Galaga Legions DX Review
Game: Galaga Legions DX
Developer: Namco Bandai
Publisher: Namco Bandai
Available on: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 (Reviewed on Xbox 360)
Namco are one of the old-stagers when it comes to classic arcade fare. All the way back to the seventies, they have scored huge, internationally successful hits on a consistent basis that have gone down as unforgettable, set-in-stone classics. Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Pole Position, Ridge Racer and Tekken are all gaming franchises that will be familiar not just to gamers, but in some cases as genuine pop culture icons. One of their most famous releases is 1979 fixed shooter Galaxian, which went on to spawn a number of sequels and remakes, including the brilliant Galaga, and its even better 1987 follow up Galaga 88, as well as the blinding 1991 cartoon-themed Cosmo Gang: The Video.
In 2007, now under the Namco Bandai moniker, they introduced us to Pac Man: Championship Edition; a fantastic update of the pill gobbling maze game that had been an arcade phenomenon many moons ago. Not only was it a stunning reinvention, it is now rightly lauded as one of the best games of the Noughties. A year later, Namco decided to have a crack at dragging the Galaxian series into the modern age, and did so with the fine Galaga Legions, which arrived on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in the summer of 2008. Marrying classic Galaga gameplay to an almost bullet-hell mechanic, depth provided by complex scoring systems, and with tremendous high definition visuals, Galaga Legions was a solid shooter, even if it had more in common with the popular twin-stick shooting titles like Geometry Wars that have come to the fore in recent years, than it did with the single-screen classic of yore.
Now, on the 30th anniversary of the original Galaga, Namco Bandai have produced a sequel to Galaga Legions, and much in the same way that they released an even-better sequel to Pac Man Championship Edition in 2010, they have given it the DX nom de plume. The question is, does this Legions update achieve the same level of success as the yellow dot gobbler?
Heralded into the fray by a nostalgia-inducingly ace remix of the classic Galaga theme, initially DX does not seem an awful lot different to its predecessor. The graphics again look rather pretty, with huge waves of Galaga foes swarming across the screen, colourful vapour trails following in their wake, and neon guidelines appearing to signify the direction and pattern of any incoming insectoid scum. You even get a winning option to switch the modernised enemies to classic Eighties-style sprites.
Your spacecraft is given freedom to roam around the single screen environment, with your weaponry accessed by a combination of buttons and sticks. You can fire a focused stream of laser death using the trigger buttons, or choose to use the right stick for directional fire courtesy of the handy satellites attached to your ship that can be shifted around, and even fixed to concentrate on a particular area.
The funky space insects attack in huge numbers! However, each wave has a core enemy which, when hit, will eliminate the whole lot of them in one fell swoop. More points are awarded by wasting an entire fleet of enemies before nailing the core, but sometimes the action becomes so frenetic that you will have no other option than to find a way of clearing the screen as quickly as possible. Handily, in a feature borrowed from Pac Man Championship Edition DX, when you are really up to your neck in it, the action slows down allowing you to blast your way out of trouble in cool slow-motion style. There are smart bombs that can be shot at to eliminate large numbers of baddies at once, and on the fifth enemy wave of each level you are given the opportunity to take control of your own army of Galaga sentries that join your ship and help you to battle the increasingly large squadrons of spawning targets.
Whilst the huge number of enemies and panic-inducing situations you find yourself in may sound like an exercise in stress and impenetrable difficulty, Galaga Legions DX is great fun to play whether you are a newcomer to the genre or a pattern-memorising hotshot looking to attain a zen-like mastery of the attack formations. It is incredibly satisfying when you master the two different firing methods and find yourself ripping through the enemies and racking up decent scores and times, likewise it is a hoot just going gung ho, and as such it is a top title for dipping into for five minutes for a quick blast.
There are nine levels, each with five sections, as well as a Championship Mode, a time attack mode, and a handy tutorial. It will not take you a great deal of time to finish the main game, but as with all good shooters of this ilk there is added replay value imbued via the scoring system and the time attack modes, which include the inevitable online leaderboards.
VERDICT: Galaga Legion DX gives its preceding little brother a sweet graphical overhaul and adds some different ways of killing stuff and scoring points for doing so. It is quite a long way removed from its origins, yet does retain something of the classic essence of the Galaxian universe.
There are better shooters available on the downloadable market, such as Trigger Heart Excelica and Ikaruga, but they require a mastery of the dark arts of shmups and are hardly what you would call accessible to the casual gamer. Galaga Legions DX is not going to trouble the pantheon of great top down shooters, but is undeniably fun and decent value for money. If you already own Galaga Legions then perhaps caution is advised, but if you don’t, and you want a nice retro-styled outing to play through, what are you waiting for?
