Galacide

I have a soft spot for side scrolling shooters, and if they fit the bullet hell profile, that’s even better. However, after a while, probably like a lot of fans of the genre, I realize that it’s just shooting stuff, and part of the incentive to keep at it fades away. Sure, the challenge of channeling your focus and coordination into shooting down ships while dodging tons of enemy fire is there, it’s greats, but what if we need more?

The folks at Puny Human have figured that problem out by adding a puzzle mechanic to all the madness. It’s a very simple idea but in practice, it causes the levels of enjoyment and the gameplay difficulty to skyrocket.

Exhilarating would be my first choice for a word that would accurately describe Galacide. Two more that would match up are ‘reflex tingling’. It’s a combination of genres that bring it close to a twitchy bullet hell, an experience like you’ve never had.

To add a supplementary layer of difficulty and enjoyment, you’re mowing down plenty of enemy ships while playing a match four ‘bubble shooter’-like game. More so, in solo mode, if you’re not careful, it all clutters around you like a maze. It’s all a wonderful and chaotic mess. You have to see it to understand what it’s about, and you have to play it to feel what it’s like.

Come to think about it, it seems easy when you’re watching someone else play it. It’s an entirely different thing though when you’re the one who has to constantly solve puzzles while having to worry about five different things at the same time.

At a first glance, it seems like a complicated game to play and in all honesty it kind of is. However, since it fuses together gameplay mechanics that are on their own easy to master, polishing your skills in Galacide comes naturally. You don’t feel as if you’re slowly grinding a mission away.

The topic of solo versus co-op mode enjoyment is open for debate. The discussion, however, is not long because it all comes down to how you enjoy your games, and how many controllers you have lying around. While I loved kicking its ass in solo mode, it does get overwhelming at times, and that’s when you feel the need for that extra bit of help.

However, Galacide has a solution for those moments if you don’t want to share the score with someone. Pick a different ship and use its unique features to try a different approach, each one impacts the gameplay in a different way. It’s a subtle change but in clutch moments, it might make all the difference.

Right now, the only thing I 'dislike' is the fact that you can’t pause the game to take a breather. I mean, you can, but you lose focus. Galacide keeps you hooked from start to finish.

I can’t say that it’s addictive, although it is hard to say no to another mission, so I tried a little experiment with it. After a couple of hours of game time, I left it alone for two days, just to see if that initial excitement that came with the gameplay was a first time reaction to the great mechanics fusion or something else. As expected, picking it up again delivered the same level of enjoyment, and to me, that’s how I know you have a good recipe for a great game.

You will spend a lot of time with Galacide if you like shooters that push the limits of difficulty in a clever way. Moreover, if you also have that need to be the first in the leaderboard, you have your work cut out for you and a great incentive because it’s a tough challenge.

To wrap it up, Galacide is simple in concept and simply great. It uses a very nice way of making a genre that’s very dynamic even more so. There is a lot more to say about it, so if you want to find out more, feel free to check out the Galacide Steam page and it’s homepage.