Seven years after the site’s launch, the Neopets franchise is still going strong, with everything from trading card games to plush toys, an official magazine and more recently, videogames. And I’ve played both of them (The Darkest Faerie and Petpet Adventures), so logically, I had to check this one out as well.
Neopets: Codestone Quest is basically a clone of Zuma with several little power-up twists, and a familiar Neopets theme… that is, for those who are regular site users.
The usual cute and cuddly world of Neopets has its share of villains, so in this game the story revolves around the evil Balthazar, a Lupe (wolf-like creature) who is known for hunting and capturing faeries, keeping them in jars and selling them all over Neopia.
So, applying this tale to the game, you have the world of Neopia divided into the usual areas, each consisting of a series of puzzle stages where one of Balthazar’s minions pushing a chain of bottled faeries along the track. Your goal is to shoot out other faeries into the chain to match three or more and set them free, obtain all the magical Codestones and save the day.
I enjoyed how the different areas were depicted and how so many familiar faces appear in the game. The medieval Meridell, the underwater grounds of Maraqua, the dark and creepy Haunted Woods, the pre-historic land of Tyrannia, The Lost Desert and it’s Egyptian theme, the snowy slopes of Terror Mountain and the tropical paradise of Mystery Island.
Petpets appear as special power-ups that you can purchase in between levels. Blurtle helps slow down the incoming chain, Baby Fireball smashes a portion of the chain and releases the faeries in those jars, Turmac pushes the chains back and Snowickle freezes the jars where they are for a short while.
The faeries that you throw into the chain sometimes have special powers. There is a wildcard faerie that will match any color it touches on the chain, a fireball faerie that is similar to Baby Fireball, a lightning bolt faerie that shoots out and destroys whatever is in its path, and a color blast that will break any jars of the same color it touches.
The levels offer plenty of challenge, and later in the game you will end up having a puzzle field with two or more chains moving around. It can get hectic pretty fast if you blink, but it’s easy enough to just aim, shoot and switch between the three available faeries at any given time.
For added replayability, the game offers three modes: Adventure, Time Trial (clear stage within a time limit) and Survival (keep playing until you lose). The stages you have beaten in Adventure mode will be available in the other two modes, so you can pick any and hop right in to your favorite scenery.
I also noticed there was a sort of achievements system based on hidden goals, such as completing five levels without using any petpets or without dying.
The overall look of the game is reminiscent of the artwork you find on the official site. The locales are familiar yet they are still original. The character artwork has always been very good, so all the faeries, the pets, petpets and landscapes are nicely drawn. The music is also very good and far from annoying. It sounds somewhat symphonic, and it’s fairly relaxing until a chain approaches the end of line – that’s when it takes this sort of panic tone that right away tells you something bad is about to happen.
Although the game mechanics aren’t original, I love Zuma, so I didn’t mind at all trying out this Neopets-themed clone. What can I say, I like my Neopets, even if I don’t spend as much time on the site nowadays. And both of them together make an interesting action/puzzle that fans of the online community will definitely enjoy.