Puzzle Quest: Galactrix

Puzzle Quest leaves the medieval days of yore and zooms into the future at warp speed, bringing with it a new twist on its addictive RPG-puzzle gameplay.

In Puzzle Quest: Galactrix for Nintendo DS, a horrifying scientific accident has produced bizarre creatures that begin to systematically exterminate humankind. You take the role of a rogue pilot who must manoeuvre among different political factions in an attempt to halt this genocidal threat and maintain the peace in the galaxy.

Saving the human race, however, won’t be easy. Using the tried and true match-three gameplay, you’ll battle, negotiate and hack your way through the galaxy by using the stylus and Touch Screen to line up gems on a puzzle board. To make your match of three or more, you’ll swap one coloured gem with another, creating a match with two other gems that clears the matching gems off the board and earns you a reward. If your move also causes other gems to match, you’ll begin a chain that can earn you huge points and resources.

What makes Puzzle Quest: Galactrix unique from its predecessor, Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, is the new hexagonal puzzle board. In the previous game, players could only match gems by moving them up-and-down or across on a rectangular board. But the hexagonal game board for Puzzle Quest: Galactrix lets you move a gem in six different directions to make a match. More ways to move your gems also means there are more chances to form chains and earn bonuses.

Moving a gem will not only make a match, it also determines the flow of the board. Once you make a match and those gems are cleared, the remaining gems and new gems fall in the same direction as the gem you moved. For example, if you moved the gem up, the new gems and remaining gems will fall toward the top of the board. If you move the gem right, the new and remaining gems will fall to the right. This makes for much more interesting strategic choices to make as you progress through the game.

What doesn’t change in the Puzzle Quest sequel is the deep RPG elements and immense replay value. In battles, gems you match either give you energy, perform an attack on an enemy or even build up a shield to protect against attacks. The more experience you gain in battles, the more skills your pilots will learn. These skills, which take energy to perform, are incredibly important as they can change the course of battle. 

You’ll need as much experience and as many skills and weapons as possible to traverse the huge Puzzle Quest: Galactrix universe. Using ‘leap gates’, players jump from galaxy to galaxy to engage in more than 150 battles in the Story Mode alone. In addition to battles, players will need to solve special skill mini-game puzzles to open new leap gates or mine asteroids for ore.

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix somehow found a way to make the Puzzle Quest gameplay experience both more accessible and more challenging at the same time. That type of creativity is quickly making the Puzzle Quest series one of the best puzzle games on Nintendo DS.

• Upgradeable spacecraft options allow players to create, develop and customise the ultimate fleet of attack and exploration vehicles for their pilot to command. Increase Defence Systems and Ship Attack Powers, upgrade Psionic Powers, gather Intelligence and activate opponent-damaging Space Mines.

• Engage in unique experiences each time you play by choosing from the diverse field of pilot skills, ship customisations, opponents, collectibles, upgrades, story elements and more for hundreds of hours of gameplay.

• Two-player wireless multiplayer options let you test your Puzzle Quest skills against all comers.