for the past couple of hours.

Gyromancer also takes a while to get the hang of thanks to a poorly explained tutorial, and the lack of multiplayer seriously hurts the game's replay value; still, gamers get quite a bit of bang for their buck (it's priced at 1200 MS Points, which is $15), and while it won't win any awards for originality, it's a slick and addictive puzzle experience that's sure to keep Bejeweled and Puzzle Quest fans playing late into the night.

Each ruckus ends by attributing your loyal companion with experience points, and it's this part of the game that really drives you to continue on your journey. [Issue#54, p.105]

It's easy to assume that Gyromancer is a clone of Puzzle Quest...The truth, perhaps, is that it's simply an improvement on the formula. [Jan 2010, p.98]

While most RPG style puzzlers will always be in the shadow of Puzzle Quest; Gyromancer makes a strive to be more, but falls short of that goal. Players will spend hours enjoying the puzzle part of the game, but for 1200 Microsoft points some may feel a bit cheated because of the insipid story.

if you’ve got a PC, and if you’re reading this you obviously do, then you might be better served to just buy Bejeweled 2.

A few hours of Gyromancer and the novelty will wear off, and you will be left bereft, wishing you were playing the original RPG puzzler, not this knock-off with prettier pictures.

For match-three nutters only. [Jan 2010, p.115]