Well, it’s official. The minute Puzzle & Dragons Z hits the West, I’m gonna throw down my money, grab my copy and retreat into a gamer coma for a good long time. Localization was confirmed in a Siliconera interview with GungHo Online Entertainment CEO Kazuki Morishita.
For those of you who don’t know, Puzzle & Dragons Z is a new take on the massively popular Puzzle & Dragons that originally hit Japan in “free” form, only to gather to itself some 13 million registered users. Now GungHo is bringing the addictive title to the 3DS in both Japan and the West, and I couldn’t be happier. They hope to sell at least 1 million copies of the game, a reasonable desire considering how well the “free” version has expanded its user base in Japan alone.
The reason I’m so happy about this game is that in most cases, puzzle games are much more addictive than other video game genres. They are simple to learn, hard to master, and offer hours upon hours of replay value. The reason I feel this game will hook me so completely is because it is essentially a mix of Bejeweled, Pokemon and Shin Megami Tensei, three of my favorite franchises, and utilizes dungeon crawler mechanics. Combat is handled by matching gems, used to initiate monster attacks, and by killing monsters, you collect loot and level up.
Colorful, cute monsters can also be combined with each other, resulting in new, more powerful monsters, kind of like in the Shin Megami Tensei series. I can see why the free version of this game became an instant hit in Japan. In any case, it is outstanding news that GungHo decided to bring this game to the West, and I hope that other developers continue to make the same decision in the future!
