Puzzle Quest: Galactrix

"Pack you patience"

Puzzle games are by far my favorite. Puzzle League DS and Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords are by far my most favorite DS games to date. So, when I found out the team was cranking out a sequel, needless to say, I was stoked.

On a positive note, Galactrix has a battle system similar the CotW, but this time, the game board is Hexagonal. This is an interesting twist, even before you add in the fact that your moves determine from which of the 6 directions the tiles will cascade from.

As far as the puzzle battle aspect is concerned, I was not disappointed. The 4 in a row = another turn aspect has been removed, so no longer will you sit idly by while the AI efficiently executes every decent move on the board before it's your turn. You also have a shield to protect your ship that can be replenished by matching the corresponding gems on the board. You have the option of obtaining a variety of ships to do combat in, and, unlike CotW where your "mount" played little role in combat, which ship you choose will have a great effect on the outcome of combat.

One aspect that came as a disappointment however, was the game's lack of recognition of combo moves. With the hexagonal board comes a variety of new moves, combos and chains you can execute. The game however, only recognizes 4 in a row or 5 in a row moves and subsequent cascades. Performing a swap which makes 3 of 1 tiles and 3 of another in single moves rewards you nothing more than those 2 moves combined would have awarded.

Again on a positive note, the addictive qualities the CotW had are still there. You can play Galactrix for an extended period of time if you're a game completer at heart, or enjoy strengthening yourself to the point of ridiculousness.

The downside of the game comes in the far to frequent and inexcusably long loads times. The map of the game consists of a bundle of solar systems, all of which are free from any pesky "originality" or "character". Anytime you want to travel from 1 solar system to the next painfully similar solar system, first, you must complete a "hacking" puzzle (which unfortunately are based FAR to heavily on luck rather than skill), then, you must wait 6-7 seconds while the game "accesses data" then another 5-6 seconds while it autosaves. Your data accessing wait is also encountered anytime you open or close your inventory. Switching tabs in your inventory subjects you to a fade out and subsequent fade in to the next. I don't know how they coded this game in comparison to the way they did CotW, but they did NOT do a good job.

The story, in my opinion, is decent. You can play along, reading, and getting involved, or you can complete ignore the story and simply stick to quest objective and strange alien mutilation.

My rating:
7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/22/09

Game Release: Puzzle Quest: Galactrix (US, 02/24/09)