Once all the groups of aliens have settled into their desired positions on screen, you’ll likely have done a fair bit for wiping out their forces but not enough to prevent them from having a still sizeable group. These aliens will dive bomb down towards the player, this opening segment of each round both giving you a chance to score plenty of quick kills but also packing in a danger that keeps it exciting. Some of the creatures that arrive in a group never intended to join the group formation that the aliens are working to build. Every enemy in Galaga can open fire on you with their own lasers, and while this is managed so that only a few fire at a time and the number of shots starts low and grows as you get into deeper rounds, this isn’t the only danger posed by arriving aliens. The enemies aren’t just passively entering the screen during this though, as depending on the round, they can prove to be much more troublesome than foes who are already dangerous to the touch. The insect-like aliens fly in from the edges of the screen in small formations, the player’s spacecraft stationed at the bottom of the screen and able to start landing shots before the aliens have even settled into their designated on-screen positions. In Galaxian they all appear already in formation, but Galaga begins each round of play with a nice touch that gives the player chance to get in early strikes on the enemy forces. One of the first small but meaningful changes between the two vertical space shooters comes in how enemies are added to the star field. However, the reason Galaga ended up earning greater public recognition, more sequels directly referencing the Galaga name, and more rereleases than Galaxian all comes down to one remarkably simple factor: Galaga is just better. Looking at the two games though they seem remarkably similar, Galaga not really innovating so much as building off the groundwork Galaxian had placed.

Galaxian released in 1979 and was actually the company’s first big hit, and while it is one of the first full color arcade games to hit the market, its legacy has mostly been pushed aside in favor of Galaga’s even greater popularity.

1980 had Pac-Man, 1982 would have Dig Dug, and sandwiched between them is a space shooter called Galaga that stands out from the two games it rubs shoulders with in that it is a direct sequel to a previous Namco hit. In 1981 Namco was riding high on the success of Pac-Man from the previous year, but Pac-Man was only the start of Namco’s holy trinity of arcade classics.

Arcade games galaxian