
	Platform DS Genre Puzzle Publisher D3 Publisher Developer Infinite Interactive ESRB E (Everyone) Released February 24, 2009

- Good story - Excellent blend of puzzle and RPG genres - Good mix of casual gaming with depth

- Too much of the outcome left to chance - Touch controls don’t always work perfectly - Audio isn’t that interesting

Review: Brain Age 2 (DS) Review: Soul Bubbles (DS) Review: Professor Layton and the Curios Village (DS)
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Puzzle Quest: Galactrix

Score: 7.0 / 10

First, have to admit that I actually didn’t play the first Puzzle Quest game (I do own it, I just never got around to giving it a try) which may be a good thing for someone coming into this series with a fresh set of eyes.

First of all, I was impressed with the overall concept of a game that blends the true tried and tested match three concept puzzler with a full blown RPG twist. That’s what makes this game work so well. What keeps it from reaching stellar proportions (pardon the pun) is a lack of presentation polish and an over reliance

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on chance to have you either win or lose battles in space.

The game immerses you in a story where you are required to help out before your training is complete. You move through space on a grid and then battle your way through various missions by completing rounds in the puzzle mode. The various colors have you fill up certain meters. As you

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gain new items you can use them based on where your meters are. Getting “attack combos” however, is often left to chance and you might find that you lose more often than you would expect to based on the luck of the draw.

As you play you gain experience points which can then be applied to power up yourself in the areas as you see fit. Overall your pilot will also level up like a traditional RPG game, enabling upgrades for your ship like new weapons and additional defensive capabilities.

The game concept is solid enough and works as intended. The game starts to lose a few points however when it comes to presentation. The graphics are certainly suitable for this type of game although I felt there was just that slight lack of polish. The most troublesome part for me was the lack of sensitivity when it comes to taps. I actually thought at first something was wrong with my DS, but it turns out this game just doesn’t always register taps when you are going on missions and such. It works fine during the actual gameplay, so this control issue amounts to a minor annoyance but it’s quite frustrating to think you are telling the game to go on the next mission and it thinks you’ve done nothing or decides to send your ship off the another planet.

The audio could also use some work. Although I wasn’t expecting a huge library of background music, I found that it repeated far too often and I ended up listening to my iPod while playing the game rather than the included music tracks.

Overall, the game is quite addictive. I found it slightly frustrating to lose some battles that were completely because of chance and not for lack of skill (at least, that’s what I kept telling myself) but at least I found that I kept going back to the game to progress. The way the story keeps moving forward with different twists on the standard gameplay model, for example, were much appreciated. Cracking codes through limited time matches is just one way the developer took the match three system and put a fresh coat of paint on it.

If you like the match three concept and RPG’s too, there is no question you are going to love this game. If you’re a bit dicey on both then I’d suggest you try before you buy. This game has taken two separate ingredients and brought them together in a lovely intergalactic recipe. The only question that remains is what is for dessert?

- Syd Bolton

(June 18, 2009)

Syd Bolton surrounds himself in classic games at the Personal Computer Museum (www.pcmuseum.ca) in Brantford, Ontario, Canada.