The original Galaga is a classic. Sure, it is a spin on Space Invaders, but man, what a spin. Enemy fighters peel off from the traditional main block of “Invaders” in columns, coming at you in gorgeously curved kamikaze paths, something a Space Invaders player would never expect. Namco Bandai took the basic formula and created Galaga Legions back in 2008. I thought it was good, if a little too hard. Well, they’ve taken the random structure of the first Galaga Legions, applied some thought to it, and now it makes sense. They’ve eased up on the difficulty too, which is good, as it sets the game firmly in the score attack genre. Rather than the stupidly unfair genre.
I’ll start with the major change – the players’ satellite system. In the original Legions, you could lay down one or both of your satellites anywhere on the screen. Useful at times, but utterly devastating if you place one wrong or call a satellite back at the wrong time. In Galaga Legions DX your satellites may be tethered to you at all times but you can control the direction of fire with the right stick, and you also have two modes of fire. You can choose to concentrate both guns in one direction, which is excellent for taking out large Galaga or clearing a path through a crowd, or you can choose to fire in two vertically symmetric directions, which helps if you are being attacked from both sides. Being able to switch between these modes on the fly makes this second game a more immediate experience and less of a tactical one – Sure, you can learn the formations and spawn camp the Galaga, or have more of a frantic and fun time, playing by the seat of your pants. Your main ship fires forwards at all times, regardless of the satellites orientation, and a feature carried over from Galaga Legions is that the closer your enemies are to you, the higher your rate of fire becomes.
There are 9 levels, each with 5 waves, consisting of a differing amount of enemy formations. In addition to this is a challenging Championship Mode, which is comprised of exactly the same elements as the other 9 levels, only with the most challenging of formations, and it is used in official score attack tournaments. The first four waves of any level are played against a timer – the quicker you take out the enemy formations, the more time is stocked up for wave 5. You could milk the first four waves for score if you wanted to, but it would be a mistake, as your score is doubled in wave 5. This last wave of a level is typically harder than the previous four, but then you do get the added help of some captured Galaga fighting by your side.
The formations themselves are almost balletic. Before the space-bees physically manifest themselves, purple lines quickly trace across the screen, indicating the path of the Galaga that are about to spawn from that orange box that has just appeared. Some formations are made up of numerous speedy Galaga, flying and flitting all over the screen, whereas some are made up of a serious amount of slow moving cannon-fodder Galaga, with a cunningly placed Galaga-bomb in the middle of it. These Galaga-bombs are key to becoming a ruthless and efficient Galaga killer, and are important if you want to spend more time on wave 5, doubling your score. Typically nestled in the midst of a swarm of Galaga, these bombs take out a large portion of the enemies surrounding them, and can even chain together with other Galaga-bombs, causing cascades of explosions. My favourite waves are generally the ones with large Galaga at the top of the screen, and hundreds of smaller Galaga trying to stop you getting to their large brethren with sheer numbers, and flashy flying manoeuvres.
The visuals are incredible – the sheer amount of enemies on screen at once is bewildering at times, and there is no unintentional slowdown or any graphical glitches. And then there are the variations in the visuals. You can pick between modern space bugs (who look very similar to the bugs from Wreck-It Ralph), retro pixelated versions of Galaga or Galaxians, and a very random ASCII set of sprites. My favourite by far, without a doubt, is the Pac-Man set, which sees you shooting at ghosts, and the Galaga-bombs, in a vey neat touch, are power pills. While the soundtrack may be slightly generic and forgettable, it does it’s job and creates a nice atmosphere to accompany your heroics. All in all it is a cracking game, and even if it is a little slight – it is still well worth spending some of those spare Space-bucks on.
So many words for such a small game! Many more than I intended to write, certainly. Well, if all the words up there were too much for you, then hold this short, succinct sentence with you forever more: They took everything that was wrong with the first game and fixed it.
