Should additional lives remain, the player has an opportunity to shoot down the Boss Galaga holding the captured ship. These aliens can use a tractor beam to capture the player's ship, returning with it to the top of the formation and costing the player a life. Ītop the enemy formation are four large aliens known as the 'Boss Galaga', which take two shots to destroy. Similar to Galaxian, aliens will dive towards the player while shooting down projectiles colliding with either projectiles or aliens will result in a life being lost. The objective of each stage is to defeat all of the Galaga aliens, which will fly into formation from the top and sides of the screen. The player mans a lone starfighter at the bottom of the screen, which must prevent the Galaga forces from destroying all of mankind. It was followed by a sequel in 1984, Gaplus.Ī Boss Galaga uses a tractor beam, while the player exchanges shots with aliens in formation. Galaga is also included in many Namco compilations. Several home ports were released for a multitude of platforms, including the MSX, Atari 7800 and Nintendo Entertainment System, alongside releases on digital distribution platforms such as Xbox Live Arcade. Critics applauded its gameplay, innovation, addictive nature and improvements made over its predecessor. It is widely regarded as a classic of the golden age of arcade video games and one of the greatest video games of all time.

The project became immensely popular around the company, with Namco's president Masaya Nakamura even taking interest.Īlthough early location tests were unsuccessful, Galaga received critical acclaim and went on to become one of the most successful arcade games, routinely appearing on Japanese and American arcade charts through 1987. Inspiration for the dual fighter mechanic was taken from a film that Yokoyama had seen prior to development, where a ship was captured using a large circular beam. Originally developed for the Namco Galaxian arcade board, it was instead shifted to a new system as suggested by Namco's Research and Development division. Initial planning took about two months to finish. Shigeru Yokoyama led development with a small team. Some enemies can capture a player's ship via a tractor beam, which can be rescued to transform the player into a 'dual fighter' with additional firepower. Controlling a starship, the player is tasked with destroying the Galaga forces in each stage while avoiding enemies and projectiles. It is the sequel to Galaxian (1979), Namco's first major video game hit in arcades. In North America, it was released by Midway Manufacturing. Galaga is a 1981 fixed shooter arcade video game developed and published by Namco.

Galaxian arcade game screen