Developed/Published by: Sony Computer Entertainment
Released: 15th April, 2014
Completed: 10th September, 2014
Completion: Beat all the levels? I think there’s more levels in a hard mode, but I don’t care.
Trophies / Achievements: 57%

I’m stunned that I finished this, honestly. Stunned. Booted up shortly after I finished the PSP original, I imagined I’d play a few levels of this free-to-play match-three-me-do and hit the paywall and be done with it. 

Perhaps admirably, there isn’t a hardcore paywall with No Puzzles Either! (God, that title’s annoying. Makes it seem like I’m shouting every sentence. I’m going to drop that exclamation mark.) Basically, the game tries to make you pay by being stingy with playtime. You can store a maximum of three “picks” without paying; each pick being one play of a level, each pick takes eight hours to be refreshed. The first time I saw this I thought it was eight minutes, and was like “man, that’s just annoying enough.” Eight hours is on a whole ‘nother level… except for the fact that it rounds up to 24 hours for all three to be refreshed, meaning that you can dip in and play this once a day. Which adds a rather ok rhythm, somewhat undoing any reason you’d have to pay up unless you were just desperate to play more immediately. I wasn’t.

And yet… cumulatively, I played this for sixteen hours. Sixteen hours total of me playing three match-three levels and unlocking and raising the monsters that form the block types. Sixteen hours that included days where I wasted my three plays totally on either grinding to try and capture one of the many, many rare heroes that allow you to upgrade monster blocks in particular ways, or bashing against one of the brick-wall tough levels that you either have to be over-levelled for or spend one of the paid-for consumables (which you can also gain randomly, but it’s even more rare than the rare heroes.)

Do I have any excuse for this? Not really. To be honest, it’s the odd side-effect of the fact that I could play it once a day and no more. It made sure that I returned to it, regularly, in a ritual—a low-rent Vesper.5—that also ensured I didn’t spend any money on it. Because what would be the point? The best thing to spend money on would be the consumables, but if I just kept playing long enough I’d win eventually. And why pay a tenner to unlock infinite playtime? I’d just play it in a sprint, and I probably wouldn’t even enjoy it.

I mean, not to say that I necessarily enjoyed No Puzzles Either. It was just this thing I did every day, apart from those days I didn’t. 2-3 minutes, frittered away, across months. But it’s done now.

Will I ever play it again? No.

Final Thought: The only reason I beat this was because I used my last block-clearing consumable on the last level at a point where I was sure I would win. I would not have bothered grinding to get another consumable or beat the level any other way, so I should probably have had some hella endorphins because of the high stakes. And yet… I didn’t. Man, I really didn’t view this game as anything except a timewaster.