Marvel Puzzle Quest on PS4 is inexpensive, janky, and soothingly awesome

Marvel Puzzle Quest on console is not exactly breaking news. While the game began as a free-to-play title on iOS and later, Android, the console port was released in October of 2015. What is breaking news is that the game is finally on sale. After two years of of saying “I’m not paying $14.99 for Marvel Puzzle Quest”, I was delighted to find the game on sale for $1.49 this week.

Marvel Puzzle Quest is basically a match-three game that uses Marvel heroes as the hook to keep you playing. Players select three heroes from their stable and enter a round against various enemies. Every round you play gains XP for your dudes, making them stronger. Matching gems gathers power points for your dudes, which allows them to unleash powerful attacks (or defenses and healing). At the end of a round, you are sometimes gifted with a comic book cover, which will strengthen your existing powers, or in some rare cases, unlock more heroes.

I spent at least a hundred hours playing the free-to-play version on my iPad. I’m one of those freaks that are immune to free-to-play cash-grab tactics. I will just sit there and grind happily away to get rewards, and if I run out of energy or crystals or whatever, I just shut the game down and do something else for a while. I initially played M.P.Q. for about a year, then I took about a year off before getting sucked back in when I spotted that an old friend on Facebook was playing. By the time I tapped out of the game for good, I had built up an insane stable of powerful heroes, completed all of the story missions multiple times, and had in-game cash (or crystals or whatever) coming out my ears.

I’ve been tempted by the console port ever since it released. While I am happy to work around free-to-play restrictions, I did feel that the game would greatly benefit from simply removing some of the barriers to progression. After playing the console version last night for a couple of hours, I’m happy to report that some of the dumber mechanics from the free-to-play version are gone. Your dudes heal fully between matches, instead of grinding down health until you have to pay to heal them or stop playing. There are no artificial limits to the amount of characters you can have. You no longer have to dole out XP to each character (it just gets slapped on everybody after any round they play in). The overall effect is that the game is far more open and relaxing. It is also extremely easy, since you can replay all the single player content as much as you want. You can quickly grind your heroes to a place where they can dominate anything the game throws at them. If you are looking for a challenge, this might not be the game for you. But if you are looking to chill and zone out, this game is the jam.

The UI is kind of a hysterical mess. This is definitely a free-to-play game that has been slapped onto a console. All sorts of little quirks are in place. Every time one of my heroes gains enough gems to use a power, the game locks me out of taking another move until I acknowledge the little tool tip that they have popped up to alert me. The screen is full of strange empty areas, and the fonts look a bit off in most cases. The sound effects are minimal and kind of beep-y.

That said, the core gameplay is exactly what I want. Marvel Puzzle Quest is still kind of awesome, despite all of the porting weirdness. I need a game that I can sit down and play for 10 or 15 minutes in front of my kids that won’t have exploding heads or f-bombs exploding left and right. The relaxing nature of Marvel Puzzle Quest is just what the doctor ordered when I want to turn my brain off for a few minutes. With the free-to-play irritations removed, I can see myself returning to play this over and over, until the end of time. And did I mention that it’s a buck fifty? It's a buck fifty, folks.