{"id":18203,"date":"2018-08-24T00:01:13","date_gmt":"2018-08-24T00:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=18203"},"modified":"2018-08-13T14:25:02","modified_gmt":"2018-08-13T14:25:02","slug":"galak-z-variant-s-switch-ps4-pc-mobile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2018\/08\/24\/galak-z-variant-s-switch-ps4-pc-mobile\/","title":{"rendered":"Galak-Z: Variant S (Switch, PS4, PC, Mobile)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Galak-Z is a 2-D arcade style space shoot \u2018em up where you pilot either a mech or spaceship as you navigate planetary caves finding goodies and destroying enemy robots as you make your way to the exit.\u00a0 It\u2019s free to download on nearly every home console, PC, and mobile device, but reviewed on Switch here under the subtitle \u201cVariant S.\u201d<\/p>\n

The game controls and plays a little like classic arcade and NES games like Asteroids, Gravitar, and Solar Jetman.\u00a0 You steer with the left analog stick and thrust forward with the R2 button.\u00a0 If you are piloting the mech, press a button for a short ranged attack.\u00a0 The spaceship has longer ranged projectiles that you can hold down the button to rapid fire.\u00a0 When a meter goes up, you can use a special attack.\u00a0 Both the mech and ship have different shields.\u00a0 When you get hit, the shield goes down, but comes back over time.\u00a0\u00a0 But if it is temporarily destroyed and you get hit, you\u2019ll lose energy.\u00a0 Lose all energy and you must start the mission over again.\u00a0 Usually missions require you to navigate a cave maze, defeating enemies and collecting items while finding the exit.<\/p>\n

After you complete a mission, you can upgrade your ship with items you\u2019ve collected in the menu screen.\u00a0 This is where the free-to-play nature of the game rears its ugly head.\u00a0 There are tons of items to use to upgrade things, like crystals, robot parts, and even robots you can send to a lab to make more parts over time.\u00a0 But this process ends up being more fiddly than fun.\u00a0 Plus, the game wants you to buy these things so you don\u2019t have to take forever to collect them, so the game gets hard pretty fast.\u00a0 Plus, you have to always be connected online to play, even though most of it is single player.\u00a0 I know that\u2019s the norm for mobile games now, but this is on the Switch.\u00a0 Even free-to-play games like Pokemon Quest<\/strong><\/a> didn\u2019t make you do that.\u00a0 Because of that and the fiddly nature of upgrading, this game didn\u2019t hold my interest very long, even though I did like the arcade space themes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Galak-Z is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Fantasy Violence and Mild Language.\u00a0 You do blow up spaceships and robots that explode when defeated.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t notice any bad language in the text, so it must be used very sparingly.\u00a0 Reading skill is needed for the text and parental supervision is recommended for the in-game purchases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Galak-Z is a 2-D arcade style space shoot \u2018em up where you pilot either a mech or spaceship as you navigate planetary caves finding goodies and destroying enemy robots as you make your way to the exit.\u00a0 It\u2019s free to download on nearly every home console, PC, and mobile device, but reviewed on Switch here […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18203"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18205,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18203\/revisions\/18205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}