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I'm fully addicted to Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords on my PSP despite the never-fixed bug that prevents your companion bonuses from working. Throw in a space and science fiction motif and I had to at least give Puzzle Quest: Galactrix a look. As soon as it was released I downloaded it and installed it. That went smoothly enough, and what I found was, well, different.

And that's not a bad thing by any means. It capitalizes on the science fiction setting. It keeps a Puzzle Quest feel with funny writing, a universe map, and puzzle-driven gameplay. But at the same time it's more advanced than Puzzle Quest, and this will probably be a welcome change for fans of the original looking to step things up a notch.

The hexagonal board definitely boosts the complexity of the game. While PQ:COTW had a square board with gems and skulls falling down the Galactrix board brings in new...hexagons... from any angle based on how you make the match. Ship equipment is analogous to spells from the first game and there are three or four colored energy types with one reserved for shield power and one or two other hexagon types for intel (which I suppose match purple stars from PQ:COTW) and weapon attacks. Some of the equipment do things you wouldn't expect from a PQ game. I saw one which made all gems fall downwards regardless of how the match is made. That alone makes me think you'll find other equipment that can make the gems fall up or other ways. In addition to straightforward ship vs ship battles you also get a couple of other mini-games thrown in: timed boards for hacking stargates (similar to how mounts are leveled up in COTW) and non-timed boards for mining asteroids, which gives you inventory to sell at certain stations. I imagine there will be crafting thrown in there as well to some degree, but I didn't go that far.

My chief complaint with the game as shown in the demo is two-fold really. One, I'm not sure I want to give up a square board for a hexagonal one. I already have frustrations with how the AI in PQ:COTW always seems to know what's up above the top level of the board, an AI that I'm not the first to admit cheats rampantly with that knowledge. I can't imagine how horrible it would be to have the AI know what's outside of every edge of the hexagon with the ability to bring it into view with just the right match. Two, the game won't be coming to the PSP which is a major letdown for me. I love having PQ:COTW on the go with me anywhere. If I'm going to buy it on my PS3 or my laptop there has to be some significant online support in there somewhere. I don't know if there will be, so I'm sitting on the sidelines for now.

See for yourself. You can get the demo from:
FilePlanet, FileFront, or Gamershell.