Arcade Archives: Galaxian (PS4|5 - Switch)

Submit your reviews here - please see guidelines topic
Post Reply
User avatar
Sturmvogel Prime
Posts: 842
Joined: Sat Oct 11, 2008 4:23 am
Location: Autobot City, Sugiura Base

Arcade Archives: Galaxian (PS4|5 - Switch)

Post by Sturmvogel Prime »

DANGER ZONE (PART XIX)
HOW WE GONNA GET THIS MUSEUM PIECE IN THE AIR?



Before start reading the review, please empty your "Danmaku" filled mind for a while. 'Cos this Arcade Archives review will be about an "Older than the NES" shmup.
Today's review, we will check a real "Blast from the Past": Arcade Archives: Galaxian.
Bradley ''Rooster'' Bradshaw wrote:Oh, my God. This thing is so old.


Image
Galaxian, for your PlayStation 4 Video Computer System.

It was quite a surprise that Namco decided to bring this to the Arcade Archives after the great leap they've made since their beginnings in the series with Pac-Man and Xevious. I don't blame you since you were thrilled and amazed with titles like Assault and Ordyne and all of a sudden Namco makes a turn and you're playing a game as old as Disco. But there's a reason why they've waited to release this. It is the 300th consecutive week of the Arcade Archives series (yeah, counting the Switch exclusive Nintendo games), and this game along with Tetris: The Grand Master are part of that celebration.

Let's go with Galaxian, shall we? For those who were born in the 90-2000's when the last of the Galaxian cabinets were thrown away in favor of more advanced games like those of the Neo-Geo and Capcom's CPS2, talking about a 1979 shmup will sound like a history lesson. The gameplay of Galaxian is in part identical to that of Taito's Space Invaders. In fact, this was Namco's response to Taito's arcade hit which was released in 1978. While both games consist on destroying the alien formations, in Galaxian's case, there's no worries about being ran over by them, but at the same time, there's no barriers to hide from the enemy attack, exposing you completely to the enemy attack. This is only the beginning of the differences and the new gameplay mechanics of Galaxian.

I said differences because the gameplay is unique, to begin with, you're faced with a "Pyramidal" formation of aliens: 30 Green Aliens on the bottom, 8 Purple Aliens, 6 Red Aliens and 2 Galboss for a total of 46 Aliens, sometimes, the wave adds a third Galboss for a total of 47. While this is less than Taito's staggering amount of 55 Invaders, that doesn't mean Galaxian is gonna go easy on the player. Instead of approaching you and ram you away, one, two or even three Aliens will detach from the formation or "Convoy" as the game calls it, and will go down to you shooting you as they dive down. When they attack, the Aliens become "Chargers", and this is where an entirely new score mechanic takes place: Score Duplication, as it doubles the score when the Alien is diving towards you.



Image
HINT: Distance is the key to the high score.

Believe it or not, this score duplication rule applies to all the Aliens in the game.

GREEN ALIEN: 30 Points (Convoy) - 60 Points (Charger)
PURPLE ALIEN: 40 Points (Convoy) - 80 Points (Charger)
RED ALIEN: 50 Points (Convoy) - 100 Points (Charger)
GALBOSS: 60 Points (Convoy) - 150 Points (Charger)

However, the Galboss holds the "Special Feature" of the score mechanic. While hitting him alone when diving worths the 150 points, it has other 3 bonus rewards. The first one is when it flies out of the Convoy with one single Red Alien, if you hit the Galboss instead of the escort Red Alien, you'll get 200 points. If you hit it while flying with 2 Escorts, it will give you 300, but if you take down both "Escorts" and then the Galboss, you'll be rewarded with 800 points for taking the risk. This is the major reward of this game. But its up to you if you want to take the risk because if you're on the far left or right, the bullets or a collision will destroy your ship. So you can decide if you want to go for the score and attack once they're diving or do the "Rookie Mistake" and shoot them on their Convoy positions. I call that "Rookie Mistake" 'cos back then we didn't knew about the simple in-and-outs of Galaxian worked, we've just put the quarter, pushed Start and then shoot until we've lost our last ship. Most of the times we've preferred to shoot them before they break the formation rather than take the risks. It was pretty much of a rookie move, but unknown to us, we've get less points.

Galaxian was ported "to death" on many consoles and home computers: Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 8-Bit, Colecovision, Nintendo Entertainment System, Commodore 64, Sharp X1, Vic-20, DOS/PC Booter and even handhelds like the Coleco Table Top and Entex Handheld, being the NES the most arcade accurate of them prior to the release in Namco Museum Vol.3 which was the closest thing to the arcade compared with the PSP and Nintendo DS versions, being the Arcade Archives port the latest of all of them. Unlike most Taito, SNK, Konami and a few Namco games which allowed you to play either Japanese or International releases, the Arcade Archives port of Galaxian are based on the Japanese ROM. As far, the only difference between Japan and the overseas version was that instead of the Namco logo on the title screen, it says Midway. Aside of that, the game was identical regardless of the region. As an Arcade Archives release, it features the obligatorious Hi-Score Mode and the 5 minute timed Caravan Mode for the sake of trophy boosting.

Graphically, it was more advanced than Space Invaders as it utilizes a color palette rather than an overlay where the game is projected. Making this decision an affordable yet useful alterntive. The background is no longer a static overlay as we have a colored starfield that scrolls forever, but the best part is the ship and enemy sprites which were far more advanced for the time being as we have recognizeable objects that resemble extraterrestrial insects while your ship was basically a clone of the Y-Wing from Star Wars, In fact, the developers were indeed inspired by the movie and the climatic scene of the attack on the Death Star, known as the Battle of Yavin. This was also an influence on the diving attack of the Galaxians which had TIE Fighter vibes, and back then, Star Wars was on its height of its novelty and Galaxian was among the games that followed the success of the movie. As for the sound department, it had this "Game Start" tune of some sorts and featured much more sound effects than Space Invaders, as the enemy formation is never quiet and ready to attack the player with this "Bmm, Bmm, Bmm, Bmm" that breaks the silence most of the times, except when they dive towards the player making a loud buzzing. On the other side, the player death explosion sounds quite realistic compared with the enemy explosion sounds.

Since this is a music-less game, like most late 70's-early/mid 80's games, you'd probably remember that the local arcades adressed that with music on their speakers. So here's a small Hi-NRG/ItaloDisco playlist for this game with some songs that you would remember or may be not. Anyway, prepare your PC speakers and have a nice retro boosted blast to the past.

Alien - Videogames (Gets in your brain) (This one was the "Arcade Anthem" back them)
Kano - It's a War
Sunbelt - Spin It
Stop - Wake Up
Charlie - Spacer Woman
Samantha Gilles - Let Me Feel It
Tapps - Runaway (with My Love)
Pamala Stanley - Coming Out of Hiding
The Clocks - Wake Up



TRIVIAXIAN

ImageImage
Bad Box Art Galaxians: More unaccurate than Megaman with a gun.

- When the game says "Player One", it uses a zero instead of an "O", resulting in "PLAYER 0NE".
- Midway's arcade flyers called the Galaxip as "Galax Ship".
- Galaxian appeared on the PlayStation port of Ridge Racer as a playable "Now Loading" screen.
- The Atari 2600 port had a release that included a comic from DC Comics as part of the Atari Force series.
- The second "No-Atari Force comic" release of the Atari 2600 artworks depicts the Galaxians as robotic birds.
- On the other side, the Atari 5200 cover art
(by J. Kelly according to the sign on the bottom right) depicted the Galaxians as winged humanoids.
- First title in the Galaxian series released by Midway and one of the first Namco games released by them.
- The Galboss became a frequent item in the Pac-Man universe.
- Nichibutsu used the Galaxian hardware to develop Moon Cresta.
- Galaxian, Galaga and Gaplus are part of the United Galaxy Space Force, Namco's multiverse comprising all of their Sci-Fi based games.



Image
Does that mean Galaxip pilots are from Usea and Emmeria?

- Since the promotional pics of the UGSF depicts the map of Strangereal from Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies, all of their games take place on the alternate Earth from the Ace Combat games.
- In fact, the UGSF timeline begins with Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere
(A.D. 2040).
- Within the UGSF timeline, Galaxian takes place in A.D. 2279, when the United Galaxy was under control of General Resource Ltd. and Neucom Incorporated.




Image
Just another trip to the memory lane.

Even if you've played Galaxian since the Atari era, it is nice to have this game again. We can expect to see Galaga in the series to complete the trilogy that Gaplus started. How ironic, building the trilogy in a random order.
If you're up to some "Older than gramps" shmup, then pick it. I'm sure only oldschoolers will like to revisit this game 'cos most today's kids would cry if you told them to play with this.



Image
On the "Lea Scale" this is a positive result.
Fan of Transformers, Shmups and Anime-styled Girls. You're teamed up with the right pilot!
Bringing you shmup and video game reviews with humorous criticism.

STG Wikias: Thunder Force Wiki - Wikiheart Exelica - Ginga Force Wiki
Post Reply