Puzzle Quest Galactrix

In Puzzle Quest: Galactrix a horrifying scientific accident has provoked another race to attempt extermination of humankind; players will create a persistent pilot who gains skills, crafts items, maneuvers among the universe’s political factions, and upgrades the ultimate space fleet as they attempt to end the genocide. An innovative hexagonal puzzle board allows for a wide range of strategic depth as it heeds to gravity according to a player’s location in the game universe. A rich and detailed storyline and fresh gameplay elements make the world of Puzzle Quest: Galactrix a captivating new adventure to explore and conquer.

Features

• Three distinct gameplay modes and wireless DS multi-card play available via Nintendo Wi-Fi connection.
• Over 150 battles within story mode.
• Action that blends addictive head-to-head match-3 puzzle gameboard battles that Puzzle Quest fans know and love an a compeling mission play.
• Redesigned, hexagonal puzzle board that?s easier for new players, but adds extra layer of strategy for pros.
• Negotiate with factions, mine for commodities, hack leapgates, recruit crew members, acquire companion aliens, craft weapons, and more.

User Reviews

Most things are covered by the other reviews, I am just going to add my main beefs.
1. leap gate hacking. easily the most annoying puzzle type in the game. it's timed and doesn't require much strategy or thinking to solve, but it would not too bad if it's a small part of the game, unfortunately:
- you have to solve this to go from one system to the next.
- there are many many systems, which means many many leap gates.
- after you solved a puzzle, or hacked a gate, the gate can go offline again anytime, so you have to solve it again.
- there are way too many fetch missions that require you go around the map to different systems.
- add it up it's 50% of the game, on the least intereting puzzle type.

2. linear. there's really not that much you can do differently. in the original, depending on you choices you make, you can unlock or omit a whole secion of the map. here, the only choice is the one you make at the end, which really doesn't matter anymore since it's at the end.

3. some good ideas that just did not get executed properly. like relationship with each faction, or the inability to recruit more crew members.

4. once you get haggling ability, the game becomes too easy, you can haggle your way to get the best ships and equipments with very little initial gold. and you probably will, because I think haggling is the funnest part of the game. definitely beats hacking leap gates.

5. short story. and to make it seem evern shorter, 75% of the missions are not battle missions. really only like 15 battles are needed to beat the game, hardly an epic RPG experience.

I think from a puzzler stand point, this game succeeds in offering a wide variety of puzzles based on the hex grid, but solving puzzles is not really satisfying here because it lacks the fun, engaging RPG elements that made the original so special. -- very disappointing

There have been so many bad reviews of this game on other sites like [...] that it isn't fair. Puzzle Quest Galactrix is NOT Puzzle Quest Challenge of the Warlords. If you pick this up expecting gameplay and scenarios like PQCotW, then you will be disappointed and probably angry. This game wasn't meant to be a sequel but another addition to the puzzle RPG genre. That said, I enjoyed this game as much as I enjoyed the first Puzzle Quest, even with some irritating flaws.

Cons:
It can be frustrating when you're trying to get somewhere on the map and you have to hack through four leapgates to get there. That seems to be a chief complaint of many people. But I also remember having to fight through a half dozen monsters to get anywhere on the map in PQCotW so this didn't bother me that much.

Any and all claims about how slooooow this game loads are absolutely true. Yoiu could play a second game on your iPhone during the wait times. Really. I recommend that or reading a book.

The touch controls are so stiff, especially on the menus, you'll have to mash the stylus to select anything. And even then, there's a 50/50 chance you'll just end up sending your ship careening off around the screen.

The game doesn't remember your settings so if you hate the music like I did, you'll have to turn it off every time you start the game. And see the previous statement about stiff controls and menus.

Now the Pros:
The storyline and the script are really rather entertaining. The dialogue didn't seem as stiff as in other games. The characters had some personality to them.

The idea of having each crewmember enable you to do specific tasks like hacking leapgates or haggling over prices is creative, I think.

The ability to upgrade to a better ship means more life points and better defenses without necessarily having to waste skill points on them. In the original PQ, if you wanted more life points, you had to sacrifice skill points for other needed categories.

Sure, there aren't any spells or magic but there's a crazy range of gadgets for your ship and having to figure out which ones to use and how to get them to fit your ship's specifications requires you to actually think and plan for your opponent. You'll need different weapons etc for facing different types of ships.

So, if you approach this game on its own merits, you might be pleasantly surprised. It's not as bad as they say.

-- A Few Flaws But Enjoyable

I have never played any of the other versions so this was new for me. I like it and still play it whenever I have to wait in a long line (quick game mode allows for fast plays).

There are two ways to play this game: story mode (which involves some strategy) and quick battles. The quick battles involves more random actions then I would like but it was still a lot of fun. All you have to do is match at least three of the same colored gems in a row. Every color gives you specific benefits. After a few wins, there are buying options (weapons, mines, engine power, etc.) that can help you strategically but there is still a high random factor.

The story mode was too drawn out for me. The lag time can be very annoying but the game itself is good. Any game that can keep my interest for more then 30 minutes is a keeper in my book.

I am a casual video game player and this game is a mainstay in my growing library. -- I LIKE THIS GAME

I REALLY wanted to like this. I even played a preview version at PAX 2008 and enjoyed it, but this game is dreadful.

I loved the first Puzzle Quest, so I jumped on this one. The updated game board shape does add an interesting twist to the game because you can help direct which way the gems should shift. I also like the new numbered bombs that deal damage based upon numbers rather than just single-point skulls.

I expect a game like this to be somewhat repetitive - after all, I am essentially buying an RPG-lite Bejeweled, and I want to keep playing the puzzle board over and over. However, before you can accomplish any quests, you have to unlock Leapgates to travel between the various star systems. While you only have to unlock the ones that are in your path at any given time, there are hundreds of these things, and they close down after a certain amount of time and need to be unlocked again.

I could deal with the Leapgates in order to play the new board, but I get a headache from playing! When you're looking at the game board, it shifts from one side of the screen to the other each time a turn is over. When it's my turn the board sits on the right side of the screen and my equipped items sit on the left side. When it's my opponent's turn, the board shifts to the left side and his items show on the right side. This constant shifting makes it impossible to keep my eyes on the board and results in a headache if I try to play for more than 15 minutes.

My fix for this would have been to have all the items appear on one side of the screen and simply flip between my items and my opponent's items, but on the same side of the screen so that the game board doesn't have to shift. Perhaps give the item box different background colors so they're easily distinguished between mine-and-theirs.

Another bad point is the long load times. Every time a character says some dialog (and who reads that anyway...?) it has to save and load. Every time you click on anything it saves and loads. Going through a Leapgate means a save and load. Enough already!

Galatrix might be a great game on another platform, but it certainly wasn't designed to be on the DS screens. Which is a shame because it really is suited to the touch screen and stylus.
-- Repetitive, headache-inducing, long load times

Game completion: Finished main quest, finished most sidequests.

The original Puzzle Quest was a joy to play, combining the now classic puzzle game Bejewled with the RPG genera. The combination was wildly addicting. Infinite Interactive's follow up to the original lacks the charm and the novelty of the first. Passing up the traditional medieval-ish RPG setting for a space setting, Galactrix has a much larger world than the original did. The puzzle board has also changed. The original had a square board where you swapped gems to make rows or columns of 3 and new gems fall from the top. Galactrix keeps the match-3 gameplay, but substitutes a hexagonal board for the square one and gems fall in the direction that you swapped the gem. It definitely adds a new twist to how you play the game, but I feel that the hex board adds in more randomness to the game. It is incredibly frustrating to watch as your opponent matches one row of three and then proceeds to get like 50 5-in-a-rows and kills you in one turn. This happened in the original but not to this extent. The controls are also a problem. It may just be my old touch screen being touchy (pardon the pun), but I routinely touched one gem only to have the one next to it selected. Then when I moved it, I often got the wrong gem, causing an invalid move and a penalty of 5 damage. I lost so many battles because I could not get the right gem. This is what we call bad control.

Now for the story. To be honest, the original had a bare-bones story, but at least it was somewhat interesting and the sidequests mattered a little bit. Galactrix's story could have been really good. You are going about the galaxy trying to prevent a race of genetically altered beings from taking over everything. Pretty typical, and in this game, dreadfully slow. Part of this has to do with the fact that you have to unlock, sometimes repeatedly, all of the different systems. Coupled with the control problems, this was extremely frustrating and time wasting. The sidequests were mostly "go-to-this-place-and-give-something-to-them" and when you have to unlock almost every system you go to... it doesn't make you want to do any of them. The characters were pretty lame too. I liked the robot, and that's about all.

You also have really no control over how your character looks or what skills he knows. The original Puzzle Quest had a variety of different player classes, each emphasizing a different style of play. Galactrix has you choose if you're a boy or girl, and that's it. The class differences come in the form of different ships, and they can all use the same "items," special parts that do something while in battle. And you have 4 skills that you can improve, limiting your options for development. I really liked that part of the original Puzzle Quest, and found that Galactrix came off as somewhat impersonal. Hmm... what else? Oh yes, music was sparse but ok, the art was meh, and there were loading times out the wazoo.

Should you play it? Only if you really really really liked the first Puzzle Quest. If you haven't played it, you should. It [the Original] is on the iPhone, so you all have no excuse. Galactrix on the DS is not that great, or on any platform really. You're better off saving you money for better games. -- Boldly going into charted territory.

Last Update: 13 hours ago