Is The Armada Back?

Posted 1 year ago By - Tim Lefebvre

In 1981, Galaga burst out onto the arcade machines, quickly becoming the favourite of many gamers at the time. Blending a mix never before seen, this top down shooter revolutionized the way top down shooters would forever be played. Fast forward 30 years, and the team behind Pac Mac Champion edition DX have reimagined the retro classic with Galaga Legions DX, a sequel to the 2008 Galaga Legions.

Much has changed since the original. Firstly, we play these games on home consoles now, and not on 6 foot tall cabinets in arcades. Nevertheless, the formula overtime hasn’t changed that much. The basic principal remains the same. Much like its predecessor, Galaga Legions DX is a top down arcade shooter, but this time around the game is on steroids.

Like in other Galaga games, you control a starfighter, but with a twist. You have a Galaga Armada, a bunch of little enemy ships that get sucked into a portal at the beginning of a level, and you control in which direction they aim with the right thumb stick. This is called “Focus Fire”. Another major difference is the enemies spawn at you from every which direction, leaving only a golden box and a white line as an indicator of its spawn and intended path.  It is crucial to pay attention to that because it’ll let you know what your best chance at survival is, and more importantly, where the best scores are at. This game takes a lot of inspiration from Geometry Wars, with the way the ship moves around, and the enemies appear.

There are a total of 9 areas and one championship mode as well as a time attack mode. The championship mode is identical to the areas, except that your Galaga Armada is replenished at the beginning of every level. Each area is broken down into 5 levels, each lasting 30 seconds to a minute. At the end of the 5 levels you are given a rank. Afterwards, you can check how your score adds up compared to other people on the leaderboards. Time Attack mode presents you each level individually to select from, to set the best time, and clear the level (There’s no point in doing this, unless you want the achievement.)To try and add some variety, there are 6 different visuals to choose from; the main game’s theme, and 5 retro looks. There is also a Championship Score Attack Tournament, but at the time this review was written, it was currently unavailable.

Conclusion

The retro art style is certain to please fans of the series, and "Focus Fire" helps keep Galaga relevant. The menus are bland, but accomplish their task. This game does leave me with a sense of"Deja Vu" since it doesn’t do more to define itself from the previous iteration, infact if you have Galaga Legions, you might want to skip this all together. The lack of achievements is also a little disapointing. Despite these few negative points, the gameplay is an absolute blast, and will keep you coming back for more.