Drones that aid you in battle also add flavor to each round. Some guard your back with a spray of bullets, while others circle your ship and shield you from danger. As you fight more battles these companions gain XP and become more powerful.

The scoring system has also been tweaked. Fallen foes now drop Geoms that increase your score multiplier and help you unlock new levels and more types of Drones. Geoms don't hang around on the screen for long, and you'll have to get close to enemies to grab them. This new element of risk and reward works well in Galaxies, and you'll find yourself trying to take down crowds of enemies at point blank range instead of from the other side of the screen.

Fans will notice a significant drop in the amount of cursing and angry restarts that follow deaths. After you die, extra Geoms to unlock new levels or Drones are waiting for you in the menu, and leveling up your collection of Drones or testing your skills in some of the more challenging levels breaks through the monotony of its predecessors one-level grind.

Multiplayer modes are also available for two players via Wi-fi, and some of them are quite inventive. Although Co-op mode, which teams you up with another player with shared lives, bombs, and score on the Retro Evolved map seems a little bland, the DS’ Versus and Simultaneous modes more than make up for it.

In Versus mode, one player gets to play as a sort of geometric dungeon master who selects and places enemy shapes on his opponent’s screen. As your enemy shoots more shapes, it’ll refill your stock of bad guys to throw at him. The back and forth between the shape shooter and shape planter works quite well.

Simultaneous puts both players in private stages. As you kill more enemies, you’ll build up your stock of enemy shapes which you can toss to your enemies screen at any time.