The History of Galaga - Arcade Console documentary 

This game is one of the main reasons why I built my own arcade machine 22 years ago. Still got it and play it to this day. Jackal and XX Mission are another two big reasons.

THAT MAN IS PLAYING GALAGA! Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did.

Just bought Galaga/Ms. Pacman Class of ‘81 machine from Arcade1up. Galaga is so much fun, I never get tired of it

I can't believe Galaga hasn't been done before now. But sometimes good things take time, and this episode was well worth the wait!

Thank you. One of my favorites. Used to play Galaga until my hand cramped up

One of the games of my youth. Such a great time in the Arcade Pit in my town.

MY MAN!!!! My day just got so much better. You have no Idea how happy you made me, and numerous other people, when you release a new video. LONG LIVE PATMAN QC!!! 💪🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸💪

The rumor was that my mom was about to give birth to me when my dad was having the Galaga game of his life. My mom gave birth on the arcade console right then and there and said fuck your game. That or i was born in a hospital in Brooklyn.....but the first one sounded more badass

Galaga is still as much fun in 2022 as it was in the 80s. Not many games can say that.

Of all the early 80's classic arcade games, this is one rightly earned its place at the top. You know a game is good when 43 years it's still being played.

As a kid, clearing the bonus rounds was quite a workout slamming that fire button. Thanks for the video.

The iconic shooter of all time. Galaga and Gorf have been my favorites shmups to this day. Thanks again Pat❤️

The game didn't go on forever - it has the Stage 256 rollover bug where it'll say Stage 0 then crash. The easist way to get there is to use the no-fire bug where you leave one enemy on certain stages until it stops firing. The bullet sprites get stuck in the border and you can easily "finish" the game. I did this with a friend around 1983 - took probably over an hour to get to the end then we asked for our money back when the machine crashed.

there was a homebrew version of "deluxe galaga" on the Amiga which i loved playing

This is one of my favorite games of all time. A local bowling ally/arcade has it, and when I took my sons there a couple of years ago, I totally schooled them on it. LOL Who else plays the arcade version with their hands crossed? I always played it better with my right hand on the control stick and my left firing.

I can remember taking Galaga games out of the shipping boxes then prepping them for delivery on Grand Traverse Vending company's route in Traverse City Michigan. The company was buying 2 ea 40 foot box truck loads a month in games including Ms. Pac Man, Centipede and others. Our most common service call was so many coins in cash boxes they'd back up into the coin mechs so we simply took them out and let the quarters fall into the bottom then use a small shop vac to suck them out to count them. This January 2nd I'll have 40 years as an Arcade and pinball games, jukeboxes , pool tables repair tech including doing circuit board repairs including restoration and converting old games into 60 in 1 Mulicade games. I install led lighted game buttons including flipper abd shake buttons on the side of the cabinet and other upgrade. A led lighted mini track ball as well on the left side of the joystick.

Many years ago I worked security at Midway Bally manufacturing, the company that built the stand up arcade versions of Galaga. On the night shift I would fire up a brand new game and play Galaga in between doing my rounds. I had a blast! When you play these in a store or arcade locations it cost your spare change, but when you got to play as much as you wanted for free, it made it even more fun. The keys for the coin box door were in them so you just opened the machine and clicked up a bunch of credits with the microswitch that the quarters would hit when someone would play the game. I even got to see them being built on the assembly line. It was interesting watching the quality control people test and adjust the machine to make sure it was playing and working right. At full boogie, the Bally workers could build up to 60 games per hour! I got to play every Bally arcade game they made including all of the pinball games. Great memories and it made those boring night shifts pass by a lot quicker.

Another Namco space shooting game that is like Galaga but it’s also a spin-off. It’s called Cosmo Gang: The Video.

I was so surprised and happy when I saw this in my feed. Galaga was a staple of my childhood.

I spent a lot of money on this game in the arcades. Still playing it using MAME. Deluxe Galaga on my Amiga 1200 is also a favorite.

One of my favorite games of all time! Great video Patman! Thank you!

Interesting video. We often talk about pretty games but rarely about older games because they are less beautiful, less attractive but yet they are part of the history of video games and are therefore important, we must not forget them.

Galaga a top 10 classic, and arcade staple. Great Doc Pat... 😎

Man there’s so much history with the old, simple arcade games. Just the Atari story is a crazy one.

Thanks for another top notch documentary Patman! Every time I watch one of your videos I’m always “Glad I did!”. Please keep doing what you do!

Thanks for the excellent coverage, PatmanQC! Deluxe Galaga (released for the Amiga in the early 90's by Edgar M. Vidgal) was one I played compulsively and didn't get mentioned. Not a big deal but definitely worth checking out if you are bored 🤣

One of my father's best friends was in the arcade business. Pinball, juke boxes and electronic arcade games is what he distributed and he serviced bowling machines. He would get machines, repair/refurbish them then resell them. He would let us keep them for a while before they sold. At one point we had Galaga, Dig Doug, Tempest and Joust. He gave us the key to open the coin box and hit the free game button hidden inside. Needless to say, I was the most popular kid at school. EVERYONE wanted to be my friend.

This is such a perfect, classic, fun, amazing game. Thanks for finally doing this!

Galaga is one of my fave arcade games of aaaallll time. Thanks for another great video Patman. It is most definatly played every retro sesh.Well i wrote all that during the video. I didnt want this one to end. Well done Patman you out did yourself on this one. Thanks.

When it comes to arcade games, my dad is a pro at Galaga. Him and I have played it many times over the years on NAMCO Museum for the PlayStation.

My dads best mate owned a kiosk on the beach here in Australia where he had Galaga and i had the key to endless games. We also used to take scrubbing brushes to operate the fire button much faster than you could tap. Good times...

I have Galaga for the PS4. Looks and sounds exactly the same as the arcade version and the no-fire bee trick works.

In my high school algebra class, I would make pixel art w/graph paper & color pencils. Megaman & galaga were my faves. Nowadays i use perler beads, wax paper, & an iron

Excellent video Pat! You put so much into these.

If anyone remembers Gyruss (my favorite arcade space shooter), there was a version on the C64 I played back in the day that was extremely close to the arcade. The new Galaga for the Commodore reminds me so much of that. Hey, I adore my Commodore 64. :)

This was my GAME back in the day. I remember my cousin taking me to a little pizza place and giving me a handful of quarters. Still to this day it's one of the very best games ever made.

One of the games of my youth. Thank you for this video. Nothing like the golden age of arcades. There was a new arcade almost every week. Such amazing memories. Most of my saturdays wweee spent at a place called Herbs Arcade.

Nice! My favorite game of all time!

Another excellent video from one of my favorite gaming channels! Thanks a lot for your hard work!

Epic, legendary stuff! I was a kid growing up in the 70s and 80s, the wave of arcade games including Galaga was just mesmerising. These games still look, sound and play so well now. So slick, so high quality!

Galaga is one of my first shooter games I've ever played alongside Galaxian, 1942, Contra and many others..the graphics looks pretty amazing and I just couldn't stop playing Galaga for almost 2 hours..and I've still missed playing the game up to this day..Thanks, Mr. Patman..More Arcade History to come..Have a Wonderful Day 😄👍

Hell yeah! One of the all-time greats! And he made a video about Galaga too! Seriously, though, Galaga is in my "Top 5 arcade games of the 80's that I can't put an any permanent order or ranking" along with Spy Hunter, Star Wars (1983), Dragon's Lair, Zaxxon, and Tron. These are games that get that grouping because I will play them anywhere I find one. If there is one that has the strongest chance at the number one spot, though, it's Galaga. Maybe it's because that's the game that is the most common to find these days out of the 5, but it's also the one I have the most fun playing for the longest time. DL is too hard, SW is repetitive, Zaxxon is awesome for the isometric innovation but damn near impossible to find, Spy Hunter is number 2 if it's a sit-down version, if not, then Tron is #2 for just how badass the machine looks. Anyways, Galaga is fun, easy to learn, with wonderful sound effects that will stick with you're old and decrepit in a home somewhere playing Double Dragon. When you find a good condition machine, the gameplay is typically responsive but so that you still need to think ahead. The "abduction" angle of the Galaga ship is icing on the cake. Good times, good memories.

I was away for a while but Im back now!! And just in time for a video about one of my favorite games ever! Thanks for the great history buddy💯 I hope your doing great🖒

I put so many quarters in this back in the day. Galaga, Robocop and Dragon’s Lair are the only arcade games I ever completed. I’ll still see Galaga in some game room or arcade wherever I go and still have to put a quarter in to play, I complete 75% of the game on one quarter. There are so many app based games out there that this game is still being discovered and played today. Thanks for the look back.

Awesome video! Galaga is also one of my favorite games of all time. Thank you for your thoroughness. I greatly appreciated this nice trek down memory lane. :-) I miss the simpler times in life when arcades were still prominent and with just a few quarters you could have a fun evening with games you wish you had at home.

I play Galaga a lot when I was a kid it's brilliant and I'm still playing it today. 😀👍🎮

One of my favorite games. Scored over a million points with out the no enemy fire trick.

Awesome as always! One of the greatest classics ever!

Great video as always. I imagine this has had to be a highly requested one from the start, as in any arcade i've been to since i was a kid (even now) its a machine that keeps a crowd around it.

Probably my all-time favourite arcade space shooter.

waking up and watching the new Patman while having breakfast is a good start to the day. Thanks for all the great content.

Ah, good sir! This was missing! My old gamer heart is, once again, shedding a little tear of joy here! Thanks so much for providing all those good infos about one of the best arcade games out there! So many good memories! So many happy times! So many shmups!

I was pointing out how dorky sounding this video is, and then realized I'm the dork that watched the whole thing. Thank you Patman! Excellent work, I love this game and learned so much about the franchise.

Great video! As always, love the review of all the different versions. Don't know why, but something so relaxing about seeing that.

In Pacman World Rally (think mario kart but w/pacman & friends), there is an unlockable galaga ship item. While ur driving it shoots opponents in front of u, items they are holding, or items left on the road. There is also a galaga themed racing stage

Enjoyable video as always! I have been a fan of Galaga for many years so this one was especially enjoyable!

As always, outstanding work! Thank you!

I always included a few rounds of Galaga in my 80's arcade-going, always a solid game and decent amount of gameplay on one quarter, which always factored into the equation for most kids ~

Great video! Love this game and it's one of my all time favorites. I have the Arcade1up Pac-Man machine which includes Galaga, and I still play it just about every day.

Great review. Galaga is easily on my top ten favorite video games. A classic that never gets old.

Fun Fact #1: Namco also made the Galaxian Flagship/Galboss from Galaxian as a collectible item in Pac-Man. Fun Fact #2: In Galaga, many, if not all, of the enemies that are from Galaxian are also appearing as enemies in the game, including the Sasori/Ogawamushi/Scorpion, Tonbo/Tombow/Dragonfly, Momiji/Maple/Satellite, Galaxian Flagship/Galboss and Enterprise. Fun Fact #3: In Galaga, there is a new level indicator system that is in the game, which was used in most Galaga games afterwards, with the exception of Galaga 3/GaPlus. They are as follows: a little bullet-like icon that has two red horizontal parallel stripes on top, as well as a light blue V on the bottom is a victory over a single stage, a similar icon to the first icon, though a bit bigger, as well as longer, and replacing the two red horizontal parallel lines with a single red horizontal line with the number five on it, for every five levels that are beaten in the game, a big blue shield with a possibly simplified yellow version of the Galaxian Flagship/Galboss in the middle of the shield indicates every ten levels that are beaten in the game, a shield that is purple and that has a yellow crown on it indicates every twenty levels that are beaten in the game, an inversion of the shield from every ten levels that are beaten in the game, which is a yellow and blue shield, but with a blue eagle (?) that is replacing the yellow Galaxian Flagship/Galboss, indicates every thirty levels that are beaten in the game, and, finally, a giant white shield with two black, as well as small, horizontal, and parallel, lines that are on the top of the shield icon, and a massive red V that is all across the shield icon, indicates every fifty levels that are beaten in the game. Fun Fact #4: The Gyaraga Fighter of Galaga makes an appearance in Xeno Fighters EX-R as a selectable Fighter with both high power and speed ratings. Fun Fact #5: The Midori/Ei ships are also from another shooter title that was made by Namco, namely, Bosconian, which was also released on the same year as Galaga, and they also make an appearance in Galaga. Fun Fact #6: Curiously, neither the Blue Minion Bugs, nor the Purple Minion Bugs, from Galaxian, are in Galaga, nor do they appear in Galaxian 3, or any other Galaga or Galaxian title. Fun Fact #7: Boss Galaga appears as an item in Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. In both games, Pac-Man's grab attack is an homage to the Galaga Boss's tractor beam. Fun Fact #8: There are four enemies that are in Galaga that are not based upon insects and they are the Momiji/Maple/Satellite, which is obviously based upon a satellite, the Evil Gyaraga Fighter, which is simply a captured Gyaraga Fighter that is possessed/hijacked/infected, as well as specifically trained to take out your Gyaraga Fighter, the Midori/Ei ships, which are from the game that is called Bosconian, and the Enterprise, which is obviously based upon the Star Trek version of the USS Enterprise. (Now how the last enemy that I had mentioned here had evaded copyright infringement for so long, I honestly do not know.)

deluxe galaga AGA for the amiga by edgar vigdal was a great port of the galaga game, and he also authored warblade on the IOS and PC/Mac

Galaga was the first video game I ever played back in 1985 and it remains my favorite video game. I played the 7800 port a lot and got so good I could flip back to level one. It is the easiest version of the game but whatever.

Awesome thanks Pacmanqc. Great job 👍👌

It’s awesome that you included arcade1up! I hope you keep doing that whenever appropriate-especially if you can determine whether or not 1up has provided the original rom. I think the community will appreciate it.

as always, great vids. glad you are back at it. i've missed ya. hope all is well!!!

I never knew about Galaga Arrangement. Would be a blast to play. Thanks PAT!

One of my all time favorite games. Thank you for this video!

Galaga is iconic back then and up to till very day. Good video as usual Patman!!

Great video! Some versions that I'd forgotten about. The ticket redemption arcade version is fantastic. I've won a lot of tickets on it.

Absolutely love your reviews bud.

i always look forward to your videos :D another gem !!

Another great vid, Patman. Keep 'em conning. The 'cease fire' trick someone mentioned in a previous comment, is rather difficult to pull off but takes away the entire challenge of the game. This trick requires some excellent hand-eye cordination along with memorization skills. The way it is done is in the first stage, let all of the ships come into formation without shooting any of them. This is where your vision and playing skills come into play. Now, keep your eyes on the two ships that are one on top of the other on the far left-hand side of the screen. Those are the two ships you do NOT want to destroy while defeating all of the others. If you manage to do this you can move on to the second step of the trick. That is dodging those two ships for a literal total of fifteen minutes. Around the ten-minute mark, you will notice that those two ships will start shooting less and less. Then when the fifteen-minute mark hits, then those two ships will stop shooting altogether. Then destroy those ships and proceed. If you pull this off, NONE of the ships will fire at you from that point forward. The trick is not easy, well at least for me, to pull off, but I did happen to pull it off once in MAME. Now in GALAGA '88, there is a rather easy trick to get a special bonus of 10,000 points. When the bonus stage "That's Galatic Dancin'" appears, do NOT touch anything. Not the joystick, and not the fire button. When the bonus stage is over, you will get a special bonus of 10,000.

Ah yes, the canonical sequel to Ace Combat.

Thank you for all you do! I love watching these videos!

I was a nerdy young man back in the day and I remember repairing these units when they were all new. I learned electronics when I was very young and by 14 was making money fixing things. When I was out of highschool I went to work for some guys repairing these games and also video poker which paid very well. Keep in mind that the engineers who built these things and in many cases wrote the software were playing on nuances and little quirks in the hardware and software that made these tick. THey were really pushing the chips and the reason the home units did not compete well is because they were built much more cheaply. Also consider that video and sound were offloaded to support chips in many cases which freed up the processor to keep plugging away at the game. One crazy video chip I remember needed a heat sink and was capable of many sprites all in hardware. The processor only needed to tell it where to put the sprites and the orientation in hex. You should have Arcade Jason do a video with you on why this game and the later board they built Galaga on was so superior and worked so well. Many companies were so afraid of clones they built all kinds of crazy hardware to keep their games from being copied. This just made it a PITA for us to fix but we managed. I even used my eprom programmer I bought to repair games to reverse engineer a few cable boxes back in the day and unlock them for all paid channels HA HA HA These games taught you many crafts in electronics as you dug into their inner workings and hardware.

Love Galaga. The intro music alone gets me every time. I forget who told me you could do double ships but after that that's the only way I played it.

Galaga was always a good time. I've never heard of Gaplus before this video. Gaplus looks like a game I will need to find and play for several hours. thanks man !

I love that Splatterhouse got a mention here! That game really made an impression on me at a young age and the only reason I have a TG16 in the first place. I still remember the commercial like it was yesterday!

"This man is playing Galaga." - Tony Stark

Loved the high risk/high reward strategy of letting your fighter get captured to (fingers crossed) increase firepower. 7:23 Wow didn't know your captured fighter could go rogue! Never happened in my games.

Another wonderful video, still one of my favourite games to fire up for a quick high-score run when time allows!

Great video. I love playing Galaga. I was first introduced into playing it when I was maybe 8 or 9 years old. This game really got me more into play overhead shoot'em ups. I cannot leave an arcade place until I spent atleast one quarter playing Galaga.😀🤖🚀👽👾🎮🕹

Played this so many times in our Famicom back in the day. It never gets old.

Thanks man, always a favourite and my most favourite was Galaga Fastshoot arcade version.

My wife got me the tabletop console version as a gift. The ironic thing is she ends up playing it more than I do. 🙂

Neat seeing a reference to Pizza time theater aka Chuckie Cheese @2:35 From way back then. I never stepped foot into one until 1984 I think

Another great video, as always. But I was surprised there was no mention of the reset trick in the arcade version: While the demo screen is playing, wait til the enemy ship comes down and launches its tractor beam. At that point, your fighter is suddenly playable for a few seconds until the cabinets resets. It also works on the anniversary machine that's split with Mrs Pacman. Thanks again for another great video!

You're the best at what you do. I hope you know that. Every video is well researched and presented with love.

Thanks PatmanQC for this great documentation. I remember I mentioned Galaga in the comments of your video for Galaxians, and you said you actually will create it some time in the future. And just did! I almost forgot about it. Awesome! Ah, the peep show thingy you mentioned... Back in the day you really had to decide where to drop your coins into. 🤣

Galaga was so much fun! Shooting bugs never felt so good! In the 1st level if you do not shoot the last 2 bugs & let them twirl around you & dodge there fire on the opposite side of the screen. After 5 minutes they will run out of bullets. Then you can shoot them & from that point on...no bugs will shoot at you ever again! Making you play longer & get a higher score! i believe it was a developers way to make sure all the bugs had no glitches in there flight patterns far into the game! Thanks for this Documentary as i didn't know of so many sequels were out there!

Every one of your videos makes me want to go back and play these games.

There's also a shark that was named "Galagadon" because its teeth were reminiscent to the ship in Galaga.

While loading Tekken 1 & 2, u can play the 1st galaga challenge stage. In Tekken 1 if u get a perfect score, the next few challenge stages are playable. If u get perfect scores in all stages, u unlock a 3rd costume for Kazuya (known as Devil Kazuya)

Beautifully art work indeed. Just needed dancers and glowing artwork.

Galaga is my #1 favorite game. Still love playing it. Thanks Pat.

Don't forget Galaga was a playable demo and was the way to unlock Devil Kazuya for Playstation version of Tekken.

I always loved the fact they called the same guy who made covers for Yes, Asia and so much progressive rock banda to make its cover, Roger Dean

I completely forgot about Gaplus until this video. That was a good game. I remember seeing the unusual tractor beam in the arcade. Wish Arcade1up released this variation. All along I thought it was Galaga 88 that I recalled. It wasn't afterall.

Very nice history info.