Games worth discovering

Darkest Dungeon mixed with Bejeweled is a surprisingly solid combo

10K View2023-05-20

Path of Puzzles: Match-3 RPG

6.8

Turn-basedPuzzleMatch 3

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If the art style in this screenshot looks familiar, it's probably because you've played or at least seen footage of the great, super-challenging roguelike Darkest Dungeon. The art for Path of Puzzles looks so similar to Darkest Dungeon that it's got to be just teetering on the edge of being literally copied from that art style.

That said, the reason the Darkest Dungeon-esque art stands out so much is that it's a striking, powerful aesthetic, and that remains true in Path of Puzzles as well. And it's not just the art that this game shares in common with Darkest Dungeon!

The core gameplay here is color-matching puzzles along the lines of Bejeweled or Puzzle & Dragons. But Path of Puzzles makes things more complicated with a strict and challenging series of strengths and weaknesses that had me straining to find the best possible path to defeat the enemies in front of me.

Within a few levels of the campaign mode, battles get quite challenging. This isn't the kind of puzzle game where you can turn your brain off and just enjoy it. On top of that, I had to strategize with what hero and weapon types to equip myself with before entering each level.

The only real downside to all of this is that Path of Puzzles uses a gacha formula—or more accurately, loot boxes—for unlocking and leveling up new heroes and weapon types. Within a few hours of play, I started struggling with the game's difficulty. And because of this system of paid progression existing, it was impossible to tell if my struggles were purely due to my own skill not being up to snuff, or if I was expected to either pay up or grind until I could arbitrarily improve the base stats of my chosen hero and weapons.

If you can get over that frustration (and the derivative art style), Path of Puzzles is certainly worth a look.