Review - Gyromancer

It's funny, I've talked several times about games of other genres that include RPG elements, and how much I enjoy them. Gyromancer is another game that I've played that combines a popular puzzle game with some RPG elements that I most certainly enjoyed as well. So what makes this game special, and why did it go unmentioned in this blog for so long?

Gyromancer's puzzle elements play the same as Popcap's popular title, Bejeweled Twist. If you are unfamiliar with Bejeweled Twist, the objective of the game is to make a match of three, same colored gems in a row by rotating a 2 x 2 square of gems in a clockwise motion. You can play Bejeweled Twist for free on their website to get a better understanding of how the game works.

So where does the RPG elements come into play? Well, first, there is a story. A fairly generic story about a summoner who was given a task by the royal family to track down a rebel group. It's not the most interesting of stories out there for sure. However, the combat, fought by playing Bejeweled Twist, has some interesting RPG elements that adds a little more to the puzzle.

Gameplay - When you encounter an enemy on the map, you choose one of your monsters to summon to fight against the enemy. Each monster has its own health, attacks, and an elemental attunement. By creating a match of 3 gems in a row, you fill up your monsters' attack gauges. If the gems were of the same color as your monster's elemental attunement, then the gauge fills faster. However, each move you make will fill some of the enemy's attack gauges as well, unless you create a match of the gems of the enemy's elemental attunement.

Each attack has its own special effects, but usually, filling an attack gauge will turn one of the gems in the play field to turn into an aura gem. When you create a match using the aura gem, the attack effect is unleashed and will deal damage to your enemy. When an enemy fills their attack gauge however, it will create a skull gem that has a timer that will activate their attacks if you fail to match it before the timer turns reaches 0. There are several strategies to consider when choosing your monsters to summon, as there are elemental advantages and disadvantages, as well as strategic elements involving the special effects of attacks.

The difficulty of this game isn't too bad, but without good strategy on the gem board and be able to take out your opponents quickly, or use of monsters that have health recovery with its attacks, each level may start posing some threat as you do not heal HP between fights. There are health shrines on the map that you can use once during the level to recover your monsters' health, but they aren't very plentiful so careful use is recommended. After the initial tutorial levels, the game will turn its difficulty higher as well by punishing Idle Twists, or when you make a twist that doesn't clear any gems, by counting it as 2 turns worth of twists. That means the enemy charges their attack gauge twice as fast for that Idle Twist, and any skull gems on the board will count down twice on their counters.

Boss battles against higher leveled monsters and tougher enemies certainly can pose a challenge in Gyromancer, unless you have done your fair share of level grinding, and have monsters that have high level caps. If not, you can use the Summoner's Breakthrough for one battle in the level to have your monster reach its ultimate form with stronger attacks and a higher level cap. Later on however, that alone may not be enough at times due to enemy attacks that may create stones that are unmatchable, or locked gems that prevent you from twisting them. Heavy reliance on counter strategies will be necessary in these battles.

The graphics in Gyromancer is pretty. Not bright-colors pretty, but artistic detailing pretty in the backgrounds, character and monster design, and how well the style blends together with each other. The downside may be that the characters and monsters aren't animated, but instead have special effects when attacks activate on the gem board. These special effects are always neat to watch, especially when you get a Rush by activating 3 or more aura gems in a single turn.

The music and sound effects are very fitting in Gyromancer. The music is well worth listening to on its own, the sound effects are appropriate and also satisfying as you unleash attacks upon your opponent. Unfortunately, the dialogues aren't voice acted, which may be good or bad, depending on how you feel about voice acting in general. I was a bit disappointed that there were no voice acting at all though.

Now, replay value is something that's lacking in Gyromancer. There are secrets in levels which may provide more monsters for you to choose from, or have special conditions that you can achieve. However, once all those have been done, there is little left to do other than the challenge levels and maybe try to achieve a higher score. Not the most exciting things to do in Gyromancer, especially not many things will pose a threat to you once you've unlocked some of the stronger monsters. You end up winning your fights so quickly that you just want to play Bejeweled Twist instead to see how many turns you can last.

Overall, it's a great game while it lasts. Definitely worth a mention on my blog for other genre games that incorporate RPG elements to add nice twists of fun. Just that it really hasn't been on my mind since I haven't touched the game in so long after completing it. It's definitely worth a try though. Perhaps try the free demo available on Steam if your computer can run it.