Role-playing giant Square Enix and casual gaming juggernaut PopCap unleashed their first collaboration this week.

Gyromancer, available on the Xbox 360 for $15 and on PC through Steam, looks a lot like the megahit Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords at first glance. But the devil's in the details.

You're an adventurer looking to capture Qraist Kingsley, the leader of a rebel group called Temperance. You move around a map, encountering enemies which must be fought by playing a game exactly like PopCap's Bejeweled Twist: Matching rows of three or more colored gems helps power up spells that can be cast to damage the enemy and gain other beneficial effects.

That's where the two games start to diverge. In Puzzle Quest, you took turns trying to match gems against the computer. In Gyromancer, the gem grid is yours and yours alone to futz with.

Player and enemy each have spell meters that slowly fill with each move of the gems. If the player matches gems the same color as their creature's affinity, those meters will fill faster. Match gems that correspond to the enemy's shade and it'll slow their progress.

When these meters fill, they add a special powered-up gem to the playing field. If the player creates a match with one of these blazing attack gems, they'll do damage to the enemy creature.

When the opponent's pending attacks hit the playing field, they take the form of a gem imbued with a glowing skull and a countdown clock. The number on the skull gem is the number of turns you have left before the enemy's attack goes off.

If you can match that gem before the timer runs out, you'll avoid the attack. If not, the bad guy takes a swipe at you.

Also substantially different is that fact that you're not doing the fighting, but rather engaging the enemy with creatures that you summon. I started out with two Power Beetles with yellow affinity and a single grey Aevis. I soon acquired a code that would let me summon a Red Wyrm – but you can only summon them at a special location. I had to wait to finish the first stage before I could add the Red Wyrm to my bench. But since I could only hold three summoned buddies, I had to cut one of my Power Beetles loose.

The initial stage is quite simple – there's just one path with a couple of outlets where you'll find treasure and places to restore your creature's health. Between me and the goal were a couple of wandering monsters who had to be defeated before my first encounter with Qraist.

The game's second stage was more maze-like, with dead ends to explore and diversions to chase. I steered towards an beast lair and fought a boss there – a level 3 Lava Wyrm. Defeating that baddie destroyed the lair and all the wandering monsters in the area. It also scored me some additional treasure.

Even at these early stages, I can tell that I like Gyromancer quite a bit more than the Puzzle Quest games. The role-playing elements feel a little more thought-out and complex. And the battle mechanic, as filtered through Bejeweled Twist, feels a lot more like a puzzle. There's much less luck involved; the battles are yours to win or lose.

The Puzzle Quest games were oddly compelling, despite the fact that they felt either unfairly hard or so easy that they were broken. Gyromancer, with its rock-solid PopCap puzzling and engaging Square Enix role-play, feels way tighter, and thus has the potential to be dangerously engrossing.

Image courtesy Square Enix

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