2007’s Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords was, for a lot of people, the sleeper hit of that year. By combining the addictive casual gameplay of a match-3 puzzler with the deep complexity of a traditional RPG, developer Infinite Interactive created a game that was the cause of many sleepless nights. Now they’ve released the sequel, Puzzle Quest: Galactrix, which ditches the original’s fantasy world and instead puts the player in control of a young starship captain beginning an adventure across the galaxy.

It’s a pretty straightforward formula, so series newbies won’t have much trouble jumping into things. After you’ve created your character (which is as simple as picking a gender, portrait, and name) you’re given a spaceship and dropped into one small corner of a gigantic galactic map. From here you’ll take and complete missions, slowly explore new planets and systems, and work your way through the game’s complex storyline.

 
The character creation is pretty simplistic, and doesn’t have any real effect on the gameplay.

The twist is, of course, that the combat system has been replaced with a Bejeweled-style puzzle game. By matching the various colored blocks into groups of three or more, you’ll deal damage to your enemy, restore your ship’s shields, and accrue the resources necessary to deploy your ship’s special equipment (taking the place of the original’s Spells, equipment can have a variety of effects, from direct damage to healing to status changes). Winning battles grants you credits, which can be used to buy better equipment or even new ships, and experience, which increases your level and stats. Then it’s more quests, which leads to more battles, and before you know it, it’s 4 a.m. and you’ve been playing for seven hours.

 
By matching those colored hexagrams, you’ll stockpile important resources and deal out pain to your enemies.

So sure, Galactrix has got a lot in common with its elves-and-magic predecessor.  But that’s not to say that it doesn’t carve out its own identity. The most obvious shake-up is the puzzle game itself — instead of swapping gems on a standard square grid, the playfield in Galactrix is hexagonal, a seemingly simple change that has a few not-so-obvious ramifications. Since each piece can now move in six directions instead of four, your options for matching are increased. More than that, though, you’ve got the concept of gravity (or lack thereof) to worry about. Clearing pieces in the original Puzzle Quest caused new pieces to fall inevitably straight down; in the space battles of Galactrix, new pieces enter the arena in the same direction of your move — that is, if you create a match by shifting a piece to the upper-left, then the new pieces come in that direction too. It seems like a minor element, but it can really affect your strategy and move options as the puzzles progress.

 
To defeat really advanced enemies, you’ll have to think carefully
about each move, and how it will affect the rest of the game board.

A few other changes give Galactrix its own unique feel. Instead of simply having a health bar, every ship has health and shields. You can’t actually hurt your opponent until his shields are depleted, but shield points are easily restorable (by matching blue pieces). Besides being more realistic in  with the sci-fi setting than having your ship somehow be miraculously completely restored in the middle of a firefight, it also leads to more come-from-behind victories, as even someone down to their last health point can quickly restore their shields and continue the offensive. This makes every encounter more exciting, right up to the last moments.

There are also new and exciting ways to earn money in Galactrix. While you gain credits by completing missions, the real path to wealth is through acquiring and selling various types of cargo. There are many different kinds of cargo available, from raw materials to more esoteric fare, like technology and contraband. Every star system you visit has its own trade and economy, with certain cargo types carrying higher values. The cargo aspect of Galactrix is like playing the intergalactic stock market — you can get very rich by paying attention to each system’s in-demand items. Your cargo can even get you into fights; contraband is one of the most valuable types of cargo, but simply carrying it through many systems will attract the attention of their security forces.

 
Buying and selling cargo will also affect your relationship with that’s system’s
controlling faction or corporation, which can affect future prices.

Like the original Puzzle Quest, Galactrix contains several variants on the puzzle gameplay that crop up in specific circumstances. When you access LeapGates (the technology that lets your ship jump from star system to star system), you have to successfully hack the gate before it’s usable — the hacking mini-game is a timed variant of the standard puzzle mode, where you’re trying to achieve matches of specific colors, in a specific order, before the clock runs down. There are a handful of these different puzzle modes, used for everything from haggling over shop prices to crafting new equipment, and each is different enough from the standard gameplay to feel like a little change of pace.

 
When crafting items, you’ve got to make a certain number of matches in specific colors.

One last area where Galactrix really differentiates itself from its predecessor is scale. Simply put, Galactrix is a huge game. The galaxy is gigantic, with tons of different star systems to explore. Each star system has several planets, space stations, asteroids, and LeapGates linking it to other systems, and most of these either give you a mission or are involved in the solution of a mission you’ve received elsewhere. With so much to explore and do, this is a game that will keep completionists busy for quite a while.

As fun and addicting as Galactrix is, it still has its share of flaws and problem areas. For starters, I found myself bored by the game’s plot. It’s cookie-cutter sci-fi fare, predictable to a fault and mostly forgettable. Fortunately the gameplay itself is compelling enough to keep going, but I can only imagine how addicted I might have become if the plot had really grabbed my attention.

 
The rival corporation’s connected to the conspiracy; the missing psychic’s connected to the ancient evil. Y
ou name a sci-fi cliché, and Galactrix delivers.

There are some minor technical issues as well. The enemy AI seems far luckier than it ought to be, often achieving huge bonus-granting combo chains when the player is lucky to pull off a measly 4-piece match. The game’s touch screen-based interface isn’t perfect; it’s far too easy to select the wrong piece by mistake, which not only wastes your turn but actually damages you. There’s also an incredible amount of loading during gameplay, which seems excessive on the cart-based DS. Leaving or entering a star system requires between five and ten seconds of loading every time, which can add up quick if, say, a mission requires you to briefly visit several systems in a row. Loading also rears its ugly head every time you have to check your status menu, which can get frustrating when all you want to do is check necessary information, like mission objectives.

Galactrix isn’t a visually ambitious game, and the graphics here are more serviceable than attractive. There’s some nice alien and spaceship artwork during combat sequences, but most of the time you’re either looking at the hex-based puzzle board or the tiny star system map, neither of which is very impressive. The game’s audio, on the other hand, is a whole different story. Sci-fi sound effects are nice and varied, but the real star is the beautiful, nuanced soundtrack. Each music track is alien and haunting — it sounds like the composer was influenced by Battlestar Galactica, which has some of the best sci-fi music around.

Really, though, all my complaints are nitpicking. Puzzle Quest: Galactrix delivers more gaming bang for your buck than just about any other DS game out there. They’ve packed a huge amount of content into that tiny cart, all of it satisfying and compelling. Addictive personality types, beware: Galactrix will grab you early and not let go.

Gameplay: 8.9
Match-3 puzzle games are notable for their quick addictive nature, and RPGs for their deeply nuanced gameplay that unfolds over dozens of hours. By combining the two, the developers have created a style of gameplay that’s engrossing in both the minute-to-minute gameplay and long-term character and scenario advancement. Put more simply, this game will draw you in, keep you there, and not let go.

Graphics: 7.2
There’s some really nice artwork for the various people, aliens, robots, and spaceships that you encounter throughout your journey. Most of the time you’re playing, though, you’re looking at either a colorful hexagonal grid or a small map of a handful of planets. It’s not painful on the eyes, but it’s not really impressive either.

Sound: 8.4
The beautiful haunting orchestral score sets the tone perfectly in Galactrix. Sound effects don’t crop up all that often, but the sound of a laser blast goes a long way to reminding you that, even though it looks like Hexic, you’re actually fighting a ship-to-ship battle in deep space.

Difficulty: Medium
Galactrix has kind of a strange learning curve: instead of easing the player into the challenge, the game starts off really hard, only to have the difficulty level ease off as the player levels up. Since you can keep trying any given challenge until you beat it or simply quit, you can never really get “stuck”, but there are definitely some moments that can be frustrating (especially when the AI seems so lucky as to be cheating).

Concept: 8.5
Mixing two wildly different gameplay experiences isn’t easy, but Infinite Interactive has definitely hit upon a winning combo with the Puzzle Quest series. Using that unique combination to tell a space opera storyline fits the formula just as well as using it in a fantasy context, if not more so.

Overall: 8.6
Few DS games are as interesting, as satisfying, or just as fun as Puzzle Quest: Galactrix. Whether you’re a PQ fan or a newcomer to the series, this one will suck you in and keep you happily addicted for months to come.