Galak-Z: The Dimensional

All in all, I think Galak-Z was definitely worth the wait. It’s one of the most unique titles I’ve played on my PS4 this year, and certainly one of the most challenging.

As roguelikes go, Galak-Z's tireless air of optimism makes a case for its own dimension.

A roguelike for the cerebral pilot. Those with viper-like reflexes shouldn't miss this step up for gaming AI. [Oct 2015, p.69]

The payoff is feeling like the Red Baron and Luke Skywalker rolled into one when you emerge from a tricky dogfight. [Oct 2015, p.112]

It’s challenging, whimsical, and a great throwback to a time when combat was deceptively simple.

The mission structure and narrative leave something to be desired, but when I think of Galak-Z, I think of my many triumphs and the elation I felt when I completed a season. Few games manage to instill that feeling of triumph quite like Galak-

For all the positives, a game you want to uninstall every time you die just isn’t good, and for that reason Galak-Z isn’t worth your time.

A fantastic breath of fresh air into a genre that has been lacking ideas. Vividly colorful with a wonderful story line. A graphical interface that both is easy to use and an "old video camera menu style" for game options. Sound fx and music are fitting. The controls are spot on and every button used in an easy to learn scheme.

This game takes some time to get used to, but when you have got used to it you will have a fun time. The controls are hard at first. The game is fairly short, but it is hard, which will add to the playtime. The music is great.

I’ve gone through half of the game already and I can, confidently, say this game is good; good but not great. Good things, if you like old arcades, quick direct funny games, you’ll find quite a bit of that in this one and that is a good thing. Also, the game play is great, simple but very well implemented and the controls are very very good, you really feel in control of the ship, not frustrating at all. So basically, I’d say the strongest point of this game is its gameplay, it is funny to play (and unfortunately not so many games can say that today). Bad things, lacks story and background info to explain its universe. I don’t think this is a completely bad thing, this game feels a bit like a classic and a lot of great classic games don’t really have a great script behind them. But at the same time can be frustrating for other people, so just be aware you won’t find an interesting story behind this game. The other main bad thing is that is feels awfully repetitive. As I said the gameplay is really good, but the missions all feel the same, really similar objectives and, for me this is worse, almost identical stages in terms of the art and how they are. So, for example, all stages are always maze like structures, and these structures don’t vary a lot in terms of how they look. I mean, for instance, in season one, it’s always inside an asteroid and season 2 is always inside space hulks. It lacks life and the settings are not memorable at all; you want all season 1 missions to be inside asteroids?, fine no problem, but make those asteroids a bit different. For example, one can be the typical rocky type asteroid, another one can have crystal like structures, another one can have massive plant life, and next one can have some kind of ancient civilisation structure inside and that can also slightly affect the gamplay (e.g. find traps in the ancient civilisation structures). I mean, the asteroid concept accepts variability but unfortunately they didn’t think of that (or they didn’t have budget, could also be that). Anyway, summarising that lack of, let’s say, life on the settings plus not a lot on variation in mission objectives makes the game feel a bit repetitive after a few hours…and in my opinion, ruins the experience a bit. Still quite a bit of things to enjoy about this game, I just felt a bit disappointed as I think it could have been a great game and it is just good (in the more strict meaning of the word). Did try it for “free” with PSN plus but, now that I know how it is, I wouldn’t mind to have paid a few quid for this. By the way, this isn’t good or bad and is highly subjective, but I don’t think this game is too hard as some people do suggest, nor too easy either, sits in the middle in my opinion.

might have been fun if the fundamental season system wasn't so **** idiotic. Taking away upgrades it pre-school stuff. I know what I'm talking about because I play Dark Souls and Bloodborne. Play something else, unless this piece of **** is free.

If you don't want to have any spoilers here is a summary of my review. I loved the game but a glitch killed me half way through a season by making my ship unable to shoot so I had to commit suicide and start over with all my scrap gone and upgrades removed, pretty much soured my experience with the game MINOR SPOILER This game is beautifully done, with a simple concept fleshed out into a challenging game that is just punishing enough to make the end goal rewarding but not so difficult that it pushes the gamer away. This game was a solid 9 or 10 to me UNTIL A BUG RUINED THE EXPERIENCE FOR ME. When transforming from mech to ship there is a bug that will make any grappling, shooting, or attacking impossible so all you can do is move helplessly around the map waiting for something to kill you. This means you have to start all the way at the beginning of the season, losing any upgrades and scrap you've accumulated. To add some salt on this the salesman, Crash, decided to cash in all my Crash Coins before the level, meaning I lost about 3000 scrap, and a good array of upgrades that made my ship pretty unstoppable. I still like the game well enough, but if you are going to make a game be rouge like and punishable you need to make sure these bugs are smoothed out or it will make the game seem unfair and frustrating