Producing a successful video game requires equal parts of inspiration and execution. A good idea will get you started, but in order to capitalize on that good idea, a developer needs to execute well. If you don't, you end up with something like Puzzle Chronicles.

A mash-up of RPG elements and a puzzle game all wrapped up in a medieval swords and sorcery setting, the concept behind Puzzle Chronicles probably sounds a little familiar. Produced by the same developer responsible for Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords and Puzzle Quest: Galactrix, Puzzle Chronicles shares a lot of its design ideas with its big brothers, yet it doesn't quite capture the same magic.

As the story goes, you are a big hulking barbarian (sorry ladies, everyone plays the burly man this time around) who has just seen his entire tribe kidnapped and sold into slavery by a horned daemon. You have the extreme luck of being bought and freed by a sassy and mysterious sorceress who also seems to have a bone to pick with daemon dude. Of course, she doesn't tell you everything at once and so, you're set off on a quest to free your people, raise an army and go get some old-fashioned revenge.

Shortly after booting up Puzzle Chronicles, the first thing you notice is the graphics. The most charitable way to describe them is adequate. This is not a game that is going to win any visual awards. While it may not be the ugliest game on the Xbox 360, Puzzle Chronicles is certainly trending toward the bottom. The 2-D character portraits are hard-edged sketches that look rushed. The 3-D battle animations are basic and lack any sort of variety. Defeat an opponent, and they always die in exactly the same way. Even textures look bland, with the 3-D character models looking like something out of a low-budget Saturday morning cartoon.

Topping things off, the visuals don't even support a widescreen image. The game is pillar-boxed, with borders on the left and right. We expect this sort of thing when an old arcade game that was originally designed for a square screen is brought to XBLA, but not for a brand-new title. Had the rest of the game excelled, it would be easy to overlook the visual shortcomings, but the gameplay also falls into the barebones category.

Modeled after classic two player battle games such as Capcom's Super Puzzle Fighter II, the puzzle portion of Puzzle Chronicles has players facing off in what amounts to a speed contest against the computer. Match the skulls to earn rage, which then pushes the center bar onto your opponent's side of the screen. Keep making matches to increase the size of your playfield and decrease the size of your opponent's until you emerge victorious.

On paper, this sounds like a great idea, with a center bar that is constantly being pushed back and forth in a tug-of-war as either side makes match after match. In practice, it fails miserably, mostly because it is only the bar that moves. The accumulated puzzle pieces stay right where they are. This is bad because it usually means that once you get a solid match or two, the bar moves and then you suddenly have more ready-made matches just waiting for a clear piece. Meanwhile, the player on the losing side of the bar has to rebuild his matches from scratch.

The game attempts to introduce some challenge by offering up opponents with buffs that give them a rage advantage, but that can be quickly countered by purchasing similar equipment for your character. Ultimately, some of the initial battles might present a challenge, but after the first 30 to 45 minutes, the puzzle battles become a tedious exercise in rote execution. There is no skill or strategy involved here. You simply purchase equipment upgrades for your character, hop into a battle, clear a few lines, win and move on to the next. Wash, rinse and repeat. Playing quickly starts to feel like a chore, rather than the incredibly addicting time waster that was the original Puzzle Quest.

Perhaps the best way to describe Puzzle Chronicles is that it feels like an effort out of Infinite's "B" team. We know the company can do so much better, yet Puzzle Chronicles looks and feels more like a college project rather than a AAA XBLA title. It is also somewhat odd to see Puzzle Chronicles releasing now, with Puzzle Quest 2 right around the corner. Although the two games are published by different companies, Infinite is essentially competing with itself. We can only hope that Infinite's "A" team worked on Puzzle Quest 2 because if Puzzle Chronicles is any indication, it's quite possible that Infinite has lost its magic touch.

Score: 4.0/10