Gloom Beacon by Strong Games Review

Games that cross genres either are mediocre or fail miserably, very few succeed in making a new genre out of the previous two. Puzzle Quest took Bejeweled puzzles and used them as the combat and mixed in a healthy dose of RPG elements and has succeeded rather well. Puyo Puyo took the falling block genre and mixed in competitive two player matches that could become quite heated and stressful against a skilled opponent. What about Mahjong though? No one has attempted to mix the gameplay model of removing tiles with battles and other RPG elements, at least till now.
Gloom Beacon by Strong Games takes on the challenge and brings in a bit of chess to the mixing bowl. GB is for gamers that feel that Mahjong is just too slow or not interesting enough for them, play this and see how different it becomes when you are competing against another person (the computer in this case). Mana is represented in 4 forms here, Earth, Fire, Water and Air and is required to cast spells (which are for the most part, on the tiles themselves, though you do gain some as you play). Matching books fill your mana completely, while matching a pair of blue diamonds will only give you 2 water mana (1 for each diamond). You can match different colors of mana also gaining you one of each type. This is stark contrast to how Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords handles your mana/spell casting capabilities of requiring you to make matches to build up (offering no “full” match opportunity).
You start out picking your character and taking on the enemy in a chess board type battle system. Occupying certain spaces on the board have benefits that are awarded and add a bit more strategy to an otherwise great game. A victor is decided when one side is completely destroyed in battle. Once a confrontation is made, the game switches to the Mahjong game we all know and love. Tiles can be offensive, defensive or mana and all require thought and planning if you want to win. Something that Puzzle Quest has been slammed for is the Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) of the enemy and the fact that it was extremely lucky in getting a match at just the right time. In Gloom Beacon, this is not the case at all. If anything, it seems the A.I. isn’t paying attention to the board (though I have seen this train of thought fail in the fact that the computer was just playing me-probably the odds I would pick a set of tiles, and making a comeback).
The enemies in Gloom Beacon are represented  in the battles with different layouts (not just the normal “pyramid” layout that is synonomous with Mahjong games.  This little touch adds a  little bit of strategy that is more than welcome, not just the same battle over and over again, only changing the enemy portrait in the corner.
For me, Gloom Beacon is awesome, I love Mahjong games and have been addicted to GB since playing the demo (and tracking down Strong Games to get our review copy). It is more than worth the money they are asking for it, so why let it pass you by? Not many titles like this are available (and well, not many are on the horizon either). I can count the number of titles like this on one hand (which is a shame).

7 out of 10

Gloom Beacon by Strong Games – website
System: PC for $7.77 USD (free demo available)