Genre: Puzzle
Developer: GungHo Online Entertainment
Publisher: Android

Doing their best Pokemon impersonation, the artists at GungHo Entertainment drew up hundreds of creatures that look both menacing and cute in equal measure. They're not as memorable as those from Nintendo's long-running series, but they do manage to get progressively cooler and impressive looking as their rarity increases. The rest of the time playing is spent looking at menus, which get the job done via a sort of bamboo house, or cheap Chinese restaurant aesthetic.

Puzzle & Dragons only has three songs, and a hand full of sound effects, but what's there is of remarkable quality for the typical, contemporary mobile title. The boss song in particular-- sneering and dramatic-- might actually rate somewhere in the top 100 or 200 RPG boss songs of all time; it's that good. Sound effects lend the game plenty of charm, and given the game's popularity it's difficult to see how the "combo chime" jingle couldn't become something of a trademark of mobile gaming in general.

The game plays like a combination of Pokemon and Bejeweled; it's difficult to think of a more compelling possible fusion of genres, and sure enough Puzzle & Dragons lives up to the billing. The ability to move tiles not just to adjacent spaces but to anywhere on the game board adds a surprising amount of depth, and the collecting and team-building mechanics are mildly reminiscent of Magic the Gathering deck building, albeit not as deep.

The most important aspect of Puzzle & Dragons is that the review of it has gone this far without even a single mention that it's a free-to-play game. GungHo is reportedly making about 2 million USD a day via "magic stone" purchases, and what's notable is that they've accomplished this by making a game with nuanced gameplay and pleasing aesthetics, not by hitting players over the head with a pay wall or with events that take up all of the player's "stamina", like a lot of other social-oriented games.