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Galaga is a spiritual successor to Galaxian. Building on the formula established by Galaxian, Galaga introduces several new concepts to the fixed vertical shooting genre that made it incredibly popular in the arcades. It can still be found in arcades to this day, and performs rather well next to more modern day offerings.
The most notable new feature of Galaga is the chance to increase your fire power by intentionally allowing one of the Galaga flagships to capture your space craft, and rescue it with your next life, returning the original ship to your side. Upon rescuing your ship, you are granted side-by-side double fire power, albeit with an increase in size, and therefore, vulnerability. Another popular feature of Galaga was its presentation of Bonus Rounds between the action which offered large point awards for perfection.
Galaga seems to represent something of a "sweet spot" in game design, having performed better than either its predecessor and it successor, Gaplus. However, despite it's incredible popularity in the arcade, it saw comparatively few official home conversions in the United States. Several homebrew programmers supplied alternate versions stateside, while Japan saw an incredible number of conversions for popular computer models only available in the land of the rising sun.
Table of contents
- Controls & Characters
- Strategies & Secrets
- Home Version Comparisons
- Achievements (Xbox Live Arcade only)
Story
There is no official story to Galaga. You are simply the only pilot capable of staving off the invasion of the Galaga army, a collection of giant sized insect looking aliens.
Gameplay summary
- You control the spaceship at the bottom with the joystick. Press the fire button to fire up at the Galaga formation.
- The Galaga formation will fly on to the screen in parts until the formation is assembled.
- You must destroy every enemy in the formation to advance to the next stage.
- You must avoid contact with every enemy and their bullets.
- Diving enemies are worth more points than those in formation.
- The more escorts that a flagship dives with, the more points it's worth.
- Occasionally, flagships will hover in midair and emit a tractor beam. Enter the tractor beam to get captured.
- Once a fighter is captured, rescue it (but don't shoot it) from a diving flagship (not in formation) to have it rejoin you for double fire power.
- Bonus rounds test your accuracy. Earn more bonus points for more enemies destroyed.