Lost in Space

So folks, I am now the proud owner of Puzzlequest: Galactrix and in many ways, it's a lot like the original Puzzlequest offering.

However, there is one humongous glitch that had me wondering if my DS was broken. It played a lot like this.

When choosing your destination on the galactic map, the interface frequently assumes that you chose coordinates far, far away from where your stylus is pointing and promptly sends your spaceship wandering off to points unknown. This is compounded by the fact that there's a good chance that your choice on a pop-up menu will not register and your ship starts wandering again. What makes this doubly annoying is that you cannot open up that same menu again until your ship is once again on the planet, something that could take a while depending on the speed of your ship and how far off course it is.

I have no idea how this managed to get past testing and approved for distribution by Nintendo. If it were up to me, I would have not allowed the ship to budge until a destination is confirmed. If you click on a planet, then the menu should open and stay open until you make a choice (or choose cancel). Assuming you've chosen something to do on that planet, then and only then does your ship fly over there and nothing would interfere with the journey. But that's just me.

Fortunately, the glitch does not extend to the actual gameplay itself. That is not to say that solving puzzles are not without problems, but they are minor compared to the buggy interface.

So if you are a die-hard Puzzlequest fan, you've probably already picked up Galactrix. For everybody else, you might want to give this one a pass.