Neopets, those popular online virtual critters, are jumping off the Internet and onto an adventure for the Nintendo DS, Wii, and PC (Wii version reviewed here). But it’s not just any adventure, it’s a puzzle adventure. Neopets Puzzle Adventure is best described as Puzzle Quest for kids.

First, choose a species of Neopet and its color, gender, and name. Then embark on an adventure to save the land. Explore a world map and along the way you must do favors and tasks for fellow Neopets, and a small battle or challenge may occur. These battles play out like a puzzle game, VERY similar to the classic Othello board game. Players take turns placing tokens on a board. If you surround a row of your opponent’s tokens with two of your own, all the tokens turn into your color. You win if you have more of your color tokens on the field than your opponent. Control is easy, just point the remote at the screen to place tokens.

Of course, Neopets Puzzle Adventure adds a few twists to the classic gameplay. Like Scrabble, some of the tiles have bonus points if you place a token on that square. You can also get bonus points for making combos and chains. As you play the adventure, you’ll acquire Petpets, little animals that you can use once per battle to turn the tides in your favor. Some of these Petpets let you place two tokens at once, or force your opponent to move to a square of your choice. But watch out, because your challenger may have a Petpet of their own!

By playing the game and completing certain tasks, you can get codes which you can then enter on the official Neopets Web site to unlock goodies. Two players can challenge each other with one or two remotes, and a few puzzley mini-games round out the package.

The only problem with Neopets Puzzle Adventure on the Wii is long loading times between battles slow things down, and it also causes choppiness during the game, too. However, Neopets Puzzle Adventure is a great game for kids who enjoyed Puzzle Quest, Neopets, or puzzle-ish board games like Othello.

Kid Factor:
Neopets Puzzle Adventure is rated E for Everyone. Nothing questionable, violent, or objectionable here. Reading skill is helpful as the dialogue is all text based. The game does a good job of explaining the gameplay to newcomers. But it does get a little tough pretty quickly. Or it could be I’m just really BAD at Othello. It’s not frustrating, though, as you don’t get penalized at all when you lose. Kids who have a bit of patience and enjoy puzzlers and Neopets should enjoy Neopets Puzzle Adventure.

Tags: Game Reviews