I recently played Puzzle Quest: Galactrix for the Nintendo DS
Result:
FAIL
Why do I think Puzzle Quest: Galactrix sucks major ass?
Not because I hate on the Puzzle Quest franchise.
When Challenge of the Warlords hit the scene, I played it for days. I still play Challenge of the Warlords...and sometimes for days.
I really wanted to love and embrace Galactrix. It has all the makings of a good game. Interesting (if not overdone) story, side missions galore, a massive universe to explore, and many alien races to make your most hated enemy. Everything about this game makes me want to love it; it truly is a deep, engrossing puzzle/rpg fusion.
"So what was the dealbreaker?" You ask.
The Controls.
I may as well have a stump for an arm and attempt to touch the very small and sensitive icons littered throughout the Puzzle Quest universe. How hard is it to make a text block selectable with the stylus? I felt like I was going for the funny bone in Operation every time I tried to click on an option. Half of the time, the nose would light up and buzz, sending my ship to the far reaches of the galaxy when all I wanted to do was trade some Goddamn food to a Goddamn space station I was already docked at.
Puzzle Quest: Galactrix also includes timed challenges, tasking you with matching a certain amount of gems within an alloted time. That would be fine if the touch-and-slide mechanic of Challenge of the Warlords worked as smoothly as it does here. It doesn't. Frustration abounds and I wanted to throw my DS through the window and pray it would be run over by a passing bus.
I love what Puzzle Quest has done to fuse genres. Role playing game? Hell yes. Match 3 puzzle game? Hell yes. Shitty controls?
FAIL
