"I'm going to try that once I finish Puzzle Quest." I think I heard that quote no less than six times from six different people. I must have been living in a box. I didn't know what they were talking about! All I knew is I was playing a bunch of Web-based games, and yet none of them were the aforementioned Puzzle Quest. And with a name like that, it just had to be Web-based, right? A trip to the local game store before flying to Europe, and there on the DS used shelf: Puzzle Quest. Huh.

Let me first make a plea to all of those who turn games in for credit — pretty please turn in the manuals. I do! I even demand them when I rent games. It makes life so much easier ... and 10 hours after starting Puzzle Quest, I may not have been taken by surprise by all of the other features! You know who you are.

Puzzle Quest is deceptively simple. It is a classic role-playing game in every sense of the word: There are four classes, seven stats, multiple schools within a class, mounts, spells, weapons, armor, quests ... everything your heart desires! But, the core mechanic for completing absolutely everything is a puzzle. And the same puzzle at that. Yet, it never becomes boring.

How, you ask, can you play the same puzzle for everything and never become bored? Therein lays some amazing game design. If ever there was a game that exemplified the saying "Easy to learn, difficult to master," this is the game. It gets better; the puzzle is a match-three clone. That's right: It's a version of Bejeweled.

Yeah, yeah, yeah; I'm getting to the game.

You're a hero on a quest to discover why there are disturbances in the land. You are to be archetypal hero in the archetypal quest in an archetypal fantasy world. However, before you begin your journey, you must first choose your gender, name and class.

From four classes, you can be knight, warrior, druid or mage. As expected, each has strengths and weaknesses and is defined in your base stats. Your stats are Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Morale, Battle and Cunning. The cost of increasing each stat depends upon your class. As a warrior, my elemental stats cost significantly more than base battle stats. As a mage, my advantages lie in Earth and Fire. Simple RPG mechanic.

You'll begin your time in the land of X by battling practice dummies and then defeating a sparring knight. This teaches you how to play the puzzle and use your "spells" — even knights and warriors have spells, although these can be considered actions.

Against the practice dummy, you simply match three, or four or five. Each time you match three of a color, you gain mana in that color. Each time you match three purple stars, you gain three experience. Three gold will net you three gold. And three skeletons will damage your opponent. Match four, and you can go again. Match five, and you not only can go again, but you'll gain a bonus tile that has a multiplier on it, which you can use to match with colors for extra mana.

You can have queued up to six spells/actions. When you have gained the needed mana in the requisite colors, you simply tap the action, and it casts. Some are offensive measures that damage your opponent; you may heal yourself; as a warrior, I would most often affect the board I was playing.

You now know how to play Puzzle Quest at its most basic level. Injure the opponent until its health reaches zero, and you will be the victor, earning all of the experience and gold from the battle as well as a bonus. If you are defeated, you still earn the experience and gold from the battle, but no bonus.

What's the catch? When it's not a practice dummy, you take turns with your opponent so the board changes with each turn. Items you equip — armor, weapons, items — affect your abilities as well as those of your opponent. Oh, and sometimes, defeat is not the purpose — capture is!

Before each battle, you can change your equipment to better your chances or change the purpose of the battle. For example, there are times when you'll be in need of gold or experience and know you have the skills for the victory. When taking a fortress, you'll need to equip the best items you have — bonuses affect your skills as assuredly as any RPG.

From your own fortress (This is where an instruction book would have come in handy!), you begin to build a stronghold. A stable allows you to capture animals after you've defeated them three times. Once captured, you ride it and add its abilities to your own. Training it will increase its abilities and again, your own. Once you defeat a monster five times, you can learn one of its spells, if you've created a mage tower, etc.

A third option when traveling is the ability to search for runes in ruins. Of course, the ruins will be guarded. (Aren't they always?) These monsters are particularly difficult, but once you gain a rune, it's yours to keep. Back home, you combine runes in sets of three: Base, Modifier and Power. The type of item created (armor, jewelry, etc.), the ability being added (Fire, Health, etc.) and the boost. The combinations are insane.

I mentioned this was all using the same match-three game type right? This is where the game is deceptively simple but actually quite complex. By using the same game for every encounter or action, you'll have the ability to increase your skill as you level. This becomes important later in the game. But, it also allows for subtle changes in the rules of the puzzle that don't require you to adjust your play style to win.

An example of this is training your mount. To train a mount, you must beat the mount in combat. However, there is an added catch — the turns are time-limited. They begin at 20 seconds per turn and become increasingly shorter. Nine seconds to find a match of three may sound like a lot, but if there is only one match on the board and you don't immediately see it, you lose.

Capturing a monster provides an incomplete play board with a specific pattern. In order to capture said monster, you must clear all the pieces. There are no second chances (other than to battle again) in this mode. Once the pieces have been used, none will fall from the top to take their place. To capture, you must find the correct pattern of moves and do them all correctly.

Forging items is also a variant of the match three. Rather than fighting an opponent, your goal is to create or match forges. To do so, you may need to match four of a color or clear an entire line to simply create a forge. If you must then create a forge, it will require moving those pieces across the board through matches; the same basic play mechanic but a different strategy.

Forging items is a matter of gathering enough of a certain color/item. You may need 30 yellow but 200 red. This sounds simple enough until you realize, at any point in any puzzle if there are no matches left, the board clears. When forging an item, you'll have failed to make the item. When fighting an opponent, it will drain the mana on both sides.

Each of these variants serves a purpose other than that of creating the item or increasing the skill of your mount. It teaches you as a player to think strategically about your moves. The more you play, the better a player you become; and the more you play the game beyond the basic quest, the faster you become better both through equipment and skill. It's quite an unexpected self-reinforcing mechanic.

Then there's the questing itself. It's not a linear experience. The choices you make determine where on a very large map you will head next. Your choices also affect what will happen in the world. In an immediate sense, your choices affect who will join your party — another bonus item. Long term, your relationships with other cultures is affected.

I find myself wanting to write more about Puzzle Quest, but for all its complexity, it really is simple. Like any RPG, the depth is in the story and characters. You want to develop your character to get to the next town to take the next quest to see what happens next. Not strong enough? Take a side quest. This could take you DAYS.

Still not strong enough? You can grind. I kid you not. When you start the game, you can choose single player random encounter or single player specific encounter and practice against that monster who has been giving you trouble.

Love the game and convince your better half to buy it? You can battle them in multiplayer. This is where I learn that even though I'm very good at match-three games, I'm still a bad mage, even in puzzle RPGs. Go figure.

Everything you've ever wanted to do in an RPG is here. I can't call this a casual RPG — I've never played it for less than two hours, and I played it on a transatlantic flight, twice. I'm still not done. I've introduced three other people to buy it and battled two of them; they have done the same. If this were Amway I'd be rich.

I can't think of a single style of player I wouldn't recommend this game to. If you own a DS, you should enjoy this. It has a good story, strong gameplay, compelling character advancement, incredible price point ($19.99!), single and multiplayer functionality, infinite replayability, it is strategic as well as tactical ... this is what good games are all about.