SEEMS LIKE WE'RE NOT THE ONLY ONES HOLDING ON TO OLD RELICS
Time to review the first Arcade Archives title of the year, which is no other than Namco's Galaga.
For all you folks at home, this is how you bury a fossil!
While the premise of Galaga and its basic mechanics are the same as Galaxian, there's a slight twist on the scoring mechanic rules. First off, it reduces the insect types from 4 to three: The yellow insect "Zako" gives you 50 points while on the pyramid and 100 during its diving attack, the red one called "Goei" worths 80 standing and 160 diving. And the main alien "Boss Galaga" is worth 150 standing, 400 diving. And this is where we get the catch. The Boss Galaga is like the Galboss from Galaxian. It utilizes small insects as escorts, but the scoring mechanic has changed. It no longer requires the "Kill the escorts, then the leader" to get the high bonus. If you take down the leader alien without hitting both escorts, you'll get 1600 points, and if you hit the leader if it has one escort with it you'll get 800 points but here's the catch: Leaders now take two hits before going down. If these changes might not look much enough to make it differ from Galaxian, the major features kick in as soon as you start playing. First off, your fire rate was increased from 1 shot to a more decent rate of 2 bullets on-screen, giving you a slighter advantage against the insects.
Freedom, Freedom! We will not obey!
Freedom, Freedom! Take the wall away!
This is also the first shmup to feature a power up. However it will cost you a life doing it. ¿Why? Because you have to let one of your ships to be captured by the Boss Galaga. Once its captured you can free it by taking the insect down. There's a risk of taking the ship down, if that happens you'll get 500 points when its stationary and 1000 when it attacks you. But if you shoot the Boss Galaga, the rescued ship will dock with yours and you'll be rewarded with twin fire which grants you a basic, yet considerable advantage against your enemy, but also becomes you a larger target since you're two ships wide.
Sorry if I didn't took a screenshot of the bonus stage formations.
I was going for the 100% bonus, you know.
Another major improvement over Galaxian is the inclusion of the "Challenging Stage" which is the bonus level of the game where your accuracy is the key factor on high scoring since the objective here is to kill all the insects possible. Unlike the main levels, all of them are fast passing formations. If you missed one or two, they're not coming back. Something that I've noticed is that the Midway version had a hidden bonus when the player doesn't shoot all the stage, while the Namco version lacks of it. ¿How did I knew this? in the Arcade Game Series port of Galaga.
Can't believe this. That fly became a bunch of scorpions!
Once you're on Stage 4, things will make unexpected changes. For instance, the Zako will suddenly blink and split into a mini-formation of 3 scorpions called Owagamushi. The Owagamushis are capable of leaving the stage without coming back, but taking the Owagamushis down will grant you 1000 points. In levels 8 to 10 the insects will become a green spaceship called Ei. Eis are worth 2000 points when the mini-formation of three ships is destroyed, and finally from stage 12 to 14 the Galboss from Galaxian, which grants you 3000 points for the whole mini-formation. In the Challenging Stages you'll be facing even more stranger creatures like the dragonfly Tonbo, the satellite Momiji and the Enterprise which resembles the Enterprise from Star Trek.
Nice try. This stuff isn't for you guys.
One of the things that we don't mind about is the firing accuracy in shmups, when you're in that battle for survival, the only thing that matters is to see your enemy going down before you do. In Galaga's case, it bothers to test our accuracy by telling us how many shots we've fired and how many were right on target. For that time, it was pretty innovating since most of the times we've thought of shmups as mindless button mashers.
So that's the differences between releases.
The Arcade Archives port is surely the latest console port of Galaga, even right after Namco released the game as part of their Arcade Game Series, the game has a vast history of home ports from the Sord M5 port (renamed as Galax) to the re-releasing of the NES game as part of Namco Museum Archives. The Arcade Archives release of Galaga includes the "Old" and "Final" versions of the game, both based on the Japanese ROM for obvious reasons, but for those who are new around, an International release would require licensing from Midway (now NetherRealm Studios) and I don't think Hamster would want to pay for it. The only differences are the obvious replacement of "© 1981 NAMCO LTD." and its logo with "© 1981 MIDWAY MFG. CO." and the Midway exclusive hidden bonus which I've mentioned before. The game had the Pac-Man glitch of breaking down after clearing level 255, which was fixed in the "Final Version". The Hi-Score Mode can be run on either Old version "Rank A" or the Final Version on "Rank D".
Stage 20, that's more than an ace!
Audiovisually is almost the same as its predecessor as we're pitted against space insects with a very simple and basic color palette. The player's ship is completely new and more original than Galaxian's Y-Wing ripoff from Star Wars. The aliens are also new as they look much more like insects such as flies and moths with the exception of the leader which has a more alien look. Unlike Galaxian's weird noise after starting the game, Galaga has a more introductory fanfare, and this is where the game takes a step ahead as it includes more music tunes like "Fighter Captured", "Fighter Rescued", the in-between level fanfare and the bonus challenge clear tune, but the stages still remain silent leaving the sound effects just like the did in Galaxian. Just pick some 80's-90's tunes and you're all set for an arcade room like atmosphere. Well, let me make you a small playlist.
Van Halen - Jump
AC/DC - Heatseeker
Maxx - Get Away
Real McCoy - Run Away
La Bouche - Be My Lover
TRIVIALAGA
- Unlike Galaxian, Galaga never had an Atari 2600 port, although it made its way to the Atari 7800.
- This was the second (and penultimate) entry in the series released by Midway.
- The Atari 7800 cover art depicts the insects as piloted machines shaped like insects.
- For some reason, the NES release added the subtitle "Demons of Death".
- Like Dig Dug, Pac-Man, Battle City, Contra and Bomberman, Galaga was constantly used on pirate Famiclone multicarts.
- There's bootleg version of the arcade game called Nebulous Bee.
- In the PlayStation port of Tekken, Galaga is a hidden mini-game.
- The Arcade Archives manual calls the Galboss as "Gyaruboss" which is kinda odd since in other Namco games they spelled its name right.
- The name "Ogawamushi" means "Small River Insect". They're also called Sasori which means "Scorpion".
- The "Ei" ship is also called "Midori" which means "Green".
- "Tonbo" means "Dragonfly".
- "Momiji" means "Maple Tree", the Japanese Maple Tree also known as Acer palmatum.
- The word "Zako" has multiple meanings like "Small Fish", "Small Fry" and "Nobody". Curiously, that word is often used on shmups to refer the enemies that appear constantly and fall easily, also known as "Popcorn Enemy".
- "Goei" means "Guard" or "Escort", which fits perfectly because that's what they do for the Boss Galaga.
- The Ei/Midori later appeared as "Spy Ships" in Bosconian.
- Galaga is part of the United Galaxy Space Force and it takes pace in the year 2281.
- The world record of Galaga is 20,980,450 points by Eastern Iowa gamer Jordan Dorrington.
Just another day of repeling an alien invasion.
Arcade Archives: Galaga is a recommendation mostly for old-school shmuppers since today's fans will find it boring or something of "Grandma's days" due to its simplicity but it manages to take a stand among overall more advanced shooters.
Despite the disordered way the series were released, Namco completed the main trilogy of their old school shmup series. ¿We will see the continuation Galaga '88 or even the 1996's Galaga Arrangement? That's up to them right now.
An old school classic gets a positive result today.