Arcade Classic number 3 comes with Galaga and Galaxian. I wonder why Galpus is left off of the cartridge. Anyway, this is the one that I’m looking forward to!
Galaga is one of my favorite shooters. It is one of the few video games from the 80s that I remember playing. This version of Galaga is a good one. It isn’t perfect, but it is a good version.
Galaxian is the first in Namco’s series of shooters designed to cash in on the Space Invaders craze. I like Galaxian more than Space Invaders. It is the better game of the two. This version of Galaxian is also very good.
TLDR: Two Excellent Ports of Classic Namco Games
Narrative
Like many other arcade games from the 80s, these games have no story. It was implied that the Earth was being attacked. Players didn’t need to know why the two sides were fighting, where the aliens came from, or why it was on the player’s shoulders to save the Earth.
Later games in the Galaga series would shoehorn a story into the games, but it was all that important. It is one of the things I love about arcade games. You can pick up and play these games without knowing anything about them.
Chronologically, Galaxian is the first game in the series. It is closer to Space Invaders but makes some changes to the gameplay that make it a better game. Galaga is the more challenging of the two, and it is the one I like the most.
Galaga
Galaga is a single-screen shooter. It builds off of the design of Galaxian and improves on it in many ways. The enemies fly onto the screen and then form up on the top of the screen.
Like Galaxian, Galaga has the aliens break formation and attack your spaceship. This is one thing that makes these two games better than Space Invaders. It makes these games more challenging and more fun! It also helped Namco get more quarters out of players back in the 80s.
There is one power-up that you can get in this game. However, it makes your hitbox twice as large. To get it, you have to let your ship get captured by one of the aliens and then shoot that alien to get dual fire.
The Game Boy version of Galaga looks good. It isn’t anything special, but it does look good for what it is. The drawback to being on the Game Boy is the lack of colors. Galaga is an extremely colorful game, and not having those colors is a bit disappointing.
Overall, this is a good port of Galaga. While it lacks the arcade game’s visual flair, it has solid gameplay. It is a challenging game, but it is a ton of fun!
Galaxian
Galaxian is a single-screen shooter that is similar to Space Invaders. The aliens are already on the screen, similar to how Space Invaders is set up. However, Galaxian has its aliens leave formation and fly at the player’s spaceship.
This helped it stand out from Taito’s hit game, Space Invaders. Instead of having the enemies slowly move down the screen, Galaxian’s enemies come after you! They also shoot at you just to add more projectiles on the screen.
This is the easier of the two games, in my opinion. The controls for Galaxian also seem to be a little better than the port of Galaga.
Overall, this is another good port of the arcade game. This collection has been the best I’ve come across in this series of Game Boy games. I enjoyed both of them.
Visuals
The visuals for both games are okay. They’re also the same. I couldn’t tell if there was a difference between the two.
I’m not sure how I feel about it. They couldn’t add colors to the graphics, but I think they should have done something to make the games look different.
As I’ve played these games, I’ve noticed the graphics getting worse as the series continues. The first collection, which had Asteroids and Missile Command, looked great. However, the next two looked a bit worse. The developers reused the graphics for both games in the next two collections.
I’ll see what the next two games look like. Hopefully, they will look better than this collection.
N/A. Both of the games on this cartridge are great ports of classic arcade games. Visually, they both suffer from being in black and white, but the gameplay is solid.
Pros
- Pick-up and Play
- Good controls
- Decent graphics
Cons
- Limited Game Modes
- Decent, but not great graphics
Conclusion
I liked both of these games. Galaga is the game that I have the most nostalgia for, and Galaxian is a game that I’ve only recently played. Interestingly, Galpus was left off of the collection.
Galpus is a game that Namco seems to have forgotten. It was the third in the Galaga series, but I haven’t heard anyone talk about it that much. I guess the developers were limited to two games, and since Galaga and Galaxian were more popular than Galpus, it was left out.
There is only one more collection in this little mini-series. It has Joust and Defender on it. I’m looking forward to playing it but not getting my hopes up.