For all its charms, Puzzle Quest is not a game that ends well. Once you've completed every mindless fetch mission and julienned the anticlimactic final boss, you're dropped back into the worldmap with hardly any ceremony save some brief epilogue text. The landscape appears just as you left it, unaffected by your victory or valor.

The New Gamer laments in its review, "I keep hoping that, finally, my character will have some complete and utter impact on the lands, that all those I've interacted in will pronounce the lands free of evil, free of conflict and that they can finally live their lives in peace." But your deeds are quickly forgotten by the townspeople you've saved, and there's little to indicate that you've had an impact on the kingdom of Etheria. In short, it never feels like the Challenge of the Warlords has actually been completed.

Though this lack of finality isn't exclusive to Puzzle Quest, we really expected more from an otherwise fantastic game. Hopefully, Infinite Interactive will take pains to address the issue before putting out its next puzzle/RPG hybrid, Galactrix. Until then, we'll be haunting Etheria's dusty roads, matching gems against any soul that stumbles across our path, sighing no matter what the outcome.