Galactic Glitch - following Binding of Isaac philosophy, stumbling on the way
Galactic Glitch is a roguelite game, with bullet hell roots and with top down view, where you pilot spaceship trying to escape "space simulation". Obviously with sinister background element.
I actually got it in bundle with 3030 Deathwar Redux, which was the main target of purchase.
Game takes more gameplay philosophy from Binding of Isaac and not the new wave of roguelites: more horizontal progression instead of vertical. No need of getting +2% damage with meta currency which would kindly allow you to complete the game. Just play, unlock new ships, weapons, perks and abilities expanding your capabilities to beat the game.
Combat of the game is reasonably fast, not hard to master, flashy and smooth.
Gameplay consists of clearing connected arenas with mini boss at the end. After 3 of such stages you fight main boss, and game have 3 parts of 3 stages with mini boss and main boss.
Gimmick of the game is that you can not only shoot, but also throw: rocks, containers, explosives, enemies, left wing ripped from your enemy... Yes, you can rip parts from the enemy and throw it back at them! No all enemies, though, and definately not from the bosses. It's really fun system which is in tandem with some abilities allows you to cause mayhem.
So about stats. There's 4 stats: weapon, HP, speed, throwing damage. Outside of flat bonus to stats, after getting 3 levels in stats, it gets bonus: weapons shoot more fancy, HP let special attack charge faster, speed gives you extra dodge without cooldown, throwing damage allows you to pick bigger items to throw and even bigger ships. I really like this system, although upgrades give diminishing returns in flat stats and upgrades happen only on level 3 and 6, which is not really hard to get.
Abilities on the other hand i like little less. Just like stats, you can upgrade them with currency after each stage. Each ability have 3 levels and by leveling them you make them bigger, louder, cooler or just upgrade flat stats. I've played for 15 hours and i didn't saw a lot of synergetic abilities that would define build. Thing is, you're limited in amount of abilities that you can carry. Taking rockets for example: there's a lot of ways to generate rockets: on dodge, on dodge from items around (like rocks), when you throw, when you enter arena etc etc. But in general, there's nothing fancy with their interaction, you just spawn them in different ways. And in general, they're not really useful, because they're not really fast and collide with other items before reaching enemy.
Or take drones: you can spawn different attack drones, but they have no synergy between them, their damage fall off hard on later stages, they're slow, they take ability slot (and you limited to 5 abilities per ship on average) which can left out some other QoL abilities and abiltites that makes drones stronger.
But you have backstab mechanics. With backstab based ship. And backstab based weapon, with very short range but biggest damage in the game. And ability that let you backstab from the side of the enemy. And one that quadruple your backstab damage.
Also many abilties work only in arenas and don't work at boss at all. Which kills quite a few fun builds, mostly because of ability slot limitations.
So yeah, balance of abilities are all over the place and many feels like fodder gimmick.
Few words about bosses: Mini bosses 99% easiest thing in the world. I think i died to them only once in the first run. Main bosses on the other hand feels weird. First boss, would gatekeep you until you learn how to dodge and what abilities are worth keeping. Second boss feels hard, but easy, because at this stage you know how to dodge and what abilities are worth keeping. Third boss is pure bullet hell Sponge Bob. I pretty sure that 70-90% of builds wouldn't be able to kill him with some meta weapons or abilities.
And here comes Challenges. Challenges unlock some unique stat upgrades you found in run. If HP stat upgrade, for example, gives +10 HP, this unique upgrade can give +25%. But challenges itself... When you need to kill first or second boss in challenge, it's bearable. But when you need to kill 3d main boss and you have no weapons, no ability upgrades (outside of buying shop), but have some synergetic gimmick ability it becomes huge RNG pain. At this point you would see how bad synergies in this game and how much sponge is the last boss.
Conclusion: So yeah, i liked progression of upgrades in this game and how satisfying combat is, but later stages of the game rely too much or RNG or don't have enough difference in builds to continue playing.
But saying all that, i had fun in my 15 hours. Don't think i would play more, but i would recommend this game without hesitation.
TL:DR:
Cool game. Combat is slick and smooth. Takes more gameplay philosophy from Binding of Isaac and not the new wave of roguelites: more horizontal progression instead of vertical.
But it's doesn't help that most builds feel more weak in terms of damage and synergy of powers. Especially at 3d main boss. Sometimes it feel like you need 1 extra item to make build good, but you limited in number of items that you can carry with you.
Also some challenges fell like huge RPG fest, where if you don't get all best items, you just can't really win.
All in all fun game for it's price.
Posted Sep 11, 2026, 4:54 PM UTC