[XBLA & PC] Gyromancer: Square-Enix & PopCap take on Puzzle Quest

Aoi

They go up on Wednesdays. According to Major Nelson Gyromancer and Diner Dash should have both been up as of about 2 hours ago.

jclast

It's up on XBLA (at least here in the US) right now. You can queue it up for download via xbox.com.

Jam Warrior

Huzzah! Demo away then.

Counterspin

I keep compulsively checking the steampowered website, but nothing yet. Why is this game so desperately under the radar?

Zoelef

Edit: Steam is go! (170MB install size)

http://store.steampowered.com/app/23380/

Kastanj

The week before a small but important math exam, they subject me to Fucking Puzzle Bejeweled Quest Plus.

To have discipline. To be more but a frail, excitable beast.

Xtarath

So great, Gyromancer crashes as soon I launch it from Steam.

El Guaco

Any word on a demo of any kind?

Dracil

Can't wait to go home and try it. Unless I hear bad things.

Redcat

The enemies don't gain power until you twist, so those worried about now having time to think are fine.

This reeks of Squeenix. I have no clue what half the shit means, but it's awesome.

Jam Warrior

From the 360 demo, it's fun!

Battles are entirely turn based so no worries about reaction time (at least standard ones in the demo are, it mentions the possibility of special rules battles later on). Matching any colour boosts your energy bar a bit, matching your own colour boosts your energy bar a lot, not matching your opponent's colour boosts theirs. When a bar is full one or more gems on the board become all glowy. If it's one of yours you match it for an attack, if it's one of theirs you have a few turns to match it or it goes of and they attack. Doesn't seem quite as customisable as Puzzle Quest as your limited to your beast's attacks, but that probably just means its less breakable. You don't have to make a match every turn but keeping up the matches builds a combo meter which does massive damage when full. Not matching just makes the combo meter fall a bit rather than wiping it out entirely.

Tcheldor

Playing now. Battle 1: Not time based, but the more moves you do without chaining, the more enemy pieces appear that you have to take out, or you take damage.

urahonky

Yeah so this is infinitely better than Puzzle Quest. As Tcheldor said, if you don't get any chains that are of the enemy's color he gains power. When he gains a full bar of power he converts one gem into an ability gem. If you don't destroy that gem he attacks you and does damage.

This way you don't sit there and see them getting 4x chains every 3 seconds on one turn.

troublebrewing

whenever I click install demo on steam nothing happens...

Lethardicus

It crashes on start for me....this....sucks....

Iolo

Good news on the not-real-time front. Whew.

Anyone actually got it working on Steam?

Tcheldor

I'm on steam. It works just fine...

EdS25

Bought this on XBLA. "Accidentally" played it for a few hours. Personally I find it to be the best Bejeweled RPG thus far, but I think fans of Puzzle Quest might be a little disappointed. You don't choose a class, you don't really have equipment, stats, crafting, etc. You just pick 3 beasts and go. For me, the simplicity is a blessing. If your current loadout of pokemon isn't working very well, you can just go change them. I'm also not sure if some of those other aspects might come later.

The battling is fantastic. I LOVE the fact that it's not turn-based. I was worried about the interface, but as others have said time is not an issue so far. Now that I've grasped the "Bejeweled Twist" concept, it's very, very rare that I let an opponent finish an attack. I wonder if it's designed with this in mind (i.e. always possible to cancel every attack). That said, later on there are beasts/bosses that simultaneously activate 3+ attacks. This is usually where I get hurt. Beating a boss with a Rush is ridiculously satisfying. True to PQ form, it's awesome when I do it but frustrating when they do.

About the only negative so far is the dungeon map. I'm not a fan of its design. They all look the same, the "one-way" paths are annoying, you can't zoom out far enough, etc. Otherwise it's a lot better than I expected.

TyrantCow

doesn't have depth/customization at the same level of the first PQ game?

LewieP

I really hate bejeweled twist.

But the demo ended, and I wasn't ready for it to.

I'm probably going to wait out for a handheld release.

Zoelef

Free-form commenting here:

There's an official demo up on Steam now.

RE: customization - You get to choose which monsters to bring with you and can metagame towards it; but there are no equippable items as far as I can tell.

Gyromancer actually crashed on me about 1-2 hours in but it auto-saves after each battle so you only lose progress in the current battle.

After 2 hours in, I still haven't 100%'d (8/10 awards) the first stage, which tells me (a) there's plenty of depth for enthusiasts and (b) you probably want to be 10+ levels above the stage's monsters if you're going to try to 100% a stage.

Monger

This seems to be pretty good based on the demo. But yeah. Those are some JRPG-ass JRPG mechanics, man.

Will probably pick it up, but definitely after the high priority releases of the near future.

Peewi

Monger wrote: »

This seems to be pretty good based on the demo. But yeah. Those are some JRPG-ass JRPG mechanics, man.

Will probably pick it up, but definitely after the high priority releases of the near future.

I absolutely agree. Demo is good, but there are so many other games that need playing.

TyrantCow

Monger wrote: »

This seems to be pretty good based on the demo. But yeah. Those are some JRPG-ass JRPG mechanics, man.

Will probably pick it up, but definitely after the high priority releases of the near future.

i'm getting the impression from others in the thread that there are not many RPG mechanics at all...

like, bejeweled twist with 3 varying things you can do with your pokemans

i'll have to check out the demo.

Cantido

Peewi wrote: »

Monger wrote: »

This seems to be pretty good based on the demo. But yeah. Those are some JRPG-ass JRPG mechanics, man.

Will probably pick it up, but definitely after the high priority releases of the near future.

I absolutely agree. Demo is good, but there are so many other games that need playing.

Come to think of it, the last Japan thing I played was Valkyria Chronicles. But this really stands out to me as Japan Being Awesome. I'm gonna buy it when I get home tonight.

aBlank

Getting 5000 points on these maps is annoying as hell. It's basically me sitting in front of a enemy generator grinding on bitches Blah....

What's everyone's max chain? I've gotten up to 5 but it says it could go higher.

Xtarath

I'm pretty upset that it won't work, on Steam for me.

Monger

TyrantCow wrote: »

Monger wrote: »

This seems to be pretty good based on the demo. But yeah. Those are some JRPG-ass JRPG mechanics, man.

Will probably pick it up, but definitely after the high priority releases of the near future.

i'm getting the impression from others in the thread that there are not many RPG mechanics at all...

like, bejeweled twist with 3 varying things you can do with your pokemans

i'll have to check out the demo.

It uses the ATB system. There are chains and a mechanic called Rush and I have no idea what the shit any of that means that means yet, but I keep activating it anyway and it looks pretty. It has gil. Someone mentioned grinding not two posts ago. There aren't as many RPG mechanics that are overt to the player as in Puzzle Quest, but the RPG stuff that's in there is real Japanese.

Vi Monks

According to the Steam forums, some people who couldn't get it to start had luck forcing it to 640x480 resolution in the compatibility tab of the .exe. Might help.

Tcheldor

I'm still trying to figure out Rush. Anyone have a clue?

aBlank

Tcheldor wrote: »

I'm still trying to figure out Rush. Anyone have a clue?

Isn't that just when you blow up 3 of your ability gems in the same cascade? I think it results in bonus damage...

Or are you talking about the thing where you can beef up your guys prior to a fight... I think that's related to puzzle points or some shit -_-

august

So I just got the demo.

No resolution settings is kinda... uh? I mean you can choose apect ratio. Or something. And fullscreen looks like 16:9 so it looks right on my screen. Just no way to pick actual resolution. I think.

Xtarath

I think it's funny when I try to google to find a fix for my problem, the first result is this thread.

EdS25

So, uh, there's a pretty large difficulty spike after the first few stages. You know how it's fun to not let the enemy attack? Yeah . . you can't do that anymore. It's called "Idle Twist" and it's sort of wrecking the game for me. I mean, I knew it was too easy, and this does add some much needed strategery but I liked breezing through it. Guess I should check to see if there's an option to turn it off . . . . at least until I'm generally better at Twist.

Monger

Xtarath wrote: »

I think it's funny when I try to google to find a fix for my problem, the first result is this thread.

It seems to me that this game kind of got sent off to die. It's surprising to me, considering it's from Squeenix and PopCap and based on Puzzle Quest, seeing as those are the slavemasters to the east, west, and... everybody. Respectively.

Cantido

Can you...rotate counter-clockwise? It's driving me crazy.

august

Just getting started. The menus have a pretty serious case of the ol' console-itis. They really could have learned something from Puzzle Quest on that one.

Mobile-D

Cantido wrote: »

Can you...rotate counter-clockwise? It's driving me crazy.

I think with the mirror items you can. But it uses up a mirror each time.

Vi Monks

august wrote: »

Just getting started. The menus have a pretty serious case of the ol' console-itis. They really could have learned something from Puzzle Quest on that one.

The whole game definitely feels like a copy-paste from the consoles. That being said, I'm having a hard time pulling myself away from it.

august

The only twist game I've played before was that twist minigame in plants vs. zombies, and I was horrible at it. The fact that you can make twists without actually making any matches is blowing my mind. And I'm also too tired to understand what the holy hell is going on. I guess I expected the monster to also make matches? Or something? I guess it... just... makes those specific tiles blow up? And there are gauges and numbers.

Yeah I'll figure it out tomorrow. Maybe.