Puzzle & Dragons Nintendo Switch Modes and Controls Guide

Start in Quest Mode to learn combo routing, earn magic stones, and assemble balanced teams before testing your speed against other players in PvP. Puzzle & Dragons on Nintendo Switch is divided into three primary game modes—Quest, PvP, and Custom—alongside two distinct control schemes for handheld and docked play.

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Quest Mode: Solo Progression and Local Co-Op

Quest Mode acts as the core campaign. You advance through escalating tiers of dungeons by defeating waves of monsters using standard match-3 mechanics across six orb types: Fire, Water, Wood, Light, Dark, and Heart. Clearing stages awards magic stones used to unlock new teams and avatars from the Egg Machine.

Quest Mode supports solo play or local couch co-op for up to four players on a single console. In multiplayer, all participants share the same board and take turns moving orbs. Coordinate your turns using these roles:

• Board Opener: The first player clears basic three-orb perimeter matches, decluttering the board without disrupting grouped orb clusters.
• Color Activator: Players align their turn with active monster skills, activating color-conversion buffs to maximize offensive damage.
• Recovery Responder: When an enemy monster prepares or lands a heavy strike, the active player prioritizes Heart orb matches to restore party health.

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PvP Mode: World Match, Friend Match, and Event Dungeons

PvP Mode replaces turn-based progression with real-time speed competition for up to eight players. Instead of sharing a board, each player solves their own independent matrix to clear monster waves faster than their opponents.

Stage scoring relies on three components: clear speed, total combo count, and maximum single-turn damage. Clearing waves quickly sends board disruptions and time penalties to rival players. Memorize your team's color-conversion skills so you can trigger immediate full-board cascades on the first turn.

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Custom Mode: Designing and Sharing Dungeons

Custom Mode features the Dungeon Creator, which lets you design, test, and publish encounters. You can configure the following elements:

• Visual backgrounds and background music tracks.
• Monster wave lineups and final boss encounters from your unlocked roster.
• Individual monster stats, including health pools, attack values, turn countdowns, and active skill triggers.

Completed dungeons generate a shareable code that other players can input to download and run your stage. For balanced design, introduce mechanics gradually—such as combo-count shields or jammer orbs—rather than relying solely on sudden one-hit knockout attacks.

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Touchscreen vs. Button Controls

The game supports two control methods depending on your console configuration:

• Touchscreen (Handheld Mode): Replicates direct touch controls. Dragging orbs directly across the screen provides the fastest input speed, zero analog directional delay, and the highest precision for diagonal slides and double-digit combos.
• Button Controls (TV and Tabletop Modes): Uses an analog stick or D-pad on Joy-Con or Pro Controllers to nudge adjacent orbs. This avoids physical arm fatigue during long sessions but is noticeably slower for winding paths. When using buttons in PvP, focus on simple horizontal and vertical line clears rather than complex serpentine paths to avoid running out of turn time.

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Spending Magic Stones on the Egg Machine

Magic stones earned from dungeon clears, achievements, and PvP performance are used at the Egg Machine to unlock avatars, background music, and preset monster teams.

Avoid spending stones on cosmetic avatars early. Instead, spend your initial stones unlocking team presets that cover all five main attributes (Fire, Water, Wood, Light, and Dark). Having a complete elemental spread ensures you can meet attribute requirements throughout Quest Mode before saving leftover stones for rotating Event Dungeon banners.