Galactic Glitch is a twin stick roguelike space shooter with physics-based mechanics to spice things up! Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
Galactic Glitch Review Overview
What is Galactic Glitch?
Galactic Glitch is an action roguelike twinstick shooter where you take control of a ship and strengthen its arms to eventually break out of the system. The game features different usable weapons, power-ups, and upgrades to enhance your experience. It also features a physics-based mechanic where you can use your ship’s gravity gun to fling objects at your foes across space.
Galactic Glitch features:
⚫︎ Action roguelike shooter where you control a ship
⚫︎ Different usable weapons, power-ups, and skills to make your own builds
⚫︎ Skill tree to spend your earned currency
⚫︎ Gravity gun that can be used to pick up certain things to throw against your enemies
For more gameplay details, read everything we know about Galactic Glitch's gameplay and story.
Galactic Glitch | |||||
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Steam |
Galactic Glitch Pros & Cons
Pros | Cons |
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Quick, Snappy, and Fun Combat
Great Weapon Variety
RNG Makes for Unique Builds
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Physics Mechanics Could be Improved
Power-Up and Upgrade Costing
RNG Reliance for Upgrades
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Galactic Glitch Overall - 74/100
Galactic Glitch is a great action roguelike shooter, but could still use a bit of polish when it comes to rewarding the player. The gameplay is top-notch, as it’s quick, snappy, and responsive, which is everything that you want in an action roguelike. It has a healthy variety of weapons, power-ups, and upgrades, so every run is unique. Not to mention that the game’s physics mechanics open up a lot of movement tricks and weapon slinging that you can do, which makes it all the more interesting.
Galactic Glitch Story - 6/10
The story isn’t much, to say the least; you were summoned by a mysterious being for the purpose of breaking out of the equally mysterious Glitchspace. There’s not much else to it other than being explicitly told to get to the center of the universe for a chance to break out.
Galactic Glitch Gameplay - 9/10
As an action roguelike, Galactic Glitch succeeds in making a fun gameplay loop by having fast-paced combat, quick movement, and snappy responsiveness. While the game does have physics-based mechanics where you can do cool tricks like slingshotting and the like, it is pretty difficult to make it something permanent in your playstyle. Most of the time, you can get by without knowing it exists.
Galactic Glitch Visuals - 7/10
The visuals of the game are colorful, cartoony, and distinct. It’s not the best looking game out there, as some of the particle effects can be hurtful to the eyes, especially when the game throws you a ton of enemies to fight against in the latter zones. However, it is appreciated that each zone has its own motif and that none of them have intersected with the player ship colors. Nevertheless, the game looks pretty decent, but the visual clutter may need some getting used to.
Galactic Glitch Audio - 6/10
The music isn’t that great, as it’s very repetitive. As for the rest of the audio design, there wasn’t anything wrong with the sound effects and the like, but there wasn’t anything noteworthy for these as well.
Galactic Glitch Value for Money - 9/10
The game goes for $12.99, will actually be on sale for its first week of release, and is honestly quite worth the investment. It’s only going to get more content as time goes on, and what it currently offers is already a pretty sizable amount of zones and a healthy variety of builds available to the player.
Galactic Glitch Review: A New Space Invader
With an overabundance of action roguelikes in the past year, at least one decided to change it up and started using the concept of space and ships as well. Galactic Glitch is an interesting game, and while it’s story, audio, and visuals range from lackluster to decent, the gameplay is what sets it apart from being another action roguelike. The addictive combat is the highlight of the game, and it makes it an enjoyable game to keep replaying again and again.
The game’s narrative isn’t anything new, nor is it compelling, as you’re a random ship that was mysteriously summoned by an even more mysterious female AI thing that’s similar to Cortana in the Halo series. Not much is divulged about the game’s lore other than you’re trying to break out of the simulation. Even after completing a run, only then is it revealed to you that you’re actually going to have to do better than reach the end once, which isn’t really much of a story.
The visuals are decent, but it should be said that the particle effects need a little adjusting as the brightness could be a little blinding. To add to this, the game has a lot of visual clutter when it comes to the latter stages when there’s too much going on on-screen. The silver lining to this is that identifying your ship is quite easy since it’s the only ship with that unique color most of the time. They also use different color palettes to differentiate zones from each other, so that certain enemies could be easily told apart as well.
There wasn’t anything wrong with the game’s sound effects, but the music was very repetitive. It took us a few hours before we got tired of the game’s music and decided to mute it instead. There’s not much else to say about the sound design, as it wasn’t particularly noteworthy in our experience.
Where the game shines is its gameplay, primarily the game’s combat and gameplay loop. The combat is fast, snappy, and responsive, and the whole process of exploration is satisfying as well since it’s also quick. Everything about the combat is great, while this may be subjective as not everyone enjoys quick action roguelikes or enjoys every weapon in the game, it’s still noteworthy that the game’s fast-paced is addictive and adrenaline inducing. It’s a simple game with a simple loop, and it doesn’t really get tiring to play the game since it has a lot of variety when it comes to builds and other weapons that you can try out.
Exploration in the game is simple, every area is pretty much "linear" and divided up to several rooms in the map. You can teleport to and from certain parts of the map when you find the respective teleportation points. Rooms can contain rewards, enemies, or both, and sometimes you can even encounter Rift Battles which can give you a reward that you don’t want to miss.
Overall, Galactic Glitch is a fun action roguelike if you give it a chance. The gameplay alone might be enough to get you interested, and the small price tag easily equates to a good 10 hours of fun combat and repeating it all again.
Pros of Galactic Glitch
Things Galactic Glitch Got Right |
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Quick, Snappy, and Fun Combat
Great Weapon Variety
RNG Makes for Unique Builds
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Quick, Snappy, and Fun Combat
The combat in the game is simple, but the pace, snapiness, and responsiveness are its best aspects. It’s satisfying to explore and progress in each zone, as combat is fluid and fun at the same time, with quick movement, enjoyable weapons, and easy-to-understand enemies.
Great Weapon Variety
The game has a ton of weapons for you to choose from, and while the balancing could be questionable, there’s no doubt that most of the weapons are very enjoyable to use. It ranges from a variety of guns like rapid firing guns, single shot rail cannons, shotguns, and more. After every run, you have options to unlock more weapons in the game’s hub, and this will easily be where you spend your currency first.
RNG Makes for Unique Builds
Since you can only really choose the weapon that you start with, the rest of your build will be all up to RNG. You’ll get a few choices to choose from when completing Rift Battles in Zones, buying from Shops, and completing Zones. These will be completely random, and there’s a big chance that you won’t be able to recreate a build that you recently played with.
Cons of Galactic Glitch
Things That Galactic Glitch Can Improve |
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Physics Mechanics Could be Improved
Power-Up and Upgrade Costing
RNG Reliance for Upgrades
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Physics Mechanics Could be Improved
The game does have interesting physics-based mechanics, which you can use to your advantage. However, the game doesn’t really teach you how to do this, and there are only a few niche situations where we had to use it as opposed to the classic way of doing things. It may need some bonus damage when it comes to slingshotting certain objects around enemies, as sometimes it’s exactly worth it to pull off these types of tricks. Maybe they could also use a few points to teach players how to use these mechanics to their advantage as well, just so people can see their application.
Power-Up and Upgrade Costing
Some of the power-ups are way too expensive, especially at the end of zones. There were times where I couldn’t buy a single power-up because I wasn’t lucky enough to earn more currency. While they are generous with giving away upgrade modules to give away, it may be a shame to see them unused since you couldn’t get a single power-up to upgrade. Maybe a little bump to increase the amount of shards you get for completing a zone might help just so that the player can secure at least one skill to choose from.
RNG Reliance for Upgrades
After finishing Rift Battles, you’ll be rewarded by getting certain upgrade modules that you can use to upgrade your power-ups. Sometimes, you have to get a little lucky to get more of that certain upgrade module that you want, especially if the power-up you’re trying to upgrade needs more than just two of the same kind. It’s important for you to beat these Rift Battles so that you can get more chances to get the upgrade module you want.
Is Galactic Glitch Worth It?
For that Price? Certainly!
The game is as cheap as they come and is currently on sale to even save you a few bucks. For the price of $12.99, the game has a ton of variety and a healthy amount of zones to play in for hours to enjoy. The replayability, build experimentation, and snappy gameplay are the game’s best aspects, and they’re awesome to come back for a few enjoyable runs.
Digital Storefront | |||||
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Steam | |||||
Wishlist only $12.99 |
Galactic Glitch FAQ
How long will Galactic Glitch be on sale?
The game will be on sale for 25% off until the end of the month.
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Galactic Glitch Product Information
Title | GALACTIC GLITCH |
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Release Date | July 15, 2024 (Early Access) |
Developer | Crunchy Leaf Games |
Publisher | Crunchy Leaf Games |
Supported Platforms | PC (Steam) |
Genre | Action, Roguelike |
Number of Players | 1 |
ESRB Rating | RP |
Official Website | Galactic Glitch Official Website |