Get up to 6x firepower[edit]
A concept in this game which improves on one of the most interesting features of Galaga is the red "blaster head" occasionally yielded by the Kings; by killing the King on the current stage (or "parsec", as they are called by the game) when he is attacking with it, it shall fall down onto the top of your ship. You can then get up to 6x firepower by capturing as many Zako, Goei, Cap and Ado as you can in the resulting tractor beam, which forces them to fight their alien comrades alongside you - and the entire sequence, much like the opening for any non-bonus stage from the inceptive Galaga, goes like this:
- You survive the entrance section. (Note: If you are killed before all the aliens have taken their places in the formation, the stage shall start over from the beginning, unlike in the regular stages of the inceptive Galaga, but if you are down to your last life when this happens it will cost you the game.)
- When the King appears at the top of the formation, he will have the red blaster head in tow; after shooting him once, you have to wait until he starts attacking before you shoot him a second time, because if you should kill him while he is still in the formation, he will take the blaster head with him.
- Once you have killed the King while he is attacking, the gameplay will freeze for a few seconds as the blaster head falls down and lands on the top of your ship (which, regardless of how high up it had been on the screen, will have automatically moved back down to the bottom of it at this point).
- A multicoloured energy beam will start emanating from the top of the blaster head; try to capture as many aliens as you can in it by moving left and right across the screen's bottom (as pushing the joystick in any other direction has no effect) before it deactivates and the blaster head disappears.
- If any aliens are caught in the beam they will line up on either side of your ship after the beam has deactivated and proceed to move and fire at the same time it does; however, they are still vulnerable to their comrades' bullets. (Note: Although any aliens that may be working alongside your ship shall normally be killed individually when hit by a bullet, if your ship itself is hit by a bullet or crashed into by an alien, they shall all be killed with it.)
Challenging Stages[edit]
A Challenging Stage occurs on the third stage and every fifth stage thereafter; they are very different from those of the original Galaga. When the bonus enemies (which are Type 3 Zako) appear, you shall have to "juggle" them with your shots after shooting them once in order to slowly spell a secret word out with "mini-Zako" symbols at the top of the screen for extra bonus points - and you shall receive 100 points for each red "mini-Zako" you registered at the top of the screen in the secret word itself, along with 200 points for every green one you registered in the four rows of twenty-four above it. The eight secret words, along with the initial stages you have to spell them out on and the maximum point values you can get for spelling them out, are as follows:
| Stage | Secret word | Maximum point value possible |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | BONUS | 37800 |
| 8 | GAPLUS | 65200 |
| 13 | DOUBLE | 50600 |
| 18 | TRIPLE | 78300 |
| 23 | GOOD!! | 95500 |
| 28 | LUCKY | 27200 |
| 33 | BYEBYE | 25000 |
| 38 | EXTEND | 25000 |
The maximum point value for the third stage also includes a 10000-point bonus you shall receive for completing the word BONUS, while the one for the eighth stage can only be achieved if you press the Firing Button while the rapidly-changing bonus you shall receive for completing the word GAPLUS is on 40000; furthermore, those for the thirteenth and eighteenth stages include the results getting multiplied by two and three respectively, for completing the words DOUBLE and TRIPLE. The maximum point value for the twenty-third stage can also only be achieved if you press the Firing Button while the rapidly-changing bonus you will receive for completing the word GOOD!! is on 70000 - and if you complete the word LUCKY on the twenty-eighth stage you will receive a ship part (which the Kings will sometimes appear yielding instead of a "blaster head", and if you kill them while they are attacking, the part will fall down into the bottom-right corner of the screen, where it will count towards earning an extra life outside of the predetermined point values), but if you have two parts at this point you will not receive a third. Conversely, if you complete the word BYEBYE on the thirty-third stage, you will lose a ship part (unless you do not have any parts to lose, in which case you will lose 10000 points instead, so completing the word is not advisable if you are playing for points and devoid of parts on this stage); finally, if you complete the word EXTEND on the thirty-eighth stage, you shall receive an extra life. Once you have reached the forty-third stage, the cycle of secret words will start repeating again and continue until you reach the seventy-eighth stage.
How to get the "Hypership" (the bottom ship on the title screen)[edit]
At the start of the first stage, the player needs to move the ship up the screen until it stops and just let it sit there without shooting anything until all forty-three of the aliens have taken their place in the formation; after a Shooting Star (
) appears, the player must shoot the second Zako from the left in the bottom row of the formation, without hitting any other enemies. A Rally-X Special Flag (which is worth an extra life when collected, but the player should not take it) shall then appear - and when the King flies down, the player has to crash into him (but not the "blaster head" that he is yielding) to transform their regular ship into a "Hypership" (
) that can fire three shots on the screen at a time instead of just two. However, if you fail to do this correctly, you will not have any other chances in the game. Note: Firing enough shots at the Shooting Star prior to explosion is also rumored to grant the Hypership.
Enter your name, age, and blood group[edit]
In the original Japanese versions of this game, you will be asked to enter your name (up to six characters), age, and blood group on the high score table once you have lost your last life; if you do not know what your blood group is, you can either enter two question marks in those spaces instead of a two-letter combination or just leave them blank. However, the later US versions of the game only allow players to enter up to three characters in their names as opposed to six - and they also do away with the age and blood group spaces, replacing them with the number of the stage that the player made it to.