Galak-Z: Variant S is a simple shooter that is fun in short stints. The controls are fun, the level design is outstanding, but the motivating factors of the game, which include upgrades, needs to be improved a little before it becomes great. As it stands right now, it’s a good space shooter with some potential for improvement in the future.
Galak-Z: Variant S is a free-to-play shooter on the Nintendo Switch that released on the system this week, and brings with it a standard shooting experience in short stints, while complicating the process through earn-able goodies and upgrades. Its balance between both is what makes it a decent game to enjoy now and then.
Galak-Z: Variant S does its best to set up a story to hook you. You’re a pilot in need of scavenging parts to progress through short missions that are far-reaching (you have a lot). Each mission brings the similar style enemies, though final missions in stages bring up bosses, and require you to be light on your feet with the controls. You have the option, at least initially, to go through these missions as either a giant mech (armed with a sword) or an old school Battlestar Galactica-like ship (circa 1980s). Pretty simplistic in structure for a space shooter.
The joy of Galak-Z: Variant S isn’t that you’re playing a mech or you’re flying a ship, rather it’s the level design and controls that keep you on your toes and interested. The level design of the game is impressive, though it takes about 5-6 successful missions to change up the environment structures. Once you do switch up, you can see that the environments play a vital role when it comes to player success. For example, you have obstacles everywhere. From small blob flowers that gum up the ship when flying, to spiky flowers that shoot out thorns upon touch, thus causing damage to whomever is near them — including enemies. Long story short, there’s a lot of thought that went into how the environments react to the gameplay, and that is a huge plus when it comes to reviewing how well the gameplay design is in Galak-Z: Variant S. Another example of good level design is there is a level where there are pits of lava lined along the walls. When a ship gets bumped or forced into the lava, it starts taking damage — including enemy ships. I found myself enthralled with pushing ships towards the lava to gain extra damage against them. When they are pushed in, they catch on fire, which is also entertaining to watch, and it helps with how the game is played. Anyway, the environments are a part of the offensive strategy in the game, which makes me appreciate the design of Galak-Z: Variant S far better. GungHo America gave some serious thought on how fantastic these levels were going to be when it came to involvement in gameplay.
As for the actual shooter portion of the game, the ship is controlled by the L/R buttons on the Switch. The L flies mech/ship backwards, while the R button propels forwards. The left thumbstick controls the direction of the mech/ship, so there’s not much thought needed to control and maneuver through levels. The A button on the controller fires shots, which, if they connect a certain amount of times, activates a special weapon that the player can shoot with Y or by touching the onscreen indicator. Beyond this, the player has the environment around them to do damage, while trying to keep the right direction with the controls for continual damage. Impressive stuff through simplistic design. I can really appreciate the controls and environment in the game, as they do keep one’s interest in the gameplay.
Beyond that, the actual space shooter is pedestrian. The enemies tend to repeat a bit too much, which can bring down the feeling of being engaged with the story or motivating a player to continue. I know there is a sense of some sort of difficulty arc, where you will find new enemies here and there, but for the most part sometimes it doesn’t feel like you’re progressing. Now, having said that, the game does throw in goodies, like giant space cubes you can decrypt for loot, to snag your attention away from the repetitiveness. The devs also keep the missions short, which feels a bit like causal gaming (mobile), but that helps to reset your attention away from the repetitiveness as well. It’s all very methodical, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I do wish they had added more urgency to the storyline or built consistent boss battles with each set of missions, even if it’s a mini-boss. That would have helped break up the monotony of the gameplay.
To help you keep some motivation going, Galak-Z: Variant S also offers up upgrades and discoverable items. You can win small robots to help you out, as well as gather up parts that equal out to ship/mech upgrades, which helps with the overall experience. There’s enough here to keep yourself interested in this standard space shooter, and the game seems to hedge its bet on this area. Loot boxes, upgrades, and whatnot play a key role with the gameplay design. The downer to this is that the upgrades don’t feel like they happen fast enough. I played 15-20 missions in this game and only unlocked one upgrade to my ship. The upgrade progress is indicated with a bar underneath the item, which, when full, opens up said upgrade. It just takes a long time to get there, if you’re not playing constantly. GungHo should probably consider opening those upgrades up a bit faster, just to keep the motivation going for the player. It feels really far and few between right now, which damages the motivating factor of the game, which it needs to keep in its F2P model.
As it stands, Galak-Z: Variant S is a simple shooter that is fun in short stints. The controls are fun, the level design is outstanding, but the motivating factors of the game, which include upgrades, needs to be improved a little before it becomes great. As it stands right now, it’s a good space shooter with some potential for improvement in the future.
