Galaga

Galaga (Japanese: ギャラガ) is a fixed-screen vertical shoot 'em up developed by Namco. It originally launched in arcades in 1981 and was ported to the Famicom in 1985. It is the direct sequel to Galaxian and one of the defining space shooters of arcade’s golden age. Players control a starship at the bottom of the screen, moving only left and right and firing shots to eliminate alien insect enemies in formation. Foes either stay in formation or dive along curved flight paths while firing projectiles. Its most famous feature: large boss aliens fire tractor beams to capture your fighter. If you defeat the alien holding your captured ship, the rescued fighter merges with yours into a dual fighter with doubled firepower. The tradeoff is a wider hitbox; one single hit destroys both ships. Every several stages are challenge stages, where enemies perform flight patterns without shooting, letting players rack up bonus points. Clear all foes on screen to proceed. The game loops endlessly with faster enemy dives and denser bullets. Extra ships are awarded at score milestones. Two players can take turns playing. The Famicom port faithfully preserves core gameplay and sound with simplified graphics adapted for the hardware. Widely included on Subor multicarts in China, its unique ship capture and dual fighter mechanic makes it a beloved classic space shooter for retro gamers.

These are the default keys. Click the gamepad icon 🎮 in the player’s bottom toolbar to rebind them. Gamepads are detected automatically. On phones you get on-screen buttons.

1P

2P

The NES was always two-player — 2P uses the numeric keypad, and NumLock does not matter. No numpad? Rebind 2P to other keys in the 🎮 panel.