If you're a fan of puzzle games you'll love this! It has to be the most addictive series of games I think I've ever played. The third in the series, Jewel Quest 3 is set across a globe map with puzzles in Mexico, Iceland, Europe, Africa, South America, Australia, China, Alaska and East Asia. You can select which region you want to play and each of these regions has several puzzles you can chose from with varying difficulty.

If you've not played any of the Jewel Quest series before, you have to swap jewels to create a lines of 3 to clear the board. You can earn things called specials, which allow you to clear one jewel per special, by matching 3 gold coins. The story continues from the previous games, following Rupert and Emma, archeologsits searching for a cure for their daughters blindness and is executed through journal entries written by the characters. It's a simple idea but it's executed brilliantly. The story isn't very involving, but that doesn't bother me because I tend to skip it anyway.


The art is medicore, it's nothing special but it's still pretty, they've taken time to design different backgrounds for each continent. The overall design matches the story which was inspired by Indiana Jones, with the main menu being set in an interactive museum lobby. Jewel Quest 3 is cheap, fun and addictive. Once you've played one, you'll want to play more. Trust me. I even downloaded the second one onto my mobile phone... I just can't get enough!

The Last Hope is the fifth episode in the Star Ocean series. The story goes like this. You are Edge Maverick a young space recruit setting off on his first Space Reconnaissance mission, along with childhood friend and fellow recruit Reimi Saionji. After an extra long first cutscene you enter the battle simulator. You can spend ages going through the tutorials, or you can skip it. I'd go through it if I were you, especially if this is your first time playing a Star Ocean game. The battle system can be... tricky, but i'll talk about that more later. After you're done in the battle simulator you wander around the ship aimlessly. Maybe this is just a sign of my utter stupidity but it took me forever to find where I was meant to be going, which is finding Reimi on the flight deck. And with this comes another cutscene, this time involving the ship launching... and crashing. You then get to walk over to Reimi and guess what... there's ANOTHER cutscene! You're now roughly 20 minutes into the game and all you've done is walk around a ship.

It does have its saving grace though. The graphics are stunningly beautiful. The amount of detail that’s gone into the game is astounding. After the crash you are assigned to explore the surroundings, you get a few items and can speak to various members of the crew and once you talk to Reimi again you enter yet another cutscene, leading to your first fight... HOORAY! Finally some action! But this excitement is short lived, with the battle lasting only a minute or two. And low and behold... another damn cutscene. Things get more interesting on your next mission though, when you finally venture out into the surrounding forest, where the enemies are bountiful and the map is confusing. There's no indication of where you should be heading and you occasionally end up walking around in circles. But these a minor difficulties compared to the problem with the camera! The camera angles in Star Ocean are horrendously bad. It changes between third person and first person without warning! This makes gameplay incredibly awkward, especially when trying to avoid battles.


The only real problem I have with the battle system is the fact that when I escape from a battle, the enemy will run back into me, entering me back into the same battle I've just escaped from! Maybe this is the games way of saying I shouldn't be lazy but still, other than this little factor I really enjoy them. The number of enemies and the speed at which you enter battles can be a little overwhelming, but I enjoy a challenge. The targeting function can be a little tempermental sometimes, switching between enemies when you are surrounded, but this can easily ,be resovled by switching the focus back to enemy you want. I'd also make sure you lock the camera above the battle area, otherwise it will all get a little confusing.


The overall gameplay is good, the story is interesting and the characters are likeable, well, most of them. Welch is the most annoying thing on the planet, but I can live with that as I don't use the item creation too often. The cutscenes and landscapes are beautiful. What more could I ask for in a game? If you're looking for an RPG with a good story I'd suggest you go and buy Star Ocean, as long as you can look past it's dodgey camera angles and extra long cutscenes.