Best Worst Sequel to a great game in 2009:
Puzzle Quest Galactrix/Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box (Tie)
Both games were on my “most anticipated” list this year, and both were huge disappointments in my eyes. Let’s skewer Galactrix first. The first Puzzle Quest was buggy as hell and unbalanced, but it made up for its problems with unique gameplay that was easy to learn, but difficult to master. The second Puzzle Quest was unbalanced, the puzzle game was convoluted, and it was a pain in the rear to navigate the stupid map. I dumped a good 30+ hours into the first Puzzle Quest and loved just about every minute of it. I bought Galactrix the day it came out, played it for four or five hours and never touched it again.
The highest score I ever gave while I was at GameSpot was a 9.0 to Professor Layton and the Curious Village. If I had to review the second game, I’d use the same text and score it two points lower because as far as I can tell, it’s exactly the same as the first one. Tap a bunch of crap, solve the same puzzles, reset the game if I screw up to much...blah, blah, blah. If I wanted to play the same game over and over, I’d play the Phoenix Wright series. Thanks for nothing, Nintendo.
For the record, I didn't come anywhere close to finishing either game. Maybe they get better. I'll never know.
Comments (1)
I agree that Galactrix is broken, and especially disappointing because I loved Puzzle Quest (so much that I had to delete my save in order to get on with my life) and was looking forward to the sci-fi version.
But complaining about another Layton being the same is like complaining about another episode of your favorite show. "Tap a bunch of crap, solve the same puzzles" comes across as "Hammer buttons, shoot a bunch of enemies" for any other game, and I'm confused by "reset if I screw up too much." It's not actually possible to get dead-ended in the game.
