Jewel Quest IV: Heritage

Genre: Match-3 Puzzle

Players: 1

.

Review:

Jewel Quest IV: Heritage, alternately called Jewel Quest 4 and Jewel Quest Heritage, is a Match-3 Puzzle game in the same style as Bejeweled. This game was first released on PC in 2010, ported to mobile devices in 2012, then to Nintendo DSi via the DSiWare service in 2014, then to the Nintendo 3DS in 2015. For the purposes of this review, I played the Nintendo 3DS version of the game. I should note that the DSiWare version is no longer available.

Jewel Quest IV’s presentation makes use of 2D images for its gameplay, as well as 2D artwork for its still cutscenes in between rounds. These cutscenes depict an absurd story about a family of museum curators who had their prized golden puzzle board taken from them by a scheming rival claiming it belongs to him, and looking to win it back by… er… solving puzzles using that same board. Yeah, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. This story is delivered via laughably serious voice-over over a dramatic soundtrack.

The gameplay itself is mostly a take on the classic Bejeweled Match-3 formula, with the main difference being that the goal is not to just keep going as long as you can or to get a high score, but to highlight the entire game board by making matches in front of every space within a time limit.

All of this is fine, it works, but it does so little that is interesting or original that there just isn’t much to distinguish it from the countless other games that use the same formula, and certainly not enough to justify the game’s $6 price tag.

And… really, that’s all there is to it. If you’re looking for a simple, straightforward, traditional Bejeweled-style Match-3 Puzzle game, Jewel Quest IV will get the job done, but it’s depressingly derivative and does nothing to justify its $6 price tag when there are countless other games just like it, including many cheaper than this. Unless you absolutely need to get a bland Bejeweled clone on Nintendo 3DS, skip this one.

tl;dr – Jewel Quest IV is a Match-3 Puzzle game that’s pretty much just an off-brand version of Bejeweled with some minor gameplay differences and a laughably dumb story. It’s a decent Bejeweled clone, I suppose, but for $6 I think you can do better on Nintendo 3DS.

Grade: C-

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Ben, Andy Miller, Exlene, Homer Simpin, Johannes, Talissa, Eli Goodman, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Ilya Zverev, Kristoffer Wulff, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}