They're Back! - Playing Galaga 90 on TurboGrafx-16 for the First Time

Yeager couldn't believe his eyes.

The Galaga Corps were back!

Galaga '90 is a TurboGrafx-16 port of the arcade game Galaga '88, and it's an excellent port at that!

Any gamer who's been around for a while (or whose heard of the TurboGrafx) is likely familiar with the Galaga series.

Other than the graphics getting an obvious upgrade, there are several other enhancements to Galaga '90 over the original Galaga, including warp capsules that send you ahead several stages, vertical scrolling stages that work more like a typical shmup, and bosses to defeat.

Right from the start you can select to begin with a single ship, and have 2 lives remaining, or you can begin with dual ships, but only have one life remaining. I prefer to start with the dual ships, because even though it gives you less extra lives, the added firepower is very helpful.

Beyond the graphics and additional gameplay elements, there are also several new enemy types, including puffy enemies that burst into several smaller enemies.

There are also bonus levels, called Galactic Dancin', which you can either try and defeat all of the enemies, or if you simply leave them all alone, and don't kill a single one, you can get a special bonus of at least 10,000 points.

While several new elements have been introduced, the core gameplay is still largely classic Galaga, so if you always liked Galaga then you would also likely enjoy this as well, however if you don't, this one isn't different enough to likely change your mind.

You can see some of my gameplay from Galaga 90 in this YouTube video:

Regardless how I feel about the Galaga series in general, Galaga '90 is a REALLY solid port of the arcade game, and I can see it being a lot of fun for fans of the original game.

If you want to see gameplay from the arcade version of Galaga '88 for comparison, you can check out my video below from YouTube:

I don't think I'll spend a lot more time with this game, but it's certainly not the worst game I've experienced on my journey thus far (that would be Fighting Street).

Now that I've had the chance to experience Galaga '90 it's time to move onto the next game in my TurboGrafx journey, which is...

I got a quick glimpse at the pictures from the game, and I gotta say... I'm not very excited about this one, but hey, it's all about the journey.

Until next time Turbo Troops!