Hybrid games are nothing new, especially when they involve grafting roleplaying game elements onto action-based games. We've seen this approach taken with first-person shooters, brawlers and even platformers. But the original Puzzle Quest tried something new, and seemingly crazy, combining RPG elements and story with a puzzle game. The first title was a surprise hit, and the franchise continues on with the sequel Puzzle Quest 2.

The core gameplay of Puzzle Quest 2 will be familiar to anyone who has spent time with Bejeweled or other match three falling block games. The gameboard is filled with different colored gems, which when matched in groups of three or more are eliminated from the screen, causing additional gems to fall down and take their place. But this very simple mechanic becomes increasingly complex with the addition of an opponent who plays on the same board.

Each gameboard is a single battle, with both you and your foe possessing weapons, items and magical spells, all of which are powered by destroying colored stones and special items like skulls and gauntlets. By combining skulls to do instant damage, lining up gauntlets to gain energy for melee attacks, and making use of your special abilities, gamers chip away at their opponent's hit points until they're the last Puzzle Quester standing.

As evidenced by the bazillion-and-a-half people to have played Bejeweled and similar games over the years, Puzzle Quest 2's core gameplay is solid and a great time-killer. But, with the addition of strategies linked to gamers' spells and special abilities, Puzzle Quest 2 offers a much deeper tactical experience. For example, while destroying the yellow gems might give you more points, and would be the wiser move in a more traditional puzzle game, if your barbarian needs red mana to use his most powerful abilities, you might be better off aligning some red jewels instead.

Linking all of these puzzle-based battles together is a bone-stock RPG story with all of the original factory settings in place. Users choose a hero class with a randomly generated name, and are thrust into a clichéd medieval world, where they must protect hardworking villagers from hordes of unambiguously evil monsters. The lack of any kind of compelling characters, plots or story beats is where Puzzle Quest 2 really suffers. In fact, what passes for a story in this game is really more of a nuisance than anything else, as it gets in the way of the franchise's trademark gameplay.

While Puzzle Quest 2's story doesn't offer up much in the way of character development, the game somewhat makes up for it with RPG-style character customization. Though the story may bore you, for RPG fans it's always exciting to level up your character, choose how to distribute new skill points, and equip recently learned spells. With trade goods used to upgrade existing weapons and stores full of purchasable items, Puzzle Quest 2 even does a good job with some limited inventory management gameplay.

But in addition to a dull, lazily-constructed storyline, there's another serious problem with Puzzle Quest 2: Load times. The game is a tremendous port of the versions appearing on Xbox Live Arcade, PC and the Nintendo DS, with all of the title's gameplay elements and graphics arriving intact on the iPhone. Unfortunately, presumably to allow this similarity, load times were dramatically increased in this version, and gamers must spend far too long waiting on the game.

Compounding the load time issues is the fact that Puzzle Quest 2 insists on subjecting gamers to all of the particulars of its lousy story. There is no efficient way to skip inane conversations with villagers and just get to your next quest, meaning that users must often sit through a loading time for a conversation they don't want to read, and then go directly into another loading time. Especially for gamers on the go, this is enough to make a person want to give up on the title altogether.

Another serious problem comes from the small size of the iPhone's screen. While the touch mechanics probably work great on the iPad, iPhone users with average-sized fingers will have regular difficulty navigating Puzzle Quest 2's touch-based menus and options. This rarely results in missteps in the heat of your puzzle-solving battles, but it does add a fair amount of tapping and re-tapping to a game already plagued by slowdown issues.

The gameplay mechanic of Puzzle Quest 2 is phenomenal and completely addictive, as it takes some of our favorite elements from both RPGs and puzzle games. Unfortunately, the game's infamous lack of any kind of story is a serious barrier to enjoyment, especially when joined with this port's loading and control issues. When actually playing a Puzzle Quest 2 battle, the game is hard to beat, but outside of the puzzles, the game's biggest trial will be on your patience.

Final Score: C