I spent a lot of the past week sitting playing the DS version of Puzzle Quest: Galactrix in random airports, and it feels a lot like the first Puzzle Quest: extremely addictive, but filled with all sorts of odd technical and gameplay issues. Here’s what’s driving me particularly crazy:
1) Sketchy Screen Detection. By far, my biggest problem is getting the game to properly recognize where I’m tapping. I try to pick a menu option, and the game thinks I’ve tapped somewhere else, so my ship just flies randomly around the screen. Further, I get a 5-point penalty at least once a match because the game misinterprets where I’m tapping. This is a major pain during timed events, where I have to tap 3 or 4 times to get it right.
Now, it’s possible my DS might be having some screen issues, but this is sort of thing is easily programmed around. When a menu already has a “close” option, why give me the ability to accidentally exit by clicking other parts of the screen? What’s the point of the 5-point penalty in a match against the CPU? This is the kind of little stuff that makes good games annoying.
2) Confusing Progression. Usually, RPGs have a carefully mapped-out progression, where the strength of your enemies grows along with you as you level up and open new areas. PQG’s arrangement, on the other hand, seems completely haphazard.
Before I hit level 10, I was getting quests to fight level 20 warships, which sucked up valuable space in a tiny quest log (maximum of 4, wtf?). At level 15-20, I had quests to fight level 40 enemies. Some quests had me hacking a dozen leapgates to reach an objective, and the difficulty would jump from easy to difficult and back to easy. For the first 20 levels (I’m 40 now), the game did a horrible job of leading me through the story, upgrading my ship or really guiding me in any meaningful way.
From a certain perspective, you could call this the ultimate open-world game, where you’re just dumped into a galaxy and it’s up to you to figure it all out on your own. But ultimately, it’s a lot of busy work keeping me from playing matches and progressing.
3) Annoying Travel. For the first 8 hours or so, the rudderless structure isn’t helped by the constant warship encounters you run into. The best case is to build up your Psi powers as quick as possible so you can just ignore them, but that still means you need to deal with the navigation menu 4 or 5 times just to get from point A to point B, which quickly gets tiresome. Then the game starts closing leapgates on you, which is just MEAN. And then when you get a big ship, it lumbers around the screen, which slows things to a horrible crawl. Why, why, why?
4) Horrible Inventory Management. Half of any RPG is what you do outside of combat: manage your inventory, look at quests, etc. PQG’s inventory screens are just horrible. I’m trying to collect materials to build a warship but doing that requires juggling three different menus at various spaceports. Want to check how many more minerals you need? Get a pad and pen and start taking notes. Did we stop doing this 20 years ago?Â
5) Crashes? In 20 years, I can’t recall a single GameBoy, GameBoy Advance or DS game that’s actually crashed. Galactrix has locked up on my at least a half-dozen times.
In all, it feels like Puzzle Quest all over again: basic match-3 gameplay married with an interesting but sloppily organized RPG system, with numerous interface and technical issues to boot. I’ll play it through to the end, but I’ll be annoyed the whole way that all these little things weren’t done better.
Sluggo says: 7/10.
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