Galaga

Galaga
North American arcade flyer
Developer(s)	Namco
Publisher(s)	JP: Namco NA: Midway
Composer(s)	Nobuyuki Ohnogi
Platform(s)	Arcade, Various
Release	JP: September 1981 NA: December 1981
Genre(s)	Fixed shooter
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer
Cabinet	Upright, cabaret, and cocktail
Arcade system	Namco Galaga
CPU	3x ZiLOG Z80 @ 3.072 MHz
Sound	1 × Namco WSG (3-channel mono) @ 3.072 MHz 1 × Namco 54xx @ 1.536 MHz
Display	RGB raster, vertical orientation (19-inch diagonal)

Galaga (Japanese: ギャラガ, Hepburn: Gyaraga, Pronunciation: /ɡælʌɡə/) is a Japanese arcade game developed and published by Namco Japan and by Midway in North America in 1981. It is the sequel to 1979's Galaxian. The gameplay of Galaga puts the player in control of a spacecraft which is situated at the bottom of the screen, with enemy aliens arriving in formation at the beginning of a stage, either trying to destroy, collide with, or capture the spaceship, with the player progressing every time alien forces are vanquished.

Galaga is one of the most commercially and critically successful games from the golden age of arcade video games. The arcade version of it has been ported to many consoles, and it has had several sequels. In 2011, the game celebrated its 30th anniversary with the release of Galaga 30th Collection for iOS.

Gameplay[edit]

Gameplay screenshot

The objective of Galaga is to score as many points as possible by destroying insect-like enemies. The player controls a starfighter that can move left and right along the bottom of the playfield. Enemies swarm in groups in a formation near the top of the screen, and then begin flying down toward the player, firing bullets at and attempting to crash into them. In later stages, some enemies even break from an entering group in a frantic attempt to crash into the player. The game ends when the player's last fighter is lost by colliding with an enemy, being hit by an enemy shot, or being captured.

Galaga introduces new features from its predecessor, Galaxian. Among these are the ability for two player shots to exist on-screen at once rather than one, a "hit/miss ratio" statistic at the end of the game, and a bonus "Challenging Stage" that occurs at Stage 3 and every fourth stage thereafter, in which a series of 40 enemies fly onto and off the screen, 8 at a time, and moving in set patterns without firing at the player's ship or trying to crash into it. When you destroy a group of enemies, you are awarded 1K-3K pts.^[1] These stages award a 10K-point bonus if the player manages to destroy every enemy, but otherwise 100 bonus points for every enemy destroyed. Another feature in the game is for enemies to randomly transform and organize into a certain formation, which awards the player bonus points if they manage to successfully destroy all three (1K to 3K points), from levels 4 on, and repeating every 256 levels.

Another gameplay feature new to Galaga is the ability for enemies to capture the player's fighter. While the player is in control of just one fighter, a "boss" Galaga (which takes two hits to kill, the first hit will turn it purple) will periodically attempt to capture the fighter using a tractor beam. If successful, the fighter joins the enemy formation as a satellite to the boss Galaga which captured it. The captive fighter becomes an enemy, turns red, and likewise, it can be shot and destroyed, awarding the player 1K points on its destruction. The player can still fire while being captured up to the point their ship "touches" the captor, which could be considered an opportunity to shoot the captor down before it can manage to successfully capture the player. Captive fighters can be freed by destroying the boss Galaga towing it while it is attacking. The freed fighter will then combine with the player's fighter who freed them and form a Dual Fighter, offering doubled firepower but with the disadvantage of a target twice as large. If the player destroys the captor while it is still in formation, the captured fighter will not be rescued, and will instead fly away after a diving run (assuming the player does not destroy it) to appear in the next stage as a satellite for another boss Galaga where it can again be rescued. A very small section in the middle of the Dual Fighter is immune to enemy fire.

Galaga has an exploitable bug that can cause the attackers to randomly stop firing shots at the player.^[2] In addition, similar to the famous "Split-Screen bug" in Pac-Man, a bug exists in Galaga in which the game "rolls over" from Stage 255 to Stage 0 (256). Depending on the difficulty setting of the machine, this can cause the game to stall, requiring that the machine be reset or power-cycled in order to start a new game.

The commonly used default setting for extra lives awards them at scores of 20K, 70K, and every multiple of 70K, though many other settings can be used. However, no matter the settings, after turning over at 1,000,000 points, no more extra lives are awarded. Additionally, the 2nd player may have up to 8-digit scores; this is the first video arcade game to have this feature. The high score display, however, maxes out at six digits.

Release history[edit]

1. Galaxian (1979)
2. Galaga (1981)
3. Gaplus (also known as Galaga 3) (1984)
4. Galaga '88 (1987)
5. Galaga '90 (1988) (a re-release of Galaga 88 for the TurboGrafx-16)
6. Galaxian³ (1990)
7. Galaga 2 (1991) (a re-release of Galaga 88 for the Game Gear, called Galaga '91 in Japan)
8. Attack of the Zolgear (1994)
9. Galaga Arrangement (1995) (released as part of Namco Classic Collection Vol. 1)
10. Galaga Arrangement (2005) (released as part of Namco Museum Battle Collection)
11. Galaga Remix (2007) (released as part of Namco Museum Remix and Namco Museum Megamix)
12. Galaga Legions (2008)
13. Galaga Remix (2009) (a renamed port of Galaga Arrangement from Namco Museum Battle Collection)
14. Galaga Special Edition (2010)
15. Galaga 30th Collection (2011)
16. Galaga Legions DX (2011)
17. Galaga 3D Impact (2011)
18. Space Galaga (2014) (Space Dandy themed)
19. Galaga: TEKKEN Edition (2015)^[3]
20. Galaga Assault (2016)^[4]
21. Galaga Wars (2016)^[5]

Galaga on the Atari 7800

The original arcade version of Galaga has been ported to several systems. These include:

• Atari 7800 (Released 1987) Cover art by Marc Ericksen, (Developed by Namco.)
• Famicom Disk System (developed by Namco)
• Game Boy (bundled with its direct predecessor, Galaxian)
• GameTap
• MSX
• Famicom/NES (February 15, 1985 in Japan, September 1988 and October 21, 2008)^[6] (as Galaga: Demons of Death in North America, distributed by Bandai America, re-release in North America by Activision)
• SG-1000 (as Sega-Galaga)
• Plug & Play re-releases by Jakks Pacific in 2004
• Midway Custom Arcade Machines
• Midway Custom Arcade Machines (Extra Game known as Galaga (2)

The game has been re-released on the following systems:

• Virtual Console: Famicom/NES port released in North America on April 9, 2007 for the Wii, on March 13, 2014 for the Nintendo 3DS and on August 15, 2013 for the Wii U; In Japan, the arcade version released on November 24, 2009 for the Wii while the Famicom/NES port released on May 22, 2013 for the Nintendo 3DS.
• Xbox Live Arcade—released July 26, 2006
• iOS (Galaga Remix, includes original)—released March 31, 2009
• Nintendo 3DS: As part of the retail title Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions; Released in Japan on June 23, 2011; North America on July 26, 2011; Europe on August 26, 2011.
• Roku—released October 24, 2011
• Maemo 5 (Nokia N900): Free download from Ovi Store available in certain regions only.^[7]
• PlayStation 4, Steam, and Xbox One: released April 20, 2016 as part of the Arcade Game Series.
• NES Classic Edition

Galaga has also been released as part of the Namco Museum series of collections across several platforms:

• Nintendo 64 (Namco Museum 64)
• Nintendo DS (Namco Museum DS)
• PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube (Namco Museum)
• PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, Game Boy Advance and Microsoft Windows (Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary)
• PlayStation Portable (Namco Museum Battle Collection)
• PlayStation (as part of Namco Museum Volume 1)
• Dreamcast, Game Boy Advance (Namco Museum)
• Xbox 360 (Namco Museum Virtual Arcade)
• PlayStation 3 (Namco Museum Essentials)
• Wii (Namco Museum Megamix)
• Nintendo Switch (Namco Museum)

Galaga was used as a side game during the loading stage of the PlayStation port of Tekken in 1995. This version consisted entirely of challenging stages. In Point Blank 2, there are a few Galaga challenging stages where the player must shoot a certain number of enemies to complete the stage. In 2001, Namco released a "20 Year Reunion / Class of 1981" arcade unit which contained the original Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga games. Some of the original game's bugs are still present in this version, including the ability to stop all enemies from firing at the player. This version added a continue feature, when the player's lives are exhausted, the player can choose to continue or start over. The game was later released as part of the Pac-Man's Arcade Party arcade machine in 2010.

Namco began releasing Galaga on mobile platforms in 2004. The game is available for play on most game-enabled cell phones, Palm devices and Pocket PCs.^[8] In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the game, Sprint is also offering their wireless subscribers the chance to start the game in Dual Fighter Mode.^[9]

Galaga is also one of the bonus arcade games included in the Wii and Nintendo 3DS versions of Pac-Man Party.

Remakes[edit]

In 1995, Namco re-released Galaga along with an enhanced remake titled Galaga Arrangement, which features a number of graphical enhancements and gameplay differences from the original. Galaga Arrangement has subsequently been published as part of the Namco Museum compilation on several home video game consoles. Another remake, Galaga: Destination Earth, was released in 1998 for Windows, the PlayStation, and the Game Boy Color.

A Galaga Remix game was part of the 2007 Wii compilation Namco Museum Remix and its 2010 follow-up compilation, Namco Museum Megamix, but its gameplay completely unlike that of the original—the Wii Remote is used as a gun, and players must "protect Pac-Man as he rolls through space, and quickly shoot down invading forces before they attack him."^[10]

Galaga, along with Galaxian, Gaplus, and Galaga '88, was "redesigned and modernized"^[11] for an iPhone app compilation called the Galaga 30th Collection, released in commemoration of the event by Namco Bandai.^[12]

A free-to-play Galaga game based on the anime and manga Space Dandy, was announced under the name Space Galaga. The game follows Meow on a quest to capture rare aliens and has the same mechanics as the original arcade game. Additions to this game include free customization of the Aloha Oe and multiplayer competitive versus. It is released for Apple and Android smartphones.

Reception and legacy[edit]

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (September 2012)

Reception
Review score Publication Score AllGame [13]

AllGame rated the arcade version 5 out of 5 stars.^[14] Famicom Tsūshin scored the Game Boy version of the game a 24 out of 40 upon release.^[15] The NES version received a score of 80% from Joystick upon release,^[16] and later 8 out of 10 from GameSpy.^[17]

In 1996, Next Generation listed the arcade version at number 96 in their "Top 100 Games of All Time", citing the innovations it added to the Space Invaders formula, in particular that ships can be captured and rescued and players can gain two simultaneous shots.^[18] In an article on MAME-based arcade game emulation, Games magazine's Eric Berlin placed Galaga among his top 7 best holding-up titles from the past, and he described the game as one of the few titles of the era to add new twists to the Space Invaders formula by allowing the aliens to capture your ship.^[19] Game Informer ranked it the 19th best video game in 2001. The staff felt that it was still the best shooter of its kind.^[20] It has been included among the best video games of all time by various other publications, including Electronic Gaming Monthly (in 1997,^[21] 2001^[22] and 2006^[23]), G4,^[24] GameFAQs (in 2004^[25] and 2009^[26]), GameSpy,^[27] GameTrailers,^[28] IGN,^[29] Killer List of Videogames,^[30] and Time magazine.^[31]

In December 2017 XSplit and Meow Wolf announced a Galaga World Championship. Entitled Score Wars the four day event will stream on Twitch.tv and has both amateur and pro-level competitions with $1,500 and $10,000 first place prizes, respectively. The competition was held at Meow Wolf's House of Eternal Return on Santa Fe, New Mexico March 29 through April 1, 2018.^[32] Andrew Barrow of New Zealand won the $10,000 first prize.

Records[edit]

The world record highest score for Galaga was set in June 1989 by Stephen Krogman of Boca Raton, Florida. Krogman scored 15,999,990 points based on Marathon settings.^[33] On April 29, 2018, Armando Gonzalez of Los Angeles, California, achieved a world record high score of 6,056,490 points on the much harder Tournament settings.^[34] The Rapid-Fire settings^[35] (depression of the fire button causing continuous shooting) world record is held by Jon E. Klinkel of Battle Creek, Michigan, with a world record high score of 3,210,590 points.

On April 1st, 2018, Andrew Barrow became the inaugural Galaga world champion after winning the Score Wars Pro Galaga Tournament^[36].

In 2001, Namco released Ms. Pacman / Galaga Class of 1981 as part of a compilation. The world record highest score for Galaga based on the Fast-Shoot Speed settings^[37] (where bullets are fired at a much faster rate than the original fire version) is held by Daniel Rodriguez of Hialeah, Florida, who achieved 4,300,360 points.

Galaga in popular culture[edit]

Galaga Christmas tree ornament

In 1983, shortly after Galaga was released in the United States, MGM sent a Galaga machine to Matthew Broderick for him to practice prior to shooting the movie WarGames. He practiced for two months and the Galaga arcade unit makes two appearances in the film.

In 2007, the ABC TV series Lost included a submarine named Galaga, in honor of the arcade game. Writers of the series would often play the game between writing sessions.^[38]

In 2009, the Hallmark greeting card company released a Christmas tree ornament shaped like a Galaga arcade machine, complete with sound clips from the game.^[39]

American musician Frank Ocean mentioned the game Galaga in his verse of the 2012 Odd Future song Oldie. ^[40]

In the 2013 novel University, set in the 1980s, one segment focuses on a marathon Galaga session, with wheelchair-bound freshman Dwight Manning making a run at the then-existing world record.^[41]

The TV show Once Upon a Time shows the character Henry Mills playing Galaga in an arcade on episode 15 of season 7, Sisterhood, released on the 30th of May, 2018.

Film[edit]

Galaga appeared in the following movies: WarGames (1983), The Karate Kid (1984), Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), and Pixels (2015) as the first game that attacks.^[42]

Galaga appeared briefly in 2012's The Avengers. Upon entering S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Helicarrier, Tony Stark catches an agent playing Galaga and remarks, "That man is playing Galaga. Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did." After the Avengers' team meeting, the agent returns to his game.^[43]

Video game[edit]

The Galaga boss is an item in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. Players can throw the boss at enemies, and the boss will then proceed to use its tractor beam to lift the opponents away.

The Galaga boss returns as an item in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. A medley of the music from Galaga also appears in the game, arranged by comoposer Yusuke Takahama.

Television series[edit]

Roberto Orci will executive produce an animated television series entitled Galaga Chronicles together with The Nuttery Entertainment. ShadowMachine will handle the animation production while Orci will help shape the creative. Santa-Fe based Meow Wolf is also on board as a producer.^[44]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Sellers, John (2001). Arcade Fever: The Fan's Guide to the Golden Age of Video Games. Running Press. ISBN 0-7624-0937-1.

External links[edit]

• Galaga at the Killer List of Videogames
• Galaga at the Arcade History database
• Galaga at MobyGames
• Galaga on Mobile at NamcoGames.com
• Score Wars: Galaga World Championship Official Website