As fun as the first, but doesn't feature as many additions or changes as hoped for.
After putting some time into Puzzle Quest Galactrix, it's hard to feel anything other than the sense that I'm just playing Puzzle Quest again, but this time with a new skin. There are small changes, and perhaps a few things different under the hood, but I never felt like there was enough of a significant difference between the two games to really warrant this sequel. However, even though I'm less than impressed with the follow-up, it's still a damn addictive formula to stick to, and I still feel pretty much compelled to play it to the end.
If you missed out on Puzzle Quest, you were probably doing yourself some type of disservice. Sure, it's a puzzle game, and pretty much a Bejeweled clone at that, but if you're going to clone a puzzle game, you can't really go wrong with that one. Puzzle Quest tacked on some RPG elements, including a large, but boring, plot. Galactrix changes the setting from a sword and sorcery locale to a sci-fi futuristic plot, wherein you'll select your character, name him, and start off with a small ship of your own to pilot around to different locations. Certain things are a bit different right off the bat, like how the map screen is portrayed. In the first Puzzle Quest you had little more than a cursor and small pinpoints on the map to represent locations. This time out the map is like a star chart or something similar for each galaxy or area you go to, and the cursor takes on the form of your actual ship, which you can freely pilot around each sector. There are other ships you'll see flying around, and you can actually target them for a fight. There's also faction representation in the game, and if you're in a bad standing with a particular faction, their ships will be hostile and approach you by themselves, looking to start a battle.
Unfortunately, the game doesn't continue to evolve from this point, and you'll slowly start to realize you've seen all of this before. When you go into the actual puzzle screen, the playing field has undergone a change to represent a circular shape instead of the basic rectangular set-up of the original. What this changes is how pieces will fall into place depending on how you matched them up. Say you do a match from a diagonal angle, from left to right to pair up three gems or more, then the new gems will actually fall in the same direction, from left to right. This does cause the player to pay a bit more attention to how they manipulate the board, and requires a little more thought than the first, but it's not a major difference.
The rest of the board is pretty much the same as before, where you'll have your special abilities equipped listed on the side, along with the mana cost for each ability. There are still four different gems that represent your mana (I'm not even entirely sure what they named mana in this game), and matching up those gems on the board will slowly boost your reserves. Along with that are silver gems to represent experience, and purple gems to earn some cash. You simply take turns with your opponent, and try to match up small destructive gems that have number designations on them to show you how much damage you'll strike against an opponent if you match them up. One other small change is the addition of shields, which are represented by blue gems on the board. You'll start each match with a certain amount of HP to your shields, and once that's depleted you'll start to lose your actual health. However, the shields can be recharged by matching up blue gems, and depending on either your current stats or how many gems you've matched, you'll gains a small amount back, which can act as an emergency buffer.
The game features online multiplayer, but I had a hard time finding anyone near my level, as a lot of players were overpowered and the matches weren't particularly fun. However, the multiplayer does allow for filters so you can try to match up with people that are within your current range, and the experience was pretty much lag free.
The single player game is heavily based on story again, and once again I didn't find it particularly engaging. You do gain quite a few new characters pretty fast, and like before they add small bonuses to either your battles, or your item/psi talent creations. Speaking of, item creation returns, along with creating new abilities, and other side-games involve hacking into warp gates, or mining for resources on asteroids, and then selling those resources for cash, or using them for ship upgrades.
Still, the game is just too similar to the original for me, and while the gameplay is just as addictive as it was before, if you weren't exactly blown away by the original PQ, I can't see this one winning you over either. Personally, I really enjoyed the first one, and I'm still enjoying Galactrix, I just wish a bit more had been done with it. For fans of the original though, I think you'll still get a kick out of the sequel, just don't go into it expecting a whole lot of new stuff.
