Rave: Puzzle Quest Galactrix

 A universe filled with possibilities, waring factions and one hero trying to find purpose. All condensed into trying to make the gems fall in the damn direction they want. Such is the triumph and tribulations of Puzzle Quest Galactrix. A game I can say without a doubt, I enjoy but at the same time can not stand hence Rave, smaller case. Part of this Rave is also connected to my previous blog PIT STOP/ LIST. In that blog we discuss my favorite game genres and specifically my love for the puzzle game genre. Top of the list of puzzle games I enjoy are games made by Infinity Plus Two previously known as Infinite Interactive. This studio based out of Victoria, Australia created two of the most addictive puzzle games I have ever played under the umbrella of Puzzle Quest. The first was the original Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords and the other is a game I've been playing non-stop for almost 17 years; Marvel Puzzle Quest. Between these two watershed moments (for me at least) they made countless spin-offs like Puzzle Chronicles and Puzzle Kingdoms, however unlike Puzzle Chronicles or Kingdoms, Galactrix is a spin off that has the Puzzle Quest name attached to it, so whilst it is not a direct sequel (which exists) Galactrix is more of a spiritual sequel in the way Bloodborne is Dark Souls adjacent.

My personal history with Galactrix is not that complex, I loved puzzle games from a young age and I've always played them. When I found out about the original (and best) Puzzle Quest was a Bejewelled/ Match 3 puzzler with a fantasy setting and a versus aspect I was entranced. When I played it I was hooked and honestly I can not quantify how much time I put into it on the Xbox360 where I played it. I did multiple runs with multiple classes, I bought the DLC and completed that, heck my wallpaper on my Xbox360 is an official Puzzle Quest one. All this is to say, Puzzle Quest Challenge of the Warlords is in my top 10 favorite games of all time, easy. However this is not a RAVE about that one, it is about Galactrix and well this one is a mixed bag. I picked it up, many years ago on PC CD Rom of all places based on my love for the original. I heard talk it was nowhere near as addictive or as good as the first but for me it was a non brainer. Puzzle Quest elements and my second favorite fictional genre (the first being fantasy). I recall playing it on my laptop and I enjoyed it but at the same time I was also very frustrated with it but more on that later. Despite my frustrations with it, I still enjoyed it enough that I also bought it for my Xbox360 as well and much later I somehow also ended up getting it on Steam as well. I am saying somehow because I never recall buying it but I remember adding it to Steam when I was first building my Steam collection and I even promptly 'hide' it because I was not playing it. Well early this month I was searching for something to play now I done with Darkest Dungeon II (well at least until the next Kingdoms update comes out) and I realized I wanted to do a nostalgic dive into my past. I first tried playing Galactrix on my Xbox360 but I quickly realize these type of puzzle games are really not fun with a controller which is hilarious to me because I have been a controller user for years but certain games just feel better with Mouse & Keyboard, the aforementioned Darkest Dungeon is another case where I just can't with a controller, it is just too cumbersome. Anyhow, I decided to play it on my computer through Steam and that is when I remember I already own Galactrix on Steam, I just hide it from my library. I immediately load it up on my Steam Deck and it felt sluggish and crashed numerous times. I was blown away by how unplayable it was. Turns out Galactrix runs much better on older hardware, who thunk it, so I immediately switched to my regular PC desktop, changed some compatibility settings and whilst it is not perfect (still crashes randomly especially during the hacking mini games) it is a much better experience. With it now working, I found myself re-immersed all over again and as of this blog, I have completed it in its entirety (most side-quests done as well) for the second time and to my surprise, my feelings about it is still exactly the same. I like it. I like it a lot but the flaws in it are pretty bad and the back to back replay value is non existent hence Rave.

Lets dive into it a bit deeper now. One of the things that the original Puzzle Quest mastered was taking the addictive match 3 formula of games like Bejewelled and added a versus element to it. The gems still fell from the top to the bottom but now it was turned based versus an opponent with a life bar which you depleted by matching damaging gems aka skulls. Regular gems have a corresponding colors to match and match 4 of the same gave you an extra turn, matching the colored gems build up your 'mana' pool and you can cast spells/ use abilities. Simple and easy to pick up and addictive in its design. Galactrix however decided to change up this formula and instead of a square box and gems drop down from above, it is instead a hexagonal one and the gems fall based on 'gravity' since we are technically in space. Whilst it sounds cool in theory, in play, the way the game handles how the gems drop is a prime reason why it frustrates the hell out of me. Now Puzzle Quest has always had a pretty dirty CPU, the gem drops, the damaging gems especially never seemed to fall in your favor and many times playing PQ you will find yourself on the receiving end of some nasty cascades of gems ending with a loss screen on your side. Some folks have placed this down to confirmation bias (where you only remember the bad and never the times when you got cascades that benefitted you) however a lot of people feel the same. You will not win every encounter in Puzzle Quest and even with a good set-up you will get some times get screwed over. However PQ also makes it where you can at least sort of predict how it will go because the gems will always drop from the top to the bottom. Galactrix takes this formula and literally flips it on its head, the gems now fall based on the 'direction' you match them in but after 60 + hours with the game it rarely feels like gravity is going the way I planned it and it cause tons of weird movement on the board, combined that with the dirty AI (it makes sense to call the enemy AI in a game setting like this) who seems to get a lot of cascades in their favor especially when it comes to damaging gems (in this case mines not skulls) and unlike in Puzzle Quest where a match 4 gives you another turn, this game you need to do a match 5 and its much harder (not for the AI tho) you are constantly hit by a wealth of enemy abilities with next to no cool down. One particular enemy for example seems to constant spam a ability that drains your most valuable color non-stop due to its very short cool down and the enemy constantly having enough mana for it from the crazy cascades it keeps getting. Another one has an ability that drains half of your overall health and without fail it seems to be able to do it a couple of times during a battle. A ability like that should only be able to used once a battle but nope, wait 4-5 turns and the ability is ready to go again. Also a tactic the AI loves to do is when you use an ability, the AI will instant respond with its own damaging attack. In this game, 85% of the abilities end your turn and a mis-match costs you health and your turn, however say you do not want to match any gems because you feel a bad cascade is about to happen so you purposely put the ball in the AI court, the AI without fail have an ability on deck so you will still need to make the gem match you did not want to do. It is very frustrating just how unforgiving the AI is and a lot of the early battles will end with a lot of loss and cussing from the player. The AI was annoying in Puzzle Quest no doubt but in Galactrix, it feels like it has a personal vendetta against you, your wife, your pets and even your ancestors. Yes, it hates you that much. It feels like a free-mium/ pay to win type of game like Candy Crush where it is rarely in your favor and after playing it for the second time to its completion the beginning and middle of the game is some of the most frustrating parts of it due to it. Now funny enough, the game is also so un-balanced and once your have access to the OP abilities the enemy has through even buying them or through the crafting mini game and better ships, you can become just as OP as the enemy and then the game becomes a cake walk. This most recent playthrough, I crafted the OP half life stealing lazer and used it relentlessly and I even one shot the final boss thanks to it. It is truly all or nothing and whilst I enjoyed giving the enemy a taste of its own medicine, it also felt strange a 'massive' challenge was trivialized. The cheating AI is sadly not the only reason why this game gets just a Rave from me, no, it is time to talk about hacking jump-gates.

This mini game will be the bane of your enjoyment of this game

Galactrix for some weird reason decided to lock all game progression behind hacking jump-gates. Every area has to be 'unlocked' via the hacking mini-game. This mini-game is not a versus one, it is however a race against time and you need to match gems in a certain sequence and in some cases the time limit is very strict. You still need to deal with the gravity and the silly thing is the gravity now causes tons of un-intentional cascades which do not benefit you at all and if anything a long cascade is actually harmful to your cause and runs down your already precious time. This system is definitely not well thought out, imagine playing Dark Souls and every-time you get to a room, not a new area, a room, you need to do some gimmick to unlock the door so you can proceed in the game. Most of the jump-gates do stay open after an initial hacking but some gates go 'off-line' and need to be hacked all over again. Why? Nobody knows. Thankfully one of the early balance patches for the game had it where you can use a gainable resource to unlock gates without hacking but that resource is limited and you are mainly using that to avoid battles if you end up in hostile areas so to dive into that pool constantly will mess you up in other places. My solution for this is simple, if you want jump-gates then fine but use them sparingly such as side quest locations/ end game areas not as overall progression blocker. This system alone drops the RAVE to a Rave by default. It is that badly implemented. It is so annoying that one of the more popular mods for the game turns the hacking game into a one step process and if I ever play this game again on PC I will surely use it now I've done it the way the game intended me to play it at least twice.

All the mini-games are serviceable too and sadly as a successor, this Puzzle Quest actually steps backwards. By collecting NPCs, just like in PQ you build a little motely crew, however all these NPCs do are give you access to mini-games, add some flavor text in certain situations and provide you with some their own side quests. Each mini-game is a variant of the main game but now you need to hit a quota if you doing the crafting game or you need to get rid of all the gems if you are doing the haggling one, none of them are particular fun and all have the same difficulty curve the main game has. However the big step back is all of these NPCs are forced on you and you recruit them by default so you can progress in the game and unlike the NPCs in the original Puzzle Quest, none of them give you any benefits in battle or in the game itself and you can't release them from your service either unless the game forces you. Your ship too is not like your mount in PQ where it gives you certain buffs for riding them, nope, you simply keep upgrading your ship so you can have more space for more abilities. You have zero options in character development too, everyone is generic space guy or gal. All of these are step backs from the choices and the type of builds you can make in the original. You can decided to use different abilities but in the end you simply want the biggest ship with the most cargo capacity and highest stats so you can use the most OP abilities. There is no point to go with a small lithe ship that specializes in hit and run tactics because the game will funnel you down a path where it just won't be enough to win and as we previously discussed, this AI plays to win... always.

Puzzle Chronicles AKA when you let the B team takeover the art.

We normally talk about the visual appeal/ music in these RAVES and I must say they nailed the look of the game. Even for back in the day, the visuals are good, fitting well into the setting and character models and ships they fly look well drawn. These artist are definitely from the Puzzle Quest team and not the spin-offs cause boy, some of the spin-off artists art is rough to say the least. The music however is nothing to write home about and even funnier is I found out the music actually contributed to some of the crashing on modern hardware. You are not missing much, its very generic space opera sounding stuff you would hear in a Star Trek or Babylon 5 series, the fact is I ended up muting it and nothing of value was lost. However a stickler is the sound effects and boy some of the sounds they choose can get very irritating, especially that mana draining weapon I mentioned before and sadly because they spam it so much, you'll hear it... a lot. If I did not need some of the sounds to play the game I would mute the sound effects too, it can get that bad.

So by this point, you might be wondering why this game still gets a Rave which by my ranking system is the second best rating you can get on this blog (going in this order from best to worst RAVE, Rave, OKAY, Okay, RANT). Well, here is the kicker. I still enjoyed this game, despite it numerous short-comings it is at its a core a fun puzzle game with some light RPG elements. The aesthetics are more then serviceable, the NPCs whilst not fully formed are a likeable bunch of misfits and the story is compelling enough you want to see it through to the end. I started playing this game again seriously on Tuesday and I devoured it in a couple days simply because I enjoyed it. It is a short, fun, romp with some very bad balance and a aggressive AI but it kept me playing and it kept making me come back to it and a game that is just OKAY would not compel me to do that. Buried deep in this game is still the DNA of a game I really love and whilst it is nowhere near as compelling as the original and I probably will not do another playthrough anytime soon I am happy I got lost in space with this one again. It was a trek worth taking despite the war I had with some of it systems. It truly is a game I like that I low key can not stand.

AV