Galaxian/Galaga series

This is where you can deliberate anything relating to videogames - past, present and future
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JaySevenZero
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Galaxian/Galaga series

Post by JaySevenZero »

Here's where you can contribute your memories and opinions of the Galaxian series for potential inclusion in the forthcoming podcast.

Friendly reminder to all that where feedback for the podcast is concerned, we love it - but self-editing (brevity) is appreciated. We do want to include a breadth of opinions where appropriate, but no-one wants a discussion podcast that’s mainly reading. Better to save yourself time and cut to the chase if you can.
paleAvenger

Re: 388: Galaxian series

Post by paleAvenger »

I was introduced to Galaxian and Galaga as part of the “Namco Museum” collection on the Nintendo 64. Galaxian was fine, although I never felt that it offered anything I couldn’t get out of the version of Space Invaders I had on my Game Boy.

Galaga, on the other hand, is wonderful. The speed, the bright colors, the frantic sounds, and the steady addition of new, weirder enemies made it an absolute joy to play. Adding in the risk/reward of letting a ship get captured that you could double your firepower with two ships at once is a seemingly simple trick that adds tremendously to the experience.

It’s the only video game that my dad and I ever played together for more than a sitting or two, but we played it for years, going back and forth on the 2-player mode to beat each other’s scores. I think he might still be mad at me for knocking him off our console’s Top Scores list, though… sorry, Dad.
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Simonsloth
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Re: Our next podcast recording (22.9.19) - 388: Galaxian series

Post by Simonsloth »

I’ve played a few of the games in series so I’ve separated my thoughts by game.


Galaxian - This blew my tiny mind when I first played it decades ago. My first try if memory serves me was on a holiday possibly in America around the same time I first discovered arcades. If I could convince my Dad to have a try at something usually I would get the first life and then he would take over. He was a massive space invaders fan so at a glance this looked very similar. At first I thought it was space invaders without the places to hide then suddenly the aliens did their first dive bomb and I was enthralled. It was one of the first games I ever played and I remember the little dance we used to do when we were down to our last alien and it was diving down repeatedly. The resulting nerve wracking ballet of bullet dodging 1v1 on your last life was exhilarating. I was never very good at it but I appreciated that you could get a decent amount of gameplay for your credit.


Galaga: I didn’t really get into Galaga as it seemed a tad too frantic for me and the difficulty seemed ramped up compared to Galaxian and Space invaders. I remember laughing when the words “challenging stage?” appeared. For me this was always a bit of respite and not challenging at all so the title seemed silly. I now appreciate its challenging for the score chasers but not for me whose sole objective was survival. I replayed it recently on PS4 and my scores are pitiful but it is still extremely playable and quite addictive.


Gaplus:
I love the ship construction animation at the beginning but that’s about it. I found it far too hard when compared to the slow predictable build up in difficulty of Galaxian. The enemies would divebomb far too aggressively as they swiped onto the screen even on the first parsec/stage. Also if you died before they established their formation you’d start the stage again which I found frustrating. This one was not for me. Perhaps for higher level Galaga players.

Galaga Legions:

I tried the demo of this on my PS3 and although I liked it the game itself is so far removed from the origins of the series that it is almost unrecognisable. It is more akin to a bullet hell shooter than Galaxian or Galaga. It is as one would expect from a modern game extremely pretty and my 4 year old son said it reminded him of Star Wars so I may be tempted to buy it in the future.

My recent replays of Galaxian and Gaplus were on the Namco Museum Remix collection on the Wii which has a delightful little arcade cabinet section which justifies the purchase alone. The so-called main game consists of multiple pac man themed modes of which one is Galaga Remix. This is an on the rails shooter whereby you are tasked with shooting aliens whilst Pac-Man rolls down a marble run to the finish. It is terrible. Everything from the presentation, design, level of challenge and gameplay smacks of a cash-in merging two intellectual properties. The less said about the other Pac-Man remixes the better.

Overall galaxian is an important series which I am fond of and I will absolutely never forget the first alien that divebombed towards me. It blew my mind. I can’t say that about too many games these days.
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Re: Our next podcast recording (22.9.19) - 388: Galaxian series

Post by stvnorman »

It’s incredible now to think there was a time when you could be blown away by a game because the little “space invaders” were multicoloured and dived down at you, but that’s my abiding memory of seeing this in a holiday resort arcade! With all that sound going on as well, it was like being in Star Wars!
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