Ah, yes. The classic 1979 fixed shooter arcade game developed by Namco. Designed by Kazunori Sawano, you could even say that it happens to be the Namco version of Space Invaders, a similar space shooter released the previous year by rival developer Taito. Space Invaders was a sensation in Japan, and Namco wanted a game that could compete against it, so this is the result. The game was inspired by the cinematic space combat scenes from Star Wars with the idea of the enemies being intended to be in the shape of the film's TIE Fighters. Everything about this game makes it one of the greatest of the seventies.
This was known to be Namco's first major arcade video game hit. While this may not be the first time Namco made an arcade game, Galaxian did give Namco the title of a successful arcade smash hit.
This was one of the first games to ever have the use of color by using the RGB color graphics. However, this game was the first to ever use a tile-based hardware system that was capable of animated multi-color sprites and scrolling. You can tell by the colorful enemy designs and explosions and as a result, the graphics were remarkable for their time. To save up on hardware memory and processing, programmers created a tilemap hardware model, which created a set of 8x8 pixel tiles. This reduced processing and memory requirements up to 64 times, compared to the frame buffer model used in Space Invaders.
The gameplay is simple with its easy-to-pick-up basic yet good controls, all you have to do is to shoot the aliens from a ship you are controlling just to clear them out. The variety of aliens is pretty good and also has a simplistic charm to it. The aliens appear in a formation towards the top of the screen with the enemies diving into the ship. The enemies themselves were designed to have a personality of their own. The aliens were programmed to monitor the player's movements and make attacks based on them. The aliens also each have a set number of points depending on the ones who get shot. The yellow alien has 200 points, the red alien has 100 points, the purple alien has 40 points, the turquoise alien has 30 points, and the yellow is the highest. And if that wasn't enough, if you want bonus points, you have to shoot the flagships that divebomb with two red escort ships. But once the game progresses, the enemies start to increase a lot just to give the players a challenge just as you expect from an arcade game.
Though limited, there is one song that plays as soon as you play the game and that is the jingle that appears before you get your hands on the game. That little jingle right there is pretty memorable. Even though there is only one small jingle, the rest of the game background is pretty noisy enough to make things lively. The sound effects are even retro yet lively enough to feel like a large-scale space battle. You can thank Namco for letting this game use a synthesizer and it was the first arcade game by Namco to use it. Sometimes, however, the noises the enemies make can get annoying.
Despite scrolling being implemented in the game, it was limited due to the starfield background while the game remained as a fixed shooter. The Galaxip can also only fire a single shot on-screen thus letting the player go in the need of waiting for the shot to hit the top before being able to fire another due to hardware limitations instead of a full fire range. And thanks to the hardware Galaxian uses, the game gave significant influence to the hardware design of Nintendo's later arcade and console systems like Radar Scope, Donkey Kong, and the Nintendo Entertainment System.
As soon as the game was released, it was a critical and commercial success. In Japan, it was the second highest-earning arcade game of 1979 below Space Invaders. Galaxian was later the 18th highest-grossing arcade video game of 1981, tied with Defender and Turbo. The game continued to see success in Japan throughout the early 1980s; Game Machine reported that it was still performing well as late as August 1983 In the United States, it was also the second-highest-grossing arcade game of 1980 below Asteroids. The April 5, 1980 issue of Cashbox noted the game's colorful and attractive cabinet design.
Now let's go out there, and get entergalactic, baby!