No Love For Galaxian?

simbalion · April 4, 2017

After searching for over a year for someone to repair my Galaxian board or a replacement, I ended up with complete cocktail cheap that I was able to swap the board into my nice upright from. Even so, it has a slightly burnt edge connector, so I also ended up getting a box full of Galaxian boards at the auction during the Ohio Pinball Show. After having one board blowing the two 5 amp fuses for board power, I was able to finally cobble together one more working board to place back into the cocktail. During this whole ordeal, including a chat with the gentleman who sold me the cocktail, I have noticed very little love towards Galaxian compared to Pac-Man and such. No-one seems really willing to even bother with the Galaxian boards anymore, rather they just multicade them. (Though I admit only one working board out of a box of 10 is not good!).

So, is Galaxian just not a popular game with the arcade collectors out there anymore? I mean, it was the first arcade game to have true multi-color sprites after all. I was pondering parting out the cocktail, but now might see if I can get the monitor recapped and clean it up to play as well.

Crimefighter · April 4, 2017

I think it is just in the shadow of Galaga and thus gets passed over because of that reason.

So nine boards needing repair? Yowch.

Tanooki · April 4, 2017

I'd agree, Galaga just destroys it. Galaxian I don't recall really added anything of value new over what had been done years earlier with Space Invaders other than an actual color screen and marginally better audio, and even lost the shielding. A lot of me-toos did that back then adding very little, maybe a change in perspective like Nintendo's arcade clone, or changing how some patterns go and all that. Galaga though that one added the many units, special units, attack pattern squadrons, bonus stages, captured/recapture twin gun fighter, and other tidbits making it a real classic. The Galaxian art is cool though, so it would make sense seeing someone find more value making a nice body out of an old machine and throwing a multicade with a nice clean low ms refresh time LCD in there.

Dauber · April 4, 2017

I was never a fan of any of the games in the Galaxian/Galaga series. Just....boring. At least with Space Invaders you had a goal: shoot everything and don't let anybody land. Galaxaga -- just shoot stuff. Blah.

AtariLeaf · April 4, 2017

Well I love Galaxian. It's one of my top five favorite arcade games along with Donkey Kong, Centipede, Phoenix and my favorite - Mr. Do

+save2600 · April 4, 2017

Galaxian was a big deal and awesome at the time (especially the way aliens swarmed in and dive-bombed you), no doubt about it. But that window of awesomeness closed very quickly as the competition crushed it soon after. Easy to see why some today would consider it "filler" before Galaga came along.

BassGuitari · April 4, 2017

Galaxian I don't recall really added anything of value new over what had been done years earlier with Space Invaders other than an actual color screen and marginally better audio, and even lost the shielding.

That's not really true. Aliens didn't attack you in Space Invaders the way they do in Galaxian, or nor does SI offer the risk-reward of attacking aliens in-flight, or groups of escorts and flagships that must be destroyed in sequence (escorts first, then flagship) for bonus points. You can just shoot at the mass of aliens ala Space Invaders, but they're worth a lot fewer points than the ones that are coming after you, and this really fosters very different gameplay from Space Invaders.

You're really missing a lot if you're trying to see Space Invaders and Galaxian as the same game.

That being said, Galaga is the better game overall. But Galaxian is still very good in its own way.

Cynicaster · April 4, 2017

I'll take the contrarian position and say that I actually enjoy Galaxian more than Galaga.

If I try to look at both games objectively, I admit that I probably should prefer Galaga but in practice that's just not the case.

NE146 · April 4, 2017

I was a Space Invaders addict in the days when arcades were full of them, and I was very excited when the Galaxian games came out. However that was short lived as I eventually found them lacking since, I guess they turned out to be a lot more shallow than what I was used to with Space Invaders. Space Invaders for all it's plodding gameplay was a strategic shooter full of little techniques, tricks, and easter eggs that you could discover or find out through word of mouth. Galaxian was newer with multi-colors (I was already used to seeing color in cocktail SI part 2s), but it ended up just being a pure action "kill enemies, avoid getting shot" kind of thing. Which isn't bad, but I liked the secrets in Space Invaders.

On that note this excerpt from the book "Invasion of the Space Invaders" gives a pretty accurate summary of the thoughts of arcade players at the time.. Galaxian was hot for a while but then more exciting games came out and so they tried to help things along with all sorts of hacks for the game. 'Course Galaga (aka Galaxian pt2) came out much later and became an all time classic still fun to play to this day.

Edited April 4, 2017 by NE146

Trinity · April 16, 2017

I was a Space Invaders addict in the days when arcades were full of them, and I was very excited when the Galaxian games came out. However that was short lived as I eventually found them lacking since, I guess they turned out to be a lot more shallow than what I was used to with Space Invaders. Space Invaders for all it's plodding gameplay was a strategic shooter full of little techniques, tricks, and easter eggs that you could discover or find out through word of mouth. Galaxian was newer with multi-colors (I was already used to seeing color in cocktail SI part 2s), but it ended up just being a pure action "kill enemies, avoid getting shot" kind of thing. Which isn't bad, but I liked the secrets in Space Invaders.

On that note this excerpt from the book "Invasion of the Space Invaders" gives a pretty accurate summary of the thoughts of arcade players at the time.. Galaxian was hot for a while but then more exciting games came out and so they tried to help things along with all sorts of hacks for the game. 'Course Galaga (aka Galaxian pt2) came out much later and became an all time classic still fun to play to this day.

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Great post! :cool:

I've been having a lot of love for Galaxian lately. A nostalga thing. When it first came out I loved the look and color of the game but I sucked at it. :lolblue: A few 1000 points at best, My quarters went by fast so I did not play it much. But I had a friend that was real good at it. He could play it for hours on one quarter and I'd just stand there watching while snacking on some junk food from the vending machine at the bowling alley if I wasn't playing something else. (Asteroids) (Firepower)

Fast foward around 40 years later. A few years ago a member here, Mr Galaxian (i think) was attempting and achieved a hi-score record on the 2600 version around the time I was getting back into retro gaming. So I bought it on ebay. Great fun! A year or so ago I got my first NES for nostalgic reasons, I already had a SNES from back in the day, But I wanted a NES. (Strange that Galaxian never got ported the the SNES). When I found out there was a version for the Famicom I had to have it. So I bought a repro cart on ebay and these days it's running in my toaster all the time. I like to play a game or two after work and it's a lot more fun to play when it doesn't cost a quarter a game to play. :-D And I'm getting better, I can score over 10,000 on a good day now! I really like the Famicom version. But I would love a full sized arcade cabinet or cocktail. Now that would be awesome! :lust: