Galaxian Review Link to heading

A Brief History Lesson Link to heading

Galaxian is a Single Screen Shooter (or a Fixed Shooter if you prefer) arcade game released by Namco in 1979. It’s a bit less famous than it’s spiritual predecessor Space Invaders which was released by Taito in 1978, however Galaxian was the first in a series of games that includes the more famous Galaga (1981).

I’m not entirely sure how much of a “Space Invaders Clone” Galaxian actually is. They are very similar in a number of ways, but supposedly Galaxian was already in development when Space Invaders came out. Given the success of Space Invaders I’m sure that Galaxian’s design moved towards it, however it’s unclear what Galaxian would have looked like in a world without Space Invaders.

Galaxian vs Space Invaders Link to heading

The impact and popularity of Space Invaders cannot be understated, however it’s apparent now that Galaxian is the superior game. If you’re only going to play one fixed shooter from the early arcade era… well you should play Galaga, however if you have to choose between games that were released before Galaga came out such as Space Invaders, Moon Cresta, Astro Blaster, Centipede and Galaxian, choose Galaxian. I haven’t found any shooters that compare favorably to Galaxian from before Galaga came out.

Gameplay Link to heading

The gameplay of Galaxian is pretty basic and includes most of what you’d expect from a game in this genre:

You control a spaceship which is fixed to the bottom of the screen but can move left, right, or fire a single laser upwards. You cannot fire again until that laser hits a target or goes off the screen.
There are four types of enemies which spend much of their time in a formation that moves back and forth across the top of the screen. This formation is called the “convoy”.
Occasionally and enemy will “charge” at the player by leaving their position and moving down the screen in various patterns while firing short range lasers. If they go past the bottom of the screen they rejoin the convoy from the top.
The enemies can be identified easily by color:
- Blue enemies are the weakest and most numerous. They tend to head directly at the player while charging.
- Purple enemies are very similar to blue enemies, but their movement pattern is different and tends to result in them trying to ram the player from the side. They are more difficult than the blue enemies, but there are fewer of them.
- Red enemies and yellow enemies will charge together in a formation. The red enemies travel in front to protect the yellow.
- Yellow enemies work with red enemies as mentioned above. If you destroy the red enemies before the yellow enemies the yellows will “flee” by leaving the current stage but showing up in the following stage.
Each enemy is worth points, or double that amount if shot while charging:
- Yellow: 60 points
- Red: 50 points
- Purple: 40 points
- Blue: 30 points
When the screen is cleared, the enemies come back in the same formation on the next stage. Supposedly each stage is more difficult, however I’m not sure of all the changes that result in that increased difficulty. It looks like the rate at which enemies charge is increased.

Cool Things Link to heading

Compared to other games of the era this looks really good. It has vibrant colors, runs smoothly, and sprites that can be easily distinguished from each other and have animations including rotation.

Not So Cool Things Link to heading

While the game does have considerably more variety in sound than Space Invaders, even including some brief “music”, I find that sound to be painful to listen to so I don’t consider this to be a plus. Maybe it sounds better on real hardware or something.
Doesn’t really feel like there is much variety to the game since the stages/levels are all the same identical formation.

Should You Play Galaxian? Link to heading

If you see it in an arcade, it might be worth the experience to give it a shot, but I wouldn’t bother with this one on an emulator when you could play something better just as easily.