Gyromancer Review [XBLA, PC]

Posted December 7, 2009 by maceman.

Reviewed on the Xbox 360

Gyromancer is what would happen if Final Fantasy and Bejeweled Twist had a baby. The creators of Bejeweled (Popcap) and the creators of Final Fantasy (Square Enix) teamed up to create this RPG crossed with a puzzle game. But why reinvent the wheel when you have the two perfectly good ones already in place?

The story for this game is basic: Qraist Kingsley, rebel knight and leader of Temperance, has fled into Aldemona Wood after launching an attack on the Royals, killing Count Laertes and his wife. A new god/ruler of the wood is about to be chosen and its borders have been closed while this takes place — none shall pass and magickal beasts defend the wood against intruders. The kingdom has sent you, the great mage Rivel Arday, to hunt down the Temperance to bring them to justice.

The story is told via text and nicely drawn still shot artwork. This works for the most part. There are 12 stages in total, each with their own map containing various enemy beasts, treasures, special attacks and Gyro codes that add friendly beasts to your collection. There is also a main boss and a few mini bosses to defeat on each one. It is almost like playing a mature Pokemon or Bakugan where you have beasts to do the dirty work for you. But instead of your beasts doing battle in an arena, they sit down to a game of Bejeweled Twist with deadly consequences.

Once you have knocked off the main boss you can move on to the next stage or go back to complete the entire stage and collect all there is on offer. The one thing that made for a refreshing change is that it is not turn based and the game itself has enough variation to take away from the normal monotonous repetitive nature of the stand-alone Bejeweled games. If you have played Bejeweled Twist before then you will have an advantage, but there is still a steep learning curve. You will find yourself going back to the tutorials several times just to get your head around the concept and the difference between Affinity Gems, Ability Gems, and what does what before the pieces — or gems in this case — fall into place.

It’s quite a task to explain the varied mechanics, so I will stick with the basics. You use a reticule to highlight any four gems on the Bejeweled board and rotate them clockwise to line up three or more of the same colour gems. This makes a set that fills up your action gauges. Each beast has an Affinity colour, and if sets are made with this gem it fills the gauge quicker. Once your action gauges fill, Ability Gems are placed on the board. You then make a set with this Ability Gem and at least two more gems of the same colour to deal damage to the enemy; repeat this process until they are defeated.

On the flip side each time you make a move it fills the enemies’ action gauges. This is increased if you make what are called Idle Twists (moves that do not create a set). Like you, once the enemies’ action gauges fill up their own Ability Gems are placed on the board. To stop the enemy from doing damage you must try to create a set including one of their Ability Gems to eradicate it from the board.

There is a lot more to the game than what I have mentioned above; creating multiple sets to form chains during combat, performing in survival challenge modes, leveling up your character, and increasing the attributes of your beasts add variety to the gameplay.There are even challenges that don’t involve beast-to-beast confrontation.

You can swap beasts in your Summoner’s Den, but only three beasts at a time are allowed to travel with you. Each has different attacks and strengths against enemy Affinity Gems. Strategies and clever thinking are needed to get through, especially when the enemy throws multiple Ability Gems on the board at the same time and you must decide when to use the scarce special attacks.

This is an unexpected mish mash of two games that you would not expect to work together, but they do with highly addictive results. It gets more challenging as you progress, though once you get the hang of the game it is really enjoyable and hard to put down the controller. Although there is a lot of text to read between worlds it is easy to skip through if that is your preference. The story helps with the atmosphere of the game and lets you know that there is actually an end goal instead of just multiple games of Bejeweled Twist strung together with a map. Well worth the download.

Tagged as Gyromancer, PopCap, Review, Square Enix