Galaga 35th anniversary

vbrooks

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Galaga will always be just another not bad but not great vertical shooter to me. My hometown arcade had it back in the day. People played it and liked it but it was no more popular than any other game in the room as far as I could tell. I have never understood all of the attention this game has gotten over the decades. Its predecessor, Galaxian, and its sequels Gaplus and Galaga '88, all are superior, IMO.
 
Galaga will always be just another not bad but not great vertical shooter to me. My hometown arcade had it back in the day. People played it and liked it but it was no more popular than any other game in the room as far as I could tell. I have never understood all of the attention this game has gotten over the decades. Its predecessor, Galaxian, and its sequels Gaplus and Galaga '88, all are superior, IMO.

I certainly disagree with this. I was a teenager back in 1981 and I remember Galaga being immensely popular with bigger arcades even having 2 or 3 of them. When Galaga came out Galaxian pretty much died which was good since many operators had installed speedup hacks like "Super Galaxian" which made the game unfairly difficult. Galaxian was a very good successor to Space Invaders type games but ultimately has no variety. Galaga has variety: different enemy entry patterns, challenging stages and of course the ability to gain a double ship. Also Galaga looked and sounded better since it ran on newer hardware.

Personally I consider Gaplus the weakest of the family: there is too much going on, it gets too hard (probably because people got good at Galaga) and the challenging stages are silly. Gaplus was never very popular and it was later called "Galaga 3" in an effort for better name recognition though I never understood why it wasn't called "Galaga Plus" in the first place as Gaplus is simply a contraction of Galaga Plus. Also Gaplus uses a dull color palette so it doesn't even look as good as Galaga.

I agree Galaga '88 is an excellent sequel, it's very true to the original and adds new elements which don't seem out of place like Gaplus did. Also Galaga '88 looks and sounds great running on the more advanced Namco System 1 hardware.

Personally I would rank them in this order: Galaga, Galaga '88, Cosmo Gang the Video, Galaxian, Gaplus.
 
Just my thoughts: I think what is especially solid about Galaga are the sound effects and musical tunes. They have an echo-type of effect that goes great with the star field and glow of the CRT monitor. And non-irritating.

Put a quarter in, a classic sound. Start the game, get on the high score list or get the high score... all these are memorable.

I think Pac-Man, Galaga, DK, Williams titles, and most of the widely known Atari games especially all had quality sound. This carried through with Street Fighter 2 and NBA JAM as well.

Definitely play the Galaga arrangement mode on Namco Classic Collection Vol. 1 with two players. It's a lot of fun. I also recommend Namco Classic Collection Vol. 2 with two player Dig Dug which is like a combo of Dig Dug and multiplayer Bomberman almost.
 

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Congrats to Galaga!


Galaga's sound effects are superb and highly memorable to people.

When the general public or people not even into games nowadays visit whenever I've been involved in public events...they say....I remember Galaga, do you have Galaga?

My buddy with a home arcade says he gets the same responses...so much so that I had to build him a retro galaga with the NAMCO pcb.

Personally, nowadays I prefer Galaxian, but there was definitely a long fascination with Galaga.
 
Put a quarter in, a classic sound. Start the game, get on the high score list or get the high score... all these are memorable.

Definitely play the Galaga arrangement mode on Namco Classic Collection Vol. 1 with two players. It's a lot of fun. I also recommend Namco Classic Collection Vol. 2 with two player Dig Dug which is like a combo of Dig Dug and multiplayer Bomberman almost.

Also the challenging stage perfect tune is memorable. That's another thing I like about Galaga '88 - Namco updated all of the Galaga music and sounds but they're still very recognizable.

I've only played the Namco Classic Collection games in emulation, I've never seen a real cabinet. I think that Namco did a good job updating Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Galaga and Xevious (particularly Xevious) for their Arrangements but I find Rally-X Arrangement so-so and Mappy Arrangement doesn't really work.

P.S. that upright Bosconian looks really good next to Galaga. I've always liked Bosconian so I'm jealous.
 
I don't even care much for the game and I have 4 of them cause yea its a classic that people like...
 
Galaga is awesome and the interview was a good read, thanks for the link.

I also like Galaxian and Gaplus. Not a fan of Galaga '88.
 
IMHO Galaga is a good game, I will play over and over, which for me is what I want in a game. And, as mentioned above, it is the one darn game that EVERY single person asks me if I have, so naturally I have to have one. So...I cannot find one or pry one out of someone's collection. I even take an extra $800 with me when I go to a pick up from CL or Epay, just hoping they will have a Galaga that I can entice them out of (yeah I have turned into "that guy"). Needless to say, I still don't have a Galaga, so DAMN YOU GALAGA!
 
I think part of the game's appeal back in the day was that you generally got a lot of gameplay for a quarter.

It was not hard to get through several rounds of the game with very little experience.

Plus, the bonus rounds were a good break from life or death gameplay....and you typically did not see that in other games of the time.

This game is still in arcades today. Arguably it's the second most popular acade game ever, next to ms pac man....

I have a Galaga and it is probably going to be one of the last games I ever sell. I admit that I stopped playing it seriously after scoring over a milion points.
 
I think part of the game's appeal back in the day was that you generally got a lot of gameplay for a quarter.

It was not hard to get through several rounds of the game with very little experience.

Plus, the bonus rounds were a good break from life or death gameplay....and you typically did not see that in other games of the time.

This game is still in arcades today. Arguably it's the second most popular acade game ever, next to ms pac man....

I have a Galaga and it is probably going to be one of the last games I ever sell. I admit that I stopped playing it seriously after scoring over a milion points.


I think you summed it up pretty good.
 
After reading the title, I was hoping to see that there was a new Galaga 35th anniversary arcade game.
 
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