EVERYTHING WE'VE THOUGHT WE KNEW ABOUT THE NATURE OF TRASH GAMES IS JUST...GONE OUT THE WINDOW.
WE'RE NOT PREPARED FOR THIS.
Time to crack some laughs with Lea.
Oh, God. Looks like Pix Arts is still on the loose. This time we will take a look at Galagi Shooter.
Where's Bandai Namco to sue Pix Arts?
Galagi Shooter is, like its name implies, a clone of Namco's Galaga, the timeless vertical shmup where you have to shoot down the alien insects before they complete a "Pyramid" pattern. This game makes a few twists to that aspect of the game. First off, the game is splitted in four worlds of 16 levels, removing the endless levels of Galaga. Each stage is splitted in waves and you can notice how far you can get as you fill the "Progress" bar on the left side of the screen. The weaponry of the game was also changed. There's no "capture and recover" ship mechanic to power yourself up but instead you're granted multiple weapons like Auto-Aim Lasers that shoot bullets and Auto-Aim Vulcan (Phaser) that shoots enemies automatically, along with the Shield item and the screen clearing bomb. The most notorious flaw about this game is that your weapon is on autofire, kinda like the Vulcan in the Genesis port of After Burner II, so you'll be more concentrated on move the ship. This game also grants you a health bar, but once again is nearly useless thanks to the "Oh, you've guessed it" Turridamage. Everytime you die and respawn, you can still take damage in your "respawn invincibility blink", making things unfair since the game will rely on some bullet hell elements and a nasty surprise on the third "World" which I'm about to mention right now.
Level 12 is definitely being "Stucked at Limbo"
Azura Station is the worst "World" of the game, with enemies that move way too fast for your weapons, and is not just a single enemy typer. ALL the enemies move to those erratic speeds, even the boss there, and to make things even worse, the boss flies off the screen leaving you shooting at nothing (and wasting your weapons energy) for 2 minutes or even more, and I say this because everytime it goes offscreen it takes more and more time for him to return up to 6 minutes! That's not challenge, that's complete bullshit. Zero creativity or challenge born to annoy the player and being as frustrating as possible. So if you get stucked in Azura Station Stage 4 (Level 12) or you wasted 1 hour on the boss and even gave up on finishing the game, then I understand you. This is a clear testimony of "TEST YOUR GAME BEFORE RELEASING IT".
PERFECT! *Gets bonus points*
You've must defeat my patience to stand a chance.
All the levels have the same result: a Street Fighter-esque "YOU WIN" text which contrasts with the Super Mario font Game Over screen. That's your ending "You Win" and the Stage 16 Gold Trophy. Pix Arts didn't care on including a Platinum for all your troubles.
Maverick's opinion about this and all "Trash Games" is more than clear.
Looks like getting trophies are not gonna be a redeeming value this time.
Microscopic Menu's that require you to get closer to the screen.
Before talking about the graphics, let's talk about the menu first. It's very small and lame, like if the game designer didn't care to AT LEAST make it on a decent size ¿Who on his/her right mind thought this was a good idea?. Time to talk about the graphic aspects of the game. Graphically is a repetitive outer space background of nebulae and planets which look quite decently made like an average Photoshop work. While the insects of Bug Colony are total ripoffs of Galaga's insects that makes you wonder "Where's Namco to sue whoever is involved with this game?", although it shifts to more original, yet uninsipred designs. Yeah, looks like plagiarism is the new trend 'cos if Disney-Pixar's Lightyear has a Vic Viper-rip off, and Roland Emmerich's Moonfall had planet Cybertron as the moon along with a Halo ring, this Galaga plagiarism doesn't surprise me. Even Pulstar with all its R-Type nods, was more original than this. The music is also very uninspired as well. The title screen sound like an epic theme, but it lasts for a few seconds 'cos the game sends you automatically to the Level Select. Yeah, this game has no "Press Start" (Options for PlayStation owners). The stage select is very chiptune like in between the styles of Low-G-Man and the 100-in-1 Contra Function 16 bootleg multicart.
GALAGI TRIVIA
- The name, while is clearly a reference to Galaga, looks much more like a mis-spelling of Galaxy Shooter, and this leads to unwanted search results in google for that other shmup.
JUST DIE ALREADY, TRASHFALL!!
I don't know why there's no authority to stop Pix Arts from releasing trash on our consoles.
I don't care if you're on a trophy hunt and you want a few trophies, Galagi Shooter is more of the same usual trash from Pix Arts that makes Rapjam Volume One a complete masterpiece.
¿What did the shmup genre do to suffer all these trash games? That's a question that might last forever I guess.
Cruel(teared) and Unusual Punishment