Galaga

ギャラガ (Gyaraga)NES, Arcade, Other, MSX +111981

  1. JP1981
  2. NA1981
  3. EU1989
  4. RU—

Galaga kept its name in most regions, but the North American NES cartridge was sold as Galaga: Demons of Death, and Sega's SG-1000 port in Japan was called Sega-Galaga. The simplest legal ways to play it today are ARCADE GAME SERIES: GALAGA on Steam and Arcade Archives GALAGA on Switch and PS4.

Galaga is a space shooter developed by Namco and part of the Galaxian series. It came to Japanese arcades in September 1981, and Midway Manufacturing distributed it in North America from November 1981. Shigeru Yokoyama directed it, Toru Ogawa programmed it, Hiroshi Ono drew the art and Nobuyuki Ohnogi wrote the music.

Its signature enemy is the Boss Galaga. It takes two shots to destroy and can capture the player's ship with a tractor beam; rescuing the ship gives a dual fighter with double firepower. The bonus Challenging Stages grew out of a bug in which enemies flew off-screen instead of forming up. A shark species, Galagadon nordquistae, was later named after the game's aliens.

The Famicom version came out in Japan on 15 February 1985 and returned on the Famicom Disk System on 22 June 1990. North America got the NES cartridge in 1988 as Galaga: Demons of Death. Galaga is also one of the 30 games built into the NES Classic Edition.12

Names and releases

RegionTitle on the boxPlatformDatePublisherSrc
NA Galaga Arcade November 1981 Midway Manufacturing 1
NA Galaga: Demons of Death NES September 1988 Bandai 1
JP ギャラガGyaraga Arcade September 1981 Namco 1
JP Sega-GalagaSG-1000 Other November 1983 Sega 1
JP ギャラガGyaraga MSX May 30, 1984 Namco 2
JP ギャラガGyaragaFamicom; date also given in English Wikipedia NES Feb 15, 1985 Namco 2
EU GalagaPAL NES Jul 4, 1989 Bandai 1
JP ギャラガGyaragaFamicom Disk System Famicom Disk System Jun 22, 1990 Namco 2
JP —Game Boy; released abroad by Nintendo under the Arcade Classic brand Game Boy Jul 14, 1995 Namco 1
JP ギャラガGyaragaVirtual Console (Famicom version) Wii Feb 6, 2007 — 2
WW ARCADE GAME SERIES: GALAGAArcade Game Series; also PS4 and Xbox One Windows Apr 19, 2016 Bandai Namco Entertainment 3
WW Arcade Archives GALAGAArcade Archives on Switch and PS4; Japan date 5 Jan 2023 per Japanese Wikipedia Switch January 2023 — 1

Also known as: Galaga: Demons of Death NA1Sega-Galaga JP1Gyaraga JP2

Box art by region

  • Galaga: Demons of Death box art, North America release
    NA Galaga: Demons of Death
  • Galaga box art, Europe release
    EU Galaga
  • ギャラガ box art, Japan release
    JP ギャラガ

Box art © its publishers, shown to identify each release. Scans: libretro-thumbnails.

Version differences

  • TitleNES (NA)

    The North American NES cartridge added the subtitle Demons of Death; the Famicom and PAL releases were simply called Galaga.1

  • GameplayArcade

    The arcade original reaches a kill screen after stage 255: the next stage is announced as stage zero, and what happens then depends on the cabinet's DIP switch settings.1

  • ContentGame Boy

    The Game Boy version supports the Super Game Boy accessory.1

All differences (4)

Where to play legally today

  • Steam Purchase

    ARCADE GAME SERIES: GALAGA

    Arcade version (Arcade Game Series edition)

    Checked: 2026-10-133store.steampowered.com

Reception

Galaga was the sixth highest-grossing arcade game of 1981 in Japan and the third of 1982, and one of the top ten US arcade games of 1983. Later rankings put it 17th in Next Generation's Top 50 and 23rd in Game Informer's 2010 list.1

In lists

Sources

  1. 1en.wikipedia.org
  2. 2ja.wikipedia.org
  3. 3store.steampowered.com
  4. 4ja.wikipedia.org

Checked: 2026-10-13Text reviewed: 2026-10-13

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