Galaga
Galaga | |
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Namco Galaga[4] |
Galaga
Shigeru Yokoyama led development with a small team. Initial planning took about two months to finish. Originally developed for the
Although early location tests were unsuccessful, Galaga received critical acclaim and went on to become one of the most successful arcade games, routinely appearing on Japanese and American arcade charts through 1987. It is widely regarded as a classic of the golden age of arcade video games and one of the greatest video games of all time. Critics applauded its gameplay, innovation, addictive nature and improvements made over its predecessor. Several home ports were released for a multitude of platforms, including the MSX, Atari 7800 and Nintendo Entertainment System, alongside releases on digital distribution platforms such as Xbox Live Arcade. Galaga is also included in many Namco compilations. It was followed by a sequel in 1984, Gaplus.
Gameplay
Galaga is a fixed shooter. The player mans a lone starfighter at the bottom of the screen, which must prevent the Galaga forces from destroying all of mankind.[5] The objective of each stage is to defeat all of the Galaga aliens, which will fly into formation from the top and sides of the screen.[6] Similar to Galaxian, aliens will dive towards the player while shooting down projectiles; colliding with either projectiles or aliens will result in a life being lost.[6]
Atop the enemy formation are four large aliens known as the "Boss Galaga", which take two shots to destroy. The ship will return in a later level as part of the formation.
Some enemies can morph into new enemy types with different attack patterns, with one even taking the form of the Galaxian Flagship.[6] Stages are indicated by emblems located at the bottom-right of the screen.[6] Enemies become more aggressive as the game progresses, increasing their number of projectiles and diving down at a faster rate.[5] The third stage and every fourth thereafter is a bonus stage, where the aliens fly in a preset formation without firing at the player.[6]
Development
Galaga was created by Japanese developer Shigeru Yokoyama, a long-time veteran of
The idea for the dual fighter stemmed from Yokoyama wanting to create enemies with different attack styles.[7] The tractor beam emitted by the Boss Galaga was inspired by a film in which a character's ship was captured by a circling laser.[7] Yokoyama incorporated this idea into Galaga, whereby an enemy could capture the player's ship with a beam and the ship would need to be rescued.[7] Originally, rescuing a captured ship would award the player an extra life, but this was soon changed to having it fight alongside the player.[7] This idea proved to be a problem at first; due to hardware limitations, the game could only display a limited number of sprites, resulting in the dual-fighter being unable to shoot any more missiles.[7] As a workaround, Yokoyama made a 16x16 sprite for the ship and a 16x16 sprite for the bullets, reducing the total sprite count by two.[7]
Inspired by the intermissions in Pac-Man (1980) and bonus stages in Rally-X (1980), Yokoyama added a special bonus level.[7] While planning, lead programmer Tetsu Ogawa informed him of a bug whereby enemies would simply fly off the screen instead of moving into formation.[7] Ogawa expressed interest in incorporating the idea into the game, leading to the inclusion of the Challenging Stages.[7] Enemies originally flew in one type of pattern, with more being added to increase replay value.[7] Graphic designer Hiroshi Ono designed many of the sprites, including the player's ship and the Boss Galaga alien.[7]
Prior to location testing, the team focused on designing the instruction card, a sheet of paper that showed how the game was played.[7] The text was done by the planners, while the actual design was handled by a graphic artist.[7] The card originally showed the control layout and the basics of the game, which was stripped early on for being too boring.[7] Yokoyama suggested that the card instead show off the dual fighter mechanic, as a means to draw in players.[7] The team kept bringing in designs to Namco president Masaya Nakamura, who continued to reject them until he ordered the team to simply make it in front of him.[7]
The team was allowed to set their own deadlines, due to Namco's then-laidback corporate structure.[7] Feedback on the project was given by Nakamura and other employees, including Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani.[7] Despite the game's immense popularity around the company, early location tests failed to meet expectations due to players being able to progress a long way with only one coin, thus generating low income.[7] Although Yokoyama stated that the game's popularity could still generate income, Namco executives instructed the team to increase the difficulty level.[7] Galaga was released in Japan in September 1981.[13] It was released in North America by Midway Games in October of that year.[5]
Conversions
Sega-Galaga, the first home conversion of Galaga, was published by
Namco published a
Galaga was included in Namco compilations including Namco Museum Vol. 1 (1995),[28] Namco Museum 64 (1996),[29] Namco Museum 50th Anniversary (2005),[30] Namco Museum Virtual Arcade (2008),[31] Namco Museum Essentials (2009),[32] and Namco Museum Megamix (2010).[33] The 2010 Wii game Pac-Man Party and its 2011 Nintendo 3DS version include Galaga as an extra, alongside the arcade versions of Dig Dug and Pac-Man.[34][35] In celebration of the game's 30th anniversary in 2011, a high-definition remake was released for iOS devices as part of Galaga 30th Collection, which also included remakes of Galaxian, Gaplus and Galaga '88.[36] Alongside the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 sequel Galaga Legions, it was ported to the Nintendo 3DS in 2011 as part of Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions.[37] The original version was also added to the iOS Namco Arcade compilation in 2012.[38] The NES release is one of 30 games included in the NES Classic Edition.[39]
Reception
Galaga was met with acclaim, with many applauding the addictive nature, gameplay structure, innovation and improvements over its predecessor, and was a popular game during the
In a 1998 retrospective review,
Ports of Galaga received praise for their faithfulness to the arcade original.
Galaga has been listed by numerous publications among the
Related media
Shortly after the game's release, Namco produced miniature Galaga cabinets for buses and airplanes, housed in small 17-inch CRT monitors.[4] In 2000, Namco released an arcade cabinet to celebrate the game's 20th anniversary, which was bundled with Ms. Pac-Man and titled Ms. Pac-Man / Galaga - Class of 1981.[75][76] A similar cabinet was released in 2005 that also included the original Pac-Man, made to celebrate the latter's 25th anniversary.[77] Galaga is also included in both Pac-Man's Arcade Party (2010)[78][79] and Pac-Man's Pixel Bash (2019).[80]
Galaga has made cameo appearances in films including
Galaga was used as a loading screen minigame in the PlayStation version of Tekken.[87] As a tie-in with the anime series Space Dandy, an iOS remake, Space Galaga, was released in 2015, featuring characters and starships from Space Dandy intermixed with Galaga gameplay.[88] A similar crossover game, Galaga: Tekken Edition, was released the same year, replacing enemies with characters from the Tekken franchise.[89] A Galaga-themed costume is also available as downloadable-content in LittleBigPlanet 3.[90] The Boss Galaga appears as an item in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U and its followup Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, where it can capture an opponent and carry them off the screen.[91][92] Ultimate also features a remix of the Galaga soundtrack.[93] An animated television adaptation, Galaga Chronicles, is confirmed to be in development.[94]
Notes
References
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External links
- Official website (English)
- Galaga at the Killer List of Videogames