50 Years of Video Games: Galaga (Arcade)

In 1981 Namco was riding high on the success of Pac-Man from the previous year, but Pac-Man was only the start of Namco’s holy trinity of arcade classics. 1980 had Pac-Man, 1982 would have Dig Dug, and sandwiched between them is a space shooter called Galaga that stands out from the two games it rubs shoulders with in that it is a direct sequel to a previous Namco hit. Galaxian released in 1979 and was actually the company’s first big hit, and while it is one of the first full color arcade games to hit the market, its legacy has mostly been pushed aside in favor of Galaga’s even greater popularity. Looking at the two games though they seem remarkably similar, Galaga not really innovating so much as building off the groundwork Galaxian had placed. However, the reason Galaga ended up earning greater public recognition, more sequels directly referencing the Galaga name, and more rereleases than Galaxian all comes down to one remarkably simple factor: Galaga is just better.

One of the first small but meaningful changes between the two vertical space shooters comes in how enemies are added to the star field. In Galaxian they all appear already in formation, but Galaga begins each round of play with a nice touch that gives the player chance to get in early strikes on the enemy forces. The insect-like aliens fly in from the edges of the screen in small formations, the player’s spacecraft stationed at the bottom of the screen and able to start landing shots before the aliens have even settled into their designated on-screen positions. The enemies aren’t just passively entering the screen during this though, as depending on the round, they can prove to be much more troublesome than foes who are already dangerous to the touch. Every enemy in Galaga can open fire on you with their own lasers, and while this is managed so that only a few fire at a time and the number of shots starts low and grows as you get into deeper rounds, this isn’t the only danger posed by arriving aliens. Some of the creatures that arrive in a group never intended to join the group formation that the aliens are working to build. These aliens will dive bomb down towards the player, this opening segment of each round both giving you a chance to score plenty of quick kills but also packing in a danger that keeps it exciting.

Once all the groups of aliens have settled into their desired positions on screen, you’ll likely have done a fair bit for wiping out their forces but not enough to prevent them from having a still sizeable group. Most of the aliens will mildly drift in and out of position to make hitting them a little more involved than shooting stagnant targets, but the dive bombing tactic is still being relied on as aliens will gradually break away and start diving down towards you to try and earn a kill. Earlier the dive bombing enemies were no longer a concern if they left the screen, but now if they do get past your ship they’ll only reappear shortly after near the top and continue their dives until you finally wipe them out. We’ll still have aliens opening fire during this portion as well so Galaga ends up a shooter where you can rarely keep still for long but the difficulty scaling ensures the challenge is usually present but manageable unless you’ve cornered yourself hiding too much from aliens and lasers.

The player’s star ship is barred from any vertical movement but can travel across the bottom at a decent enough speed to keep up with the enemy action, and since you can have two fairly quick firing laser shots active on screen at once, you can rapidly begin working through aliens and most of them will go down to a single shot. Your spacecraft is similarly vulnerable, blowing up the moment it is touched by an enemy or attack, but you get three lives to get in as deep as you can and besides the difficult scaling things don’t change too much between rounds. Eventually there will be a few new enemy types introduced, a single bee or butterfly per round mutating into a new shape and splitting into three creatures that all dive down towards you at once. It’s not the kind of new variable that will change things up much but it is a small garnish that adds a little more flavor to the fights that don’t really get repetitive because of the opening segments. You can’t really guarantee which enemies you’ll shoot down as they arrive so you can be left with a very different enemy grouping than the last round based on your preliminary work.

There are special bonus rounds during the Challenging Stages section where you actually don’t need to worry about your safety so much as you are given a chance to rack up points to earn extra lives. These stages feature enemies flying about in groups similar to the regular rounds but they never get into battle formation, the player needing to shoot as many as they can and earning extra points if they can wipe out a whole group. These stages actually feature a few unique enemies not seen elsewhere in the game like dragonflies and spaceships that look remarkably similar to the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek. Mostly these feel like a nice breather round between the constant peril other stages of Galaga provide, and while those aren’t often overwhelming, it is nice to be able to cool down and do what amounts to target practice before being thrown back in with the deadly aliens.

While the bees and butterflies make up most of the forces you fight in Galaga and are mostly differentiated by the bees adding a loop-de-loop to their bombing runs, as they line up in rows you’ll notice some special spacecraft lining up near the back. If you do allow the enemies to enter formation unopposed the front two rows of their pyramid shape will consist of 10 bees each and above those are two rows with 8 butterflies each, but the four green and yellow ships at the very top aren’t recognizable insect shapes. These instead are the creatures mentioned in the game’s title, the Boss Galagas requiring two shots to destroy and packing a unique attack. Sometimes as they dive down a Boss Galaga might come to a stop partway and emit a large tractor beam to try and capture your space ship. Not only does this briefly deny a good bit of your horizontal movement, but if you go into it, you will be abducted and lose that starship. What makes this more interesting is what happens to that ship after you come back in with a new life.

Once a Boss Galaga has a player’s ship in its clutches, it converts it to the enemy’s side, that Boss Galaga now dragging it down during its dive bombs to assist it. You can destroy your own former ship to remove it from play, but if you’re careful and shoot down the Boss Galaga instead, that old ship is free from its clutches and now joins your side instead. Settling in right next to your current spacecraft, the player will now be able to fire with both ships at once, allowing for up to four shots to be active on screen and doubling your effectiveness. It is a bit hard to keep both ships alive for a long time since you’re now twice as wide, but the extra firepower can do wonders for clearing away the opposition much more quickly. You can’t repeat this trick so two fighters at once is the max, but this does make the Boss Galaga’s tractor beam usage an interesting value proposition. Do you spend one life to earn the extra firepower? Do you think you can handle the dodging now that you’re much larger? Are you worried you might accidentally destroy your previous ship rather than freeing it from the Boss Galaga’s clutches?

The extra ship mechanic adds a new strategic layer to an already exciting action game that could have done well just on the strong two phase gameplay loop. With a memorable yet short jingle welcoming you to the game and an almost echoing rendition appearing after Challenging Stages you also get a little musical intro fitting for a space game, but the stars behind the action aren’t just plain white dots. The colorful dots twinkle in and out of the background without interfering with visibility, the player and enemy lasers almost shaped like little spears that are a decent size and made up of two solid colors. I could see a bit of vertical movement from the player adding a little more depth to the dodging and it would be hard to turn down more enemy variation if offered, but Galaga really does nail the elements it does feature ensuring longevity and replayability because the variables it does feature are included with a good amount of thought.

THE VERDICT: Galaga manages to inject a lot of player-controlled variety into its space shooting action with the simple choice of having the aliens first need to arrive before they can line up in formation. The player is given a chance to thin the ranks and thus the formation’s shape when it is finished won’t be similar between rounds, and with the enemies fairly hostile and dangerous as they dive bomb down and open fire as well, you’re almost always contending with active opponents. Challenging Stages are a break of sorts to give you some time to recuperate, but the action in Galaga remains exciting whether you’re getting into deeper and deeper rounds or simply replaying the earlier ones due to a game over. Throw in the tactical considerations surrounding Boss Galaga’s tractor beam and you find a surprisingly well rounded experience despite the game technically having only a small selection of unique variables.

And so, I give Galaga for arcade machines…

A GOOD rating. Being able to have two shots active practically makes Galaga twice as good as Galaxian with its single shot play, two lasers allowing for faster action and the aliens you’re gunning down are even designed around resisting your satisfying level of firepower. Their movements make it so you have to think a bit about your shots unless you want to just keep firing and hope but you are never left making such a large decision that it slows down the always active gameplay. Boss Galaga’s tractor beam is also an easy thing to consider since its benefits aren’t too complicated, the player able to weigh up the risks and either go for it or avoid it as they see fit. Having a second ship is a nice but risky power trip but not at all needed to feel effective, so while the difficulty can sometimes set you back once the scaling really starts to lead to laser-filled screens, Galaga never loses its pure and simple charms. In fact, by having the only big shakeup being the addition of the transforming enemies that don’t even add too much to the experience, not making it into the deeper rounds is an easier pill to swallow when you do fail.

It is a little sad it took until 1981 for this 50 Years of Games series to pull up a truly good game that stands the test of time, but it also speaks to Galaga’s tight design that it is the first to break through. It may have similar ideas in scaling to Pac-Man, but despite always bringing in the same enemies for most rounds, Galaga allows them to be molded into different arrangements and small random elements like which alien will dive bomb next means it’s not a predictable game. The entrance phase is the simple but strong addition made over Galaxian, but by having other helpful touches like easy to see lasers that even later games somehow can’t get right means Galaga does stand the test of time and doesn’t require nostalgia or historical importance to prop it up.