I admit I was a bit shocked when I first discovered that this was made by the same guy who created Warlords (and inspired in the same universe,it seems).

I actually have a copy of that game, but I believe it's still unopened.

I have played the original Puzzle Quest on the DS, which is notable for not having the rebalances that other versions, like the one on the PC, got.

Also, one complaint I had about the original is that the Normal mode enemy AI was too good; it would choose between the top 10% of available moves (based on some scoring algorithm), which usually meant choosing the top move since there aren't usually 10 moves. It really should have been top 25% or something. (For comparison, Hard would always choose the best move (not a noticeable difference), while Easy would choose between the top 50% (which makes things a lot easier).

Supposedly, the AI did not have access to knowledge about the pieces that were going to fall.

You can make the AI significantly easier to play against by playing on Easy, but as I mentioned above, at least in the original the difference between Normal and Hard was not big enough.

Yes, as unlikely as it seems, Warlords 1-4, Warlords Battlecry 1-3, Puzzle Quest 1-2 and Puzzle Kingdoms, all take place in the same fantasy world of Etheria. In fact Puzzle Quest 2's story is a direct continuation of Warlords Battlecry 3's story. I found this out the first time I played Puzzle Quest 1 when it came out and realized the map of the world was the same as the one from Warlords; I must have been part of the extremely limited demographic that picked up both the Warlords games and the Puzzle Quest ones without having any prior knowledge of their connection and figuring it out as I played along.

I found out about the connection between Warlords and Puzzle Kingdom a bit after having started Puzzle kingdom.
Played a lot of Warlords 2 Deluxe hot-seat, but that was mostly a set of maps and tilesets etc which had not much to do with the world of the first game.

And to the difficulty, yeah the original Puzzle Quest was horrible with the AI being very lucky getting chains off things which were about to come on the board.
In moments of frustration I dubbed it Skull-buggery, because that felt very much like what what the RNG was doing.

Yeah, the only map from Warlords 2 that had anything to do with the world of the other games was Illuria, which was the original name used for said world (that's what they called it in Warlords 1, where Illuria was the ONLY map you could play on), before it was renamed to Etheria (starting with Warlords 3 I think, but I could be wrong). All of the other maps were historical scenarios or generic fantasy lands that were never heard from again. As a funny sidenote, Warlords Battlecry 1 initially took place on a fantasy world that seemed to have nothing to do with Etheria, but then Warlords Battlecry 2 revealed that said world was actually just an island on Etheria. Remarkably the map of Illuria/Etheria has stayed mostly the same from Warlords 1 all the way to what we see in Puzzle Quest 1.

Regarding the difficulty I completely agree with you. I remember it being so hard that I was constantly losing fights even on Easy. That and the grindy nature of the game made me quit the game without ever finishing it; I hope this new edition did something about it, otherwise I'm not planning on revisiting it anytime soon. In my opinion Puzzle Quest 2 was a far better game, gameplay wise, despite also being very linear. I hope to see it, Galactrix and Puzzle Kingdoms on GOG someday. Puzzle Quest 2 would be an instant buy for me.

While I wish this and the o.g showed up here .. this new version is very good if for no other reason the rather cheap price point while having all content the o.g version on pc lacked

Nice surprise and bought, thanks. Enjoyed the original and the sequel. Hopefully the sequel will get a release on the PC at some point too.

Uhh, why so ugly reskin of original?! This looks like some cheap mobile game >.>
Thank God I bought original game on disc back in 2008 for less price.

After solid testing of that new version (reached 20th level of hero), on the one hand I appreciate throwing content of add-ons (previously not present on PC), plus it's still the same game, which is great...

BUT - the "incredibly lucky" combos of enemies are still there (at first it may look like they're no longer there, but after finishing first battles, it appears very clearly).

And they completely cut off the multiplayer part (which in original was present and didn't require any additional services). What a shame :(

P.S. Wondering if adding original version on GOG is viable or not. Original is still available on Steam (and only there, unfortunately).

Holy shit.
I bought this on Nintendo DS back in the day, and it still holds the record for the game with most consecutive hours played in one sitting :17 hours!

I was actually laying(lying? fuck this word) on my back in bed while playing, so technically it wasn't a sitting.

so you're getting these phone games without a paywall now? cute! who to give money to get this phone game back on the phone without a paywall as well?

To make the inception better - the PC version came out first, so the mobile version was a port of the PC game.

So something like "So you are getting these pc games ported to phones and added a paywall, then those games are ported back to the PC without a paywall. So who to give money to the get this PC game back to the phone, and then pack to PC again?"

and then you buy this game, realising that answers the question.

It is a simple reason - it is a good and addictive game.

The DS version came out before the PC version.

In fact, the PC version has some balance tweaks (like cooldowns on a few spells) that are not in the DS version.

I played a little bit of Puzzle Quest Galactrix a long time ago. I haven't played the original though, so I might this a try.