Genre: Puzzle
Publisher: D3 Publisher
Developer: Infinite Interactive
Release Date: May 7, 2009

While every game that comes out these days claims to be "genre breaking," very few actually take the rules and fundamentally rewrite them. That isn't the case of Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, the 2007 title that meshed gem matching with RPG elements and created a truly new experience. The game was hailed as a triumph and developed an extremely devoted following. After an expansion was released in 2008, it was just a matter of time until we saw a full sequel. Now that new game has arrived in the form of Puzzle Quest: Galactrix, and it threatens to squander all the goodwill D3 and Infinite Interactive conjured up with their first game.

The major draw of the Puzzle Quest franchise is its emphasis on strategy and utilizing certain gems as well as special powers to do damage to your enemies. Each matchup features two players taking turns matching gems on the same playing board, and you use the earned points to unleash special abilities to buff up your character or damage your foe. It worked extremely well in the original game and transfers nicely over to the new title. However, the most basic game concept is where the similarities end, as Galactrix departs from its predecessor in nearly every other way. Unfortunately, nearly all of the new elements fall flat, and the final version of the game quickly devolves into a mess of good ideas crippled by poor execution.

As the name implies, Galactrix has shed its fantasy roots for that other RPG staple, sci-fi. Players take on the role of a new starship captain who sets out to uncover the mystery behind a new race of clone aliens intent on wiping out all other life in the galaxy. It's all pretty standard space soap opera boilerplate, complete with your requisite C-3PO robot and various government conspiracies and betrayals. While there are a couple of small twists, the story definitely isn't compelling enough to keep you playing based on that fact alone.

Gameplay has also changed fundamentally, and Galactrix eschews the traditional horizontal and vertical movement of pieces in favor of adding a few new dimensions. All pieces are hexagonal now and can be moved in any direction on the board. This allows for previously unattainable diagonal matches, which greatly opens up the potential major chains and all but eliminates the threat of a locked board, which was infuriating in the first game. Gravity also plays a factor, and pieces now drop not exclusively from the top of the board, but rather from whichever direction the last match was made. While this makes the games more strategic, it also makes them massively more unpredictable, doubly so whenever one player utilizes a special ability that randomizes gravity for a set number of turns. While some will love this new way of playing, others will be equally frustrated by all the new variables thrown into the mix.

Galactrix also features an abundance of mini-games, which are required for everything from crafting new items for your ship to haggling for better prices at the shop. Each mini-game has its own special wrinkle to separate it from the others, but all of them stick close to the established system of matching gems until you are told to stop. While each game is fun for a couple of rounds, they quickly grow old, and after about the hundredth time you mine an asteroid, you'll start wishing there were an easier way to do it.

The worst of all these mini-games deserves its own special mention simply because it nearly breaks the whole experience. Every time you want to travel from one planet to the next you have to travel through a Leapgate, but for reasons that are never fully explained, every single leapgate in the galaxy has gone offline, so in order to get through them, you must complete a hacking mini-game. These events consist of you matching certain colored gems as they appear on-screen, all while a timer counts down. The idea itself isn't that faulty, but the major problem is that the timer never stops ticking. At first this doesn't seem to be that big a deal, but the first time you lose 20 seconds of a 60-second clock to a long cascade of matching gems, none of which get you any closer to completing the hack, you'll likely be singing a different tune. An easy fix would have been to have the timer stop while matches were being made, but that didn't happen, so instead you're left with the frustration that comes with this particular mini-game. Combine that with the fact that you have to execute a hack in order to access every single one of the game's myriad of planets, and you'll be forced to spend hours on the menial task of hacking gates over and over to get full access to all the map locations. It's tedious, it's boring, and it's by far one of the worst elements of the game.

The other major downside to the title is its difficulty, which is downright punishing from start to finish. The original Puzzle Quest was derided for overpowered enemies and seemingly cheating AI, and this time around, things are even worse. Enemy ships are almost always more heavily armed and armored than your own, and you'll likely find yourself still chipping away at shields while your computer-controlled foes are punching a nice big hole in your hull. The worst offenders are a race known as the Vortraag, who pilot extremely powerful ships that are armed to the teeth. Each Vortraag ship comes standard with plating that gives them a 20 percent chance to reduce all damage taken to one point, a laser that automatically does up to 20 points of damage, and best of all, a "death ray" that completely ignores your ship's shields and cuts your hull strength in half. Even better, that attack isn't some rarity that takes a while to charge, but a simple, easy attack that they usually whip out on the second turn of any given match, thus leaving you at a marked disadvantage for the rest of the fight.

Also, the computer seems to be eerily prescient about knowing when to stop matching gems and start exclusively relying on abilities, and sure enough, the next time you make a match you'll see a whole heap of damage-dealing gems appear that your AI opponent is more than happy to turn against you. When you also consider the fact that enemies level up with you and that there's no difficulty adjuster, you have a surefire recipe for thrown controllers and swearing rants featuring new dirty words you made up on the spot.

This leads directly into what make Puzzle Quest: Galactrix an overall failure:  It just isn't much fun. While the concepts lay the groundwork for another fun and innovative title, the execution is totally botched, leaving you with a game that makes you tense and angry nearly every time you play it. While there is a ton of content, it will take the patience of a saint to access it all, and nothing about the game makes it compelling enough to make you want to keep playing after your first run of really terrible luck. Furthermore, the PS3 version lacks any notable new features beyond improved loading times, so those who have already played the game on another console or handheld have absolutely no reason to pick up the tardy edition. This game is only for the hardcore Puzzle Quest fans who haven't had their fix yet; everyone else would be better served elsewhere.

Score: 6.5/10

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