Galaga Legions

"An extremely worthwhile purchase for shmup and retro fans!"

Galaga Legions is a game brought to life on the XBox 360 Live Arcade by the same team that produced Pac Man C.E. (Championship Edition). For 800 points it's honestly the best shmup experience the 360 has to offer outside of Ikaruga. Recently made available on the Arcade, the game has a demo which you can download and check out - I bumbled into it while checking for game updates, downloaded and played the demo, and bought it immediately thereafter.

The game hits all the right notes for what it is. As with Pac Man C.E., it's really a perfect blending of the retro and the new - what made the game memorable to begin with, but with enough new-ness that there is nothing that feels stale or recycled. To wit:

GRAPHICS: 8.5 out of 10

To be clear, I'm grading this from the standpoint that this is a 800-point downloadable game, not a $60 game designed to push the limits of the system graphically. The visuals are bright and lush. Lots of bright colors and a vibrant display, much like Pac Man C.E. It's identifiable as Galaga, but it's completely overhauled. There's some very neat visual effects; like Lumines or Rez, the game has a lot of visual flair. There is a "classic skin" that reverts your spaceship and the enemies to their old 80's arcade look, but retains the rest of the game's effects. I prefer the new style, myself.

STORY: N/A

Not everything gets an update. It's Galaga. Save the world or ... something ... from alien ... things. It's Galaga, who cares. Most shmups have garbage stories anyway.

SOUND/MUSIC: 10 out of 10

Very nice. The music is a kind of techno-electronica that fits very well with the look of the game. There are a variety of sound effects for the alien ships and their various attacks, and their explosions interlace with the music. The sounds are often identifiable as those of Galaga, but with new treatments to them. It's very well-done, all around.

GAMEPLAY: 10 out of 10

Galaga Legions is a great reimagining of the plodding Galaga shooter as a more modern-age "shoot-em-up." You have your primary ship, whose cannon fires forward-only, as well as two detachable "satellites" that mount on either side of your ship. These satellites can be deployed, one at a time, anywhere on the map, to fire up/down/left/right (independent of each other - one can shoot leftward, one down, at the same time, for instance), in time with your ship's main cannon. These satellites cannot be destroyed or damaged; only a collision from an enemy / enemy fire will cause your ship to explode, which will also destroy the satellites.

Instead of arraying your enemies "upscreen" of you and having the occasional "Galaga" swoop down to attempt to destroy your ship, Galaga Legions throws literal waves of enemies at you all at once; at times this shmup approaches "Bullet-Hell" status, with several hundred things you need to kill or avoid on the screen at once.

Before each wave assaults you, you'll see lines traced on the screen, starting from a screen edge and tracing a looping path through the screen, that roughly approximate the 'flight-path' each line of attacking Galagas will take. Also you will see orange boxes appear on screen that indicate that an attacking wave of Galagas is about to "warp in" to the screen from that point. Thus you must be always aware of ships coming from all directions as well as anywhere in the map.

Placement of your satellites, then, is critical - you will literally have a few seconds to drop them in a position to destroy attacking waves before they flood your screen and obliterate your main ship, which is only capable of killing enemies directly ahead of it.

Each snaking line of attacking Galaga has a "boss" module in it that, if destroyed, will trigger an explosion that takes out the rest of the chain - thus shot placement is critical. The closer your three cannons are to the wave of Galaga, the faster they fire, so the game rewards you for charging into the face of an oncoming formation and dropping satellites before narrowly escaping a vividly explosive death.

The original Galaga had a game mechanic wherein the alien invaders could "kidnap" one of your ships (costing you a life), which you could then reclaim to get a double-ship that had twice the firepower. Galaga Legions lets you turn the tables on the alien scum; it is possible, at a few points in each level, to kill a "boss Galaga" that will enable you to catch the swarm around it and turn the lesser Galaga to your advantage. These "captured Galaga" will swarm outward and attack anything they come into contact with. They are unaffected by enemy shots, but are killed by collisions with other enemies, so the benefit they grant is short-lived. But you'll mow down legions of enemies while they last.

All in all, Galaga Legions has fast, twitchy-yet-refined gameplay. Satellite placement and wave-avoidance techniques are critical. The game is not very forgiving at all, either, so be prepared for some trial and error. Its reminiscent, to me, of Ikaruga, in that neither pure reflex nor good strategy alone will save you.

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For just 800 XBL points, this is one of the better games available for download. It's a fantastic game for the often-ignored shmup fan, and also a wonderful treat for those seeking a little nostalgia. The game is very respectful of the original but definitely escapes the tired rehash syndrome that plagued so many old arcade classics (like Pac-Man -- 90% of the retreads of the game shouldn't have been made; C.E. really revitalized the game!). This game is highly recommended!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/22/08

Game Release: Galaga Legions (US, 08/20/08)