Surprise breakout hit Puzzle Quest finally receives its follow-up on XBLA. Galactrix is a definite evolution for the franchise, but it is not without a few growing pains. Galactrix keeps the core gameplay, combining a puzzle game with an RPG, intact, but is far from a true sequel. The shift from the fantasy world to the space-age setting receives the appropriate ramp-up in scope. The galaxy map alone is at least twice the size of the world of the original, but the game does not stop with just placing dozens of additional points on the map. While each point on the map represented a castle, town, or mine in Puzzle Quest, each dot on the map of Galactrix marks a galaxy. Each galaxy reveals a mini-map inside, with a separate set of planets, space stations, jump gates and moons in each of them. The locations serve as your source for missions, items, ships, crewmembers and the gateways to continuing your trek through the universe.
Each individual galaxy is connected to at least one additional, with the resulting connections looking like a box of Tinker Toys all linked up on the ground. The game world is massive, and will take you a long while just to unlock all the connections between the galaxies using the hacking mini-game. Each galaxy connects to its neighbors with a jump gate, which are all inconveniently ‘locked’ at the start of the story. To move from one galaxy to the next, you must ‘hack’ the appropriate jump gate by clearing a set amount of gems in order, while racing against a steadily decreasing timer. With around three jump gates for every galaxy, it would get repetitive if it were not such a blast to race against the clock while strategizing your every move. There are also moons in the majority of the galaxies, serving as your opportunity to mine for various resources to craft new weapons or sell at various bases.
The mines serve up puzzles requiring you to clear a set amount of three resources by matching them up before you run out of available moves, at which point you run into a ‘black hole’ and lose some the loot you just mined. All is not lost when this happens, as the mines gradually refresh their supply of resources, allowing you to reattempt the mining mini-game at a later time. Each ship only holds a certain amount of cargo, forcing you to sell off your haul regularly at various space stations. Each station has its own set of prices for items, forcing you to think a bit before you offload resources for bargain-basement returns. Thankfully, the game highlights the price fluctuations with red or green text, showing you what items you really should, or should not, be selling at a particular location. Despite the expansive scope, it is the puzzle gameplay itself that receives the biggest upgrade. Galactrix ditches the linear square board for a hexagon board filled with similarly shaped colored pieces.
The game uses the same 'match-three' gameplay you remember for clearing pieces from the board, but rather than letting gravity do all the work, the game makes use of the gravity-free setting by allowing you to choose which direction the board refills its pieces from. The pieces drag or pull pieces in the same direction you just moved the piece to make a match. With the six directions to pull from, it forces you to think out your moves a bit more when attempting to get the difficult 'nova' and 'supernova' multiplyers. The revamped mechanics are a puzzle game lover's dream, allowing for much more strategy when playing the board, but the controls make it a bit awkward to get used to. Using the left stick to shift though the shifty board often sends your cursor to the next spot over if you are not extremely careful. In battles where you can take your time to find your next move it is fine, but when playing the timed hacking mini-game it can lead to many plenty of bad moves.
