The History of Galaga - Arcade Console documentary

[Applause] [Music] happy little shmups for any retro gaming fan just say the word shmup and they'll know exactly what you're talking about shmup or shoot em ups for people who have the time to say all the words have been big business for arcades since almost the beginning all you have to do is go back to 1978 when an itty-bitty black and white game revolutionized the industry and took the world by storm no i'm not talking about robot bowling the game that started the shmup industry was space invaders it was such a phenomenon that for a long time a rumor was going around that it actually created a yen shortage in japan in the last 35 years it has been said that it was just a rumor but even still the game was a smash success today we are going to take a look at namco's addition to the shoot em up genre galaga what movie inspired one of the play mechanics in this game let's find out as we learn about the history of galaga when retro gamers speak about classic shoot-'em-ups from the golden age of arcades players tend to put space invaders and galaga towards the top of their list i can't go any further until i talk about galaxian which was namco's official entry into the field galaxian is a fixed shooter which was released in 1979 and holds the distinction of being one of the first games to feature rgb color graphics and to use a tile based hardware system space invaders was black and white which used color cellophane on the bezel and painted backdrops to simulate color when arcade goers got their first glimpse at galaxian in all that's glorified color they were hooked like a newborn lamb to a teeth from the get-go the bosses at namco wanted to make the best post-invaders game possible which put a lot of pressure on the team the gameplay is very similar to space invaders in which you control the starship having to clear each round of aliens they appear in formation at the top of the screen and will dive bomb the bottom while shooting projectiles in order to hit your ship the game was a huge success for the company and was second in earnings in 1979 behind space invaders almost immediately the higher-ups at namco wanted to put out a sequel using the same hardware board as galaxian to save on costs according to legendary namco designer shigeru yokoyama galaga did indeed start out as a sequel to galaxian mr yokoyama would go on to create a number of classics for namco including splatterhouse ridge racer revolution and ace combat 3. according to mr yokoyama galaxian and galaga are completely different games galaga started out because we wanted to create one more space shooter that was like galaxian and we were actually using the same arcade board as well after we started using the new board the specs came back better so we began to create a brand new product proposal the new arcade board was named the galaga and a couple of other big name games used it as well including bosconian and dig dug the tractor beam that is used in this game by the enemy was inspired by the tractor beam that was seen in star wars in 1977 initially rescuing a captured ship would give the player an extra life but they changed it to having it fight along your existing shift for a little dual shooter action the challenging stages started out life as a glitch that was discovered during the testing phase at this point they decided to explore it and also wanted to give the players a breather and allow them to rack up bonus points similar to the intermissions of pacman and bonus stages of rally x the development time took longer than a usual game as namco had a laid-back corporate structure at the time and wanted the team to put out the best product they could during the testing phase it didn't prove very popular in arcades due to the game being too easy the developers went back and increased the difficulty turning it into the game we know and love today during development the higher-ups wanted to include an instruction card on the cabinet letting players know how to play the game galaga fired its way into the arcades in 1981. as the story goes it's pretty flimsy the insect alien forces known as galaga are taking over the galaxy and it's up to you and your spaceship to blast them to kingdom come for good a few years ago in conjunction with the 35th anniversary of galaga the galaga league was created by namco this officially puts the four core games all in the same lineage which includes galaxian galaga gapless and galaga 88 while galaga may look similar to galaxian and even use some of the same assets there are a lot of big differences that really improve the gameplay for example your ship can now fire multiple bullets at once which you will definitely need because the enemies are swooping down like a crackhead on payday before joining up in formation at the top the enemies arrive off-screen in various attack patterns giving you the option to shoot them if you are fast enough in the early stages they won't attack you so you can shoot as many as you can once the enemy formation is complete they will start their dive bomb attacks similar to galaxian at the top of the formation are four boss galaga ships which take two shots to destroy these alien ships have tractor beams that can capture your ship returning it to the top of the formation when this happens you will essentially lose a life so if this is done on your last remaining player then the game is over however gameplay continues and if you are able to shoot the boss galaga that holds your ship as it is diving towards you the fighter is rescued and you are now able to use it as a dual fighter with dual firepower in addition to the dual ship your hitbox is now twice what it was before so you must be extra careful you also have to watch out because if you shoot it while it's still in formation the fighter will turn rogue and join the gallagher force after successfully clearing each stage of the alien forces you continue on to the next stage where the difficulty is increased just a bit every few stages you are presented with a challenging stage which allows you to gain bonus points for as many fighters you can shoot thankfully for this stage the enemy fighters have lost their mojo and will not be firing at you there are 40 enemies in total and if you are able to shoot them all for a perfect score you are awarded additional bonus points the further into the game you go the more difficult the game becomes each screen that you clear is indicated by a marker in the lower right hand corner there is no ending screen so the game will continue indefinitely until you die the arcade game was a huge hit for namco and it maintained a spot in the top 10 on the earnings chart for the next four years which was quite a feat for an arcade game at the time a number of home conversions were produced which i will cover at the end of the video development on a sequel to galaga was started straight away and they wanted to take everything that was great about galaga and bump it up a notch and that included the difficulty gapless or galaga plus or galaga 3 as it was known in later arcade revisions was released in 1984. numerous additions to the galaga style of gameplay were included with the big one being your ability to move your ship in any direction you are not just confined from moving it left to right you can move it up and down as well giving you much more freedom that freedom does come at a price though because the closer you get to the enemies the easier it is for them to kill you the other major addition to the gameplay is the ability to use a tractor beam and hijack ships and use them as your own wingmen five enemies can fight alongside you and will stay there until they are shot down by their brothers the bonus stages have also been overhauled in which enemies can constantly be juggled in order to spell out the word bonus it's not much but it's very cool to put your galaga skills to use speaking of this galaga is on meth the action gets fast and furious especially when you have five additional fighters shooting alongside yours and shots are firing like crazy it's also insanely difficult with a huge spike coming after the first challenging stage it's a fun game but didn't make that big of a splash in the arcades a fantastic conversion was released for the commodore 64 in 1988 which given the quality of it this is what galaga should have been on the system but more on that later [Applause] [Music] [Applause] galaga 88 was released coincidentally enough in 1988 namco injected the original galaga with a whole bunch of hulk hogan vitamins and created another masterpiece in the series if you are a fan of the series you will feel right at home here because the gameplay is very similar to the other games in the series this means you are confined to moving just left and right and not being able to move up and down the game consists of five worlds each one containing four stages branching paths including multiple endings and bosses for the first time were also included right off the bat you are given the option of starting with a single ship and two in reserve or a dual ship with only one in reserve the graphics have been given a significant boost with more colors and far more detailed sprites the enemies explode like fireworks on the 4th of july and we also have some nice looking backgrounds as well the tractor beams from the boss galagas can now capture dual fighters this time around which allows you to potentially have three fighters in total this is difficult to pull off but it does make the game so much easier with triple firepower capsules were also added to this game and they come in the blue and red variety blue capsules are used to advance to the next dimension these are acquired by shooting certain galagas two blue capsules are required to advance to the next dimension red capsules are also available and these will upgrade your ship if you have a lone star fighter a red capsule will convert it into a dual ship if it was already a dual ship the red capsule will convert it into a triple ship everything that worked in galaga works here as well as this is a fantastic update to the original [Applause] [Music] [Applause] in 1995 after a small hiatus we were treated to a semi-new version of galaga in the arcades entitled galaga arrangement this is sort of galaga 1.5 with everything running just a little bit faster with slightly better graphics and much better sound there are some neat little graphic effects that really jazzed up the visuals as well including detailed backgrounds a version entitled galaga arrangement appeared on the namco museum battle collection but it's an entirely different game than what was presented in the arcades [Music] ushering in the new millennium was galaga destination earth for the playstation and pc this is a 3d remake of galaga that includes three different types of levels which includes the classic top-down 2d style side-scrolling levels reminiscent of r-type and another with the behind-the-ship view which is quite similar to star fox a lot of the original game mechanics are here such as enemies flying in formation tractor beams and double firepower among other power ups there are over 60 levels to complete and you only have three continues to use with no save feature in sight the game controls decent enough and i've said it before and i'll say it again just because the game can be in 3d doesn't mean it should be [Music] [Music] galaga legions was released for the xbox live network in 2008. if you ever wondered what playing galaga was like while tripping on lsd then this is the game for you the multitude of colors and fantastic visual effects are a sight to behold along with the music and sound effects which are as cool as a cucumber this is a twin stick shooter in which you have to destroy the enemies as quickly as possible as you are timed although it looks nice and sounds great it doesn't really feel like galaga the game feels more like geometry wars than anything else however wave upon wave of fighters will attack you just like in the original the game is still fun to play although it did drift away from the galaga concept in my opinion [Music] [Music] a follow-up was released a few years later entitled gallagher legions dx but this one was released for the playstation network as well this was designed by the same developers who brought us pac-man championship edition dx and they wanted to bring us a game that would appeal more towards the casual player with simple controls and insanely frantic gameplay they also wanted to focus on huge high score battles which was a big deal during the golden age of arcades the game takes place across 10 levels which are split up into four sections each similar to the previous game you have to destroy as many enemies as you can before time runs out your progress is shown at the end of each stage with how many enemies you killed your ship which is known as the blow needle is equipped with two satellites that can be pointed in any direction which are located on each side of the player there are a couple of different game modes including adventure and championship one neat little easter egg is the ability to choose a cosmetic skin which alters the visuals replacing your ship and the enemies with sprites from other namco games such as pac-man dig duck and of course galaga [Music] in celebration of its 30th anniversary galaga 30th collection was released for ios in 2011. this is another free to download but pay-to-play title which sees remakes of galaxian galaga gapless and galaga 88. the graphics have been enhanced ever so slightly with new bits of music thrown in here and there for all you cgi lovers there is a brand new opening video that plays before the title screen there are unlockables such as power-ups and artwork for your game [Applause] [Music] [Applause] 2011 also saw the release of pac-man and galaga dimensions for the nintendo 3ds this is a compilation of six games including pac-man galaga pac-man championship edition galaga legions and two new titles pac-man tilt and galaga 3d impact this is an on-rail shooter that utilizes 3d effects you control the ship by either the circle pad or the gyroscope the actual 3d effects are pretty impressive but they aren't practical for this type of game i did have a chance to play this on an actual 3ds back in the day and it did control decent enough utilizing the gyroscope again though it just doesn't feel like galaga it does include a nice collection of games though and i did enjoy galaga legions on it [Music] in 2015 a rather strange hybrid was released for ios and android galaga tekken 20th anniversary edition was released this was to celebrate the 30th anniversary of galaga and the 20th anniversary of tekken a lot of people thought this was an april fool's joke because it was announced on april 1st of that year the enemies and starships were replaced with 8-bit tekken characters gameplay stayed pretty much the same it was however discontinued in 2016 [Music] speaking of 2016 galaga assault was released in the arcade this is a video redemption game where you can earn tickets by shooting at a wave upon wave of enemy ships up to four players can participate at the same time and you can earn additional fighters by inserting more credits now the bomb the bomb the bomb's worth a lot there you go he got it yeah 19 coupons one 21 26 see how he's also in 2016 gallagher wars was released for the android and ios platforms this is a free to play title in which the player holds their fingers on the screen and drags it left and right shooting automatically similar to the old style of gameplay you can pick up power ups and special abilities along the way the graphics and animation look really nice and they retain that galaga feel it's just too bad that the game couldn't be controlled with an actual pad or stick [Music] the game has been released re-released and re-re-re-released multiple times over the years on compilations such as namco museum volume 1 and namco museum virtual arcade among others thanks to the retro resurgence we have been experiencing lately a lot of older titles are seeing a bit more love and galagas no exception we have table top versions one quarter scale versions but the coolest of the cool is the one up arcade cabinet that features 12 namco titles in total including galaga pac-man dig dug and more these are all running under emulation so they are basically arcade perfect aside from purchasing an actual arcade cabinet you can't do much better than this the game was featured in adam sandler's hit comedy pixels which was the best movie he's done since little nicky it also made a brief appearance in the movie war games and tony stark himself mentioned it in the first avengers movie a bull was also seen smashing through it in a beer commercial in the early 80s after these messages [Music] [Music] [Music] yo [Music] galaga received a number of home conversions although not that many were released here in the states there are quite a few to get through so if you have to go wee-wee before we start go right ahead you'll be glad you did i'm going to start us off by looking at a couple of fantastic homebrews that i think deserved mentioning the first one is the unimaginable galagon on the atari 2600. this was released by the excellent champ games who have also done various home versions of games we never got to see for the 2600 including zookeeper and mappy i was absolutely astonished to see this up and running because everything from the arcade game has been presented including authentic enemy patterns graphics and sound effects which are fairly reminiscent of the arcade original there is a bit of flicker on the screen but that's to be expected considering the system you should definitely check it out and also champ games for other fantastic 2600 arcade homebrew [Applause] [Applause] the other homebrew worth mentioning is the commodore 64 version which came out just recently now i know a lot of you will say but batman i had this for my commodore 64 back in the day and it was terrible well that version that everyone had back in the day was an unlicensed version that was done by a young programmer by the name of henrik wenning the company he was working for had hired him to do this and thanks to his photographic memory he was able to remember all of the enemy attacks and placements so he was able to implement them into the game now even though the game looks like it was programmed by a one-legged prostitute who was suffering from heat stroke it still played like the actual arcade game the conversion that we should have received which is by far one of my favorite arcade conversions on the commodore 64 is simply known as galaga and it was released by arlasoft this game features everything from the arcade with authentic sounds and music along with outstanding graphics and animation there are even some extras to boot there is a two player co-op mode in which you not only clear the screen but you are competing for the best score the only downside is that on occasion there is a bit of flicker but overall it's not too bad and it's extremely cool seeing one of my favorite home computers running one of my favorite arcade games [Music] the sg-1000 version which was renamed sega galaga for some reason was released in 1983 and for its time it was a very good conversion the sprites are fairly detailed but they only use one color also certain enemy ships are the wrong color the sound effects and music are very good and the gameplay is not too bad one thing that is missing though are the challenging stages so it's wave upon wave of enemies until you die everything else is here including the proper ai tractor beam and dual fire action the msx version is up next and it does look a bit similar to the sg-1000 version but it holds one major distinction and that is the inclusion of the bonus stages the gameplay is also a little bit faster but we are still relegated to single color sprites the sound effects and music do a good job at representing the arcade original tunes [Music] one of the 11 launch titles for the atari 7800 was galaga while they did their best with the sport everything looks small and the colors are washed out the enemy attack patterns thankfully are still here and it does a fairly good job at replicating the gameplay the sound effects are great a 100 queefy and not in a good way either i had this from my 7800 back in the day and always hated using the actual controllers that came with the system thankfully with emulation that's not an issue anymore so if you are a fan of galaga you might want to check it out a two pack for the original game boy was also released and featured galaxian and galaga first things first yes the game is in black and white and it looks like you are looking at old photographic negatives while playing this game the star field is missing but everything else has been represented really well the graphics are detailed and easily recognizable despite the loss of color the sound effects and music are fantastic and so is the gameplay everything from the arcade game has been included so it's perfect for a little galaga on the go [Music] [Music] [Music] the game was also included on the arcade classics compilation for the ill-fated cdi back in 1996. the compilation includes galaxian ms pac-man and galaga thankfully i'm able to use an actual gamepad on this and not the abomination that came with the cdi itself so it doesn't control too bad it looks really good and the sounds are authentic to the original [Music] [Music] while doing my research i came across a few conversions i had no idea existed the first one is for the nec 98 personal computer which was a popular computer in japan in the 80s and 90s this version was programmed by dempa who were well known in the industry as producing very high quality games the graphics on this look pretty good although the star field is slow and a bit choppy the sound effects are extremely minimal which considering the quality is probably not a bad thing the controls are decent enough but the star field was hurting my eyes to be honest the fujitsu micro 7 or fm7 was another popular japanese computer in the 1980s although the graphics are not quite as detailed as other versions the speed is on par with the arcade game and it plays great the sound effects and music are excellent [Music] and the last japanese computer version that we are looking at is for the sharp x1 this looks fantastic with its colorful sprites and smooth animation sound effects and music are arcade authentic and it plays great and last but certainly not least is the home version i spent the most time with which was galaga for the nes it was renamed to galaga demons of death when it was released but the subtitle didn't matter this was very close to being arcade perfect everything from the arcade game has been included in addition to the silky smooth animation the challenging stages and the extremely tight gameplay this was as good as you could get on a home system back in the 1980s [Music] that was an exhausting extensive look at the history of galaga now i'm sure i've missed a few and there were some i didn't mention such as the jacks 5 and 1 plug and play tv unit but i think you get the picture galaga is one of my favorite shooters of all time and i almost spent as many quarters on this game as i did at the peep shows in times square it is a bona fide classic that has definitely stood the test of time and its legacy will endure for many years to come i hope you enjoyed this look at the history of galaga if you've never played this game or any of its variations you owe it to yourself to check this game out you'll be glad you did if you enjoyed this video be sure to like comment share and subscribe also if you would like to support me on patreon please click the link below if you would 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Channel: PatmanQC - History of arcade game documentaries

Views: 104,220

Keywords: NES, arcade, SNES, amputee, Xbox, PlayStation, Sony, Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft, retro, video, gamesAtari, Colecovision, Intellivision, Jaguar, entertainment, system, Game, Boy, Genesis, Mega, drive, CD, X68000, Amstrad, spectrum, MSX, 2600, 5200, 7800, 400, 800, 1200, PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4, 360, one, switch, GameCube, wii, wii-u, Namco, fUJITSU, PC, Shigeru Yokoyama, Space invaders, galaxian, GAPlus, Galaga, NEC, DemPA, handheld, tabletop, arcade1up, Shoot, sHMUP, Blaster, space

Id: 5UU_HVdVdP4

Length: 36min 18sec (2178 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 31 2022