Months before Puzzle Quest, Block Kuzushi Quest is a failed attempt to create a wonderful puzzle RPG.
In The Block Kuzushi Quest, you control a winged dragon which is the equivalent of the spaceship you controlled in other 2D shooters like Ikaruga. Like in Krypton Egg, an old PC game, there's a ball of energy used to destroy the blocks. However, the energy ball keeps coming back so you need to pay attention and fend the ball so that you won't lose it.
The Block Kuzushi Quest is set in the world of Dragon Kingdom, where you'll be able to encounter more dragons per square meter than penguins in Antarctica. There are around 120 stages, organized in 7 levels called "demon shrines". At the end of each one, you'll find an enormous boss (for example, you'll encounter a huge ogre or a giant spider!) who will you give you headaches since they keep striking back and it's really hard to find the right moment to surprise them with your magical spell! However, soon enough, you'll find their weak spot and become almost invincible.
According to the developers from Tamsoft, The Block Kuzushi Quest is more than a simple puzzle game, since it has vertical shooter and RPG elements. Soon enough, you'll find out that the spectacular innovations promised by D3 are all flashy elements meant to distract you from the real essence of this game. It seems a real satisfaction to level up, gain experience and magic energy, but once you finish the game, you'll end up crying on the box of the game. The Block Kuzushi Quest only has a quest mode and a Wireless LAN functional correspondence which is useless since you can't find another owner of this game on the street. In other words, The Block Kuzushi Quest lacks a must-have mode for puzzle games - a "freeform" game mode where you replay the stages you unlocked in the quest mode.
Even though the replay value is close to zero, the game itself manages to be quirky and even a bit frantic, especially during boss fights. Everything would have been much easier if it wasn't for the weird control style the developers have adopted. Unlike many other PSP games, in order to play The Block Kuzushi Quest you need to hold the PSP vertically, not horizontally. In a short period of time, the way you control the game becomes very stressful. Thankfully, the game only lasts around 4-5 hours. However, this means you'll need to recharge your PSP twice, which isn't very convienent.
At least we can say that the graphics are some of the best ever seen on the PSP. The characters are richly detailed, while the levels look simply gorgeous. Most of them aren't more than the usual dungeons, but some of them can be considered "design masterpieces". You'll find yourself gazing at a garden with waterfalls, fountains and beautiful statues or impressive ruins scattered on the red dunes of a desert. If there's one thing that should justify the efforts of importing it, that would be the graphics.
On the other hand, the audio is just your ordinary fantasy dungeon RPG sound theme. There's nothing truly remarkable here, maybe except the annoying sounds of certain monsters. Most often, you won't feel the music, because it almost doesn't exist. Such a puzzle game doesn't need a very complicated soundtrack, but the efforts of the developers are now useless. You'll often want to turn the volume of your PSP to mute and play the game while listening to the music you like on your iPod.
Overall, The Block Kuzushi Quest is a puzzle game that had very much potential. Unfortunately enough, its potential has been wasted by the developers who failed to make a truly unique puzzle game. If you are keen on this kind of games, you should give it a shot, but the others won't find anything truly interesting at this game... except the graphics.