Review—Gyromancer

Pop Cap Games and Square Enix made a game.  Pop Cap Games and Square Enix made a game.  POP CAP GAMES AND SQUARE ENIX MADE A GAME!  Now that I’ve gotten that point across, you can imagine my expectations and thoughts behind Gyromancer.  The people that made Peggle and Plant vs. Zombies working together with the creators of Final Fantasy, that is what we call win.  It has to be good, right?

Well…that was the theory anyhow.  I’ll admit that I had high expectations for this game, but I would like to think my final verdict is based off of my experience as a gamer rather than bias.  The game starts out, normal enough, with the plot of the Royal Family having been executed by a group called Temperance.  Soon after the only surviving member of the Family disappears, and the thoughts are that Temperance had a hand in this.  Players take on the role of Court Wizard and Master Summoner Rivel, who tracks down the rogue knights into the enchanted woods.

From there, game play is pretty straight forward.  If you have played Bejeweled Twist…give it a story and RPG elements, you’ve played Gyromancer.  Not really a bad thing, but the simple truth.  As you make twists with the gyro, your ability bars fill, as do your enemies.  Matching up colors that match to your beast’s affinity gives you the abilities faster, while matching an opponent decreases the amount they get.  Enemies act more as timers, considering they never actually match the gems like the player.  When their abilities are unleashed into the gems, you have seven twists to eliminate the gems before you take damage.

At first, this proved a hindrance whenever the enemy would unleash up to three gems and the player only could unleash one at a time.  After getting used to the flow of the game and the puzzles elements of Bejeweled Twist, the enemies no longer posed a threat.  This was further magnified by the fact that if you go back through the dungeons that you’ve completed, gaining the awards, you will completely out level the creatures.  I clearly remember running into a monster that was level five when I was level 13.  So I guess that means if you take the time to go through past areas…the game loses all challenge.

The art style of the drawings are fantastic.  All of the characters are extremely detailed and feature dark and gritty looks.  However, the stages leave a lot to be desired.  The board and the tokens representing Rivel and the creatures are the same bronze/gold color for everything, while the floors have a static background.  I suppose for great looking pictures, you have to go with not so great floor and token design.  It also doesn’t help that the graphics per attacks consist of roughly five different ones.  Mostly lightning and explosion effects.

The music is also very wonderful, and it seems the only tune that stays the same is the battle song.  However the biggest issue I had here is at times it seems like there is a disconnection between the pictures and the music.  The music (aside from the battle theme) is a semi haunting forest melody, verging on what I would call “happy spring time.”  It’s kind of hard to get behind a vicious fire breathing Wyvern when a lark’s melody is playing.

While I liked Gyromancer well enough, my experience with it was completely ruined by a feature called Idle Twist.  An idle twist happens anytime that you spin the gyro and do not match a trio (or more) of gems.  This causes enemy abilities to double count and their attacks to recharge faster.  I wouldn’t have had a problem with this feature if now for a few factors.  First, this doesn’t happen until after roughly five floors into the game, and without warning.  The tutorial doesn’t even give you a heads up about this feature.  Second, there are literal points where you HAVE to make idle twists because there are no moves on the board.  If it would have been in the game since the beginning, I wouldn’t have too much of a problem with it, though it would still be a horrid mechanic.

I honestly believe that it was implemented to turn a non-challenging game into one that would.  Except for the fact that it turns the fun game play into a complete choir.  It went from puzzler to survive the enemy who has an unfair advantage against you.  The Idle Twist becomes Satan incarnate if there is more than a gem on the board with enemy power in it.

To end this review, I loved the art style and the music of the game.  While they didn’t quite mash together, taking either by itself is enjoyable.  The story wasn’t particularly new, but interesting enough to keep your attention for its game span.  However the Idle Twist feature ruined it for me, turning the game into a chore rather than something fun to play.  Gyromancer is a good game in all rights, but if you want a Puzzle RPG, Puzzle Quest does it better.  Gyromancer gets three stars out of five.

Tags: PC puzzle rpg Tyler R. Xbox Arcade