| paleface [sys=PCB; cat=Shooter_Vert; reg=NA] |
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Playing the arcade version of Galaga, extracted from the Steam version of Arcade Game Series: Galaga played in ancient MAME 0.119!
According to a breakdown I found, the Difficulty DIP switch setting for the game just changes what attack patterns the enemies use, up to stage 20, at which point they all become the same:
https://www.twingalaxies.com/archive/index.php/t-120444.html
"PhantomDJ
09-04-2008, 12:53 AM"
"There are 13 different attack patterns in Galaga. This does not include the 8 different challenging stages, which occur on levels 3, 7, 11, 15, 19, 23, etc. Refer to the table below to see which attack pattern occurs on which stage, depending on the dip switch difficulty setting: (note that the challenging stages are omitted)
Stage#: 01 02 04 05 06 08 09 10 12 13 14 16 17 18 20 21 22
pattern: 01 02 05 04 03 05 07 01 08 10 09 11 13 01 11 13 12 ; Easy Skill
pattern: 01 02 03 04 01 05 07 06 05 07 01 08 10 09 11 13 12 ; Medium Skill
pattern: 01 02 03 07 06 08 10 01 08 13 12 11 13 12 11 13 12 ; Hard Skill
pattern: 01 02 08 10 09 08 13 12 11 13 12 11 13 12 11 13 12 ; Hardest Skill
After stage 22, the attack patterns from stages 20,21,22 repeat.
Attack pattern 01 is the one where there are no extra enemies and the enemies do not shoot on their way into formation. We see that all skill levels start with this pattern, and it is repeated on stage 10 and 18 for "easy" skill, stage 6 and 14 for "medium" skill, stage 10 for "hard" skill and never again for "hardest" skill.
Looking closely at this table, I believe that the settings for "easy" and "medium" are backwards:
"medium" gives the easy attack pattern 01 on earlier stages (stages 6 and 14) than does the "easy" skill (stages 10 and 18). Also, the hardest attack patterns (11 and 13) occur eariler on the "easy" skill (stages 16 and 17) than the "medium" skill (stages 20 and 21).
In any case, once the player reaches stage 20, all skill levels behave the same, at least with regard to the incoming attack patterns."
I was probably mostly on Medium difficulty; I tried switching the difficulty dip setting more than that, but now I'm thinking it probably doesn't take effect until you restart the ROM; later I restarted on Hardest but didn't notice a real difference, maybe because I wasn't familiar enough with the difference in attack patterns.
I was also having difficulty with MAME 0.119's task-switch keyboard focus quirk. : PPP (Note to self: got out w/ Win key, r-click taskbar tab)
Enemy dive attacks not being randomized, unlike the Famicom version, might not be that big a deal in practice since in theory the enemies that survive your bombardment of their scripted entrance formations will tend to be different each time anyway, I suppose.
I definitely like the more subtle starfield background in the Famicom version better than the one here; there are more stars here but their blinking is harsher and they all scroll at the same speed.
And I think I prefer the way in which the enemies are closer-up and effectively larger on-screen in the Famicom version, and definitely that you seem to move side to side slightly faster in that version. I'd worried it might mean the Famicom version was too easy, but I doubled my Famicom score here in the arcade version--although probably on its Easy difficulty; I'd set the dips to Medium didn't think to reboot the ROM.
I did kind of end up getting into this version more than I thought I would! Definitely didn't hate it like I thought I might, after my youth of getting sick of it being everywhere and writing it off. (Although I think Namco didn't have their North American publishing side really set up back then; they had Midway bringing their stuff over in arcades, and Tengen publishing Pac-Man on NES, for instance; they didn't publish an NES game themselves in North America until '87, and didn't get Galaga out in the States on NES until '88, 3 years after the Famicom version--and by that time, two sequels in the series were out in arcades, and they didn't even bring those out on Famicom, much less NES! (They brought the 2nd of them to TG16. 'p'))
But it doesn't have the magnetic appeal to my simple senses that the NES version with its magnified action and gorgeous stars does, so if I stick to a Galaga, it'll probably be to that one. |
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| | | | I think I forgot when I extracted this previously that MAME 0.119 reports missing 54xx.bin from the galaga.zip extracted from Steam's install using the farmerbb/RED-Project WSL script https://github.com/farmerbb/RED-Project . I seem to have got around this by cloning it from (randomly) prom-5.5n. : P |
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| | | Ahah, needed to go back further. https://www.twingalaxies.com/showthread.php/179057-M-A-M-E-Galaga-Namco-rev-B-Points-Tournament-5-456-890-Andrew-Barrow :
"- 0.112u1: Replaced implementation of Namco 54xx sound chip with new MB8844 CPU core running the original embedded ROM code. Removed old sound core [Nicola Salmora, Ernesto Corvi, Guru]. Added MB88xx (256000 Hz) CPU4 with 1k rom 54xx.bin. Replaced Namco 54XX sound with 3x DAC sound."
So I'm using MAME 0.111 for this Steam-extracted Galaga ROM. : P |
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| | | | Ah actually it can go up to MAME 0.0130; 131 was where "mame started doing more accurate emulations of the Namco 5xxx chips" ( https://github.com/arpruss/xsr ). At 23.3 KB, this ROM is smaller than the one from Namco Museum 50th Anniversary (40.5 KB -- see entry 873). |
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| paleface 15:00:39 07/27/24 [relations updated] |
| | | | ^ This version from Steam's "Arcade Game Series: Galaga," I mean. |
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| | | | Oops wrong the Steam ROM only goes up to MAME 0.119. The 50th Anniversary one can do 0.130. |
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Playing arcade versions of Galaxian and then for comparison some of its follow-up, Galaga, in MAME 0.267 and MAME 0.130, respectively. Extracted and converted these ROMs from the PS2 disc for Namco Museum 50th Anniversary, using scripts from https://github.com/arpruss/xsr
(The Galaga ROM from Namco Museum 50th Anniversary (PS2) can run in up to MAME 0.130; the ROM from Arcade Game Series Galaga (PC/Steam) can only run in up to MAME 0.119.)
Galaxian's emphasis is more on one-on-one--or one-on-three--duels, bullet dodging, and precision shooting, whereas Galaga's is on wave memorization and shot speed. Galaga is much faster! And its enemies' shots lob sideways, more easily boxing you into / catching you in corners. I'm not good at memorization, I like the feeling of dueling and shot-dodging (I suppose that like a lot of Galaxian comes from Taito's Space Invaders!)--and I get a bit bored by Galaga's constant, lengthy, and memorization-heavy bonus stages--so I'm leaning Galaxian-style!
Galaxian also seems to have a more interesting evolution of enemy behaviors over the course of a stage. First, you learn that the different colors of enemies have different movement patterns, with my current scourges being the purple ones, who can dive in very wide back and forth horizontal sweeps threatening a large part of your ship's movement range. The other ships mostly have less wide-ranging dive patterns, but as time passes in a stage--or maybe its as the number of enemies dwindles, I'm not sure--but enemies can also just sweep offscreen and disappear from the stage on their own eventually, possibly in scorn over my lack of marksmanship! (I seem to have an uncanny knack for placing shots that fly harmlessly right up through the narrow gap between the columns of ships in the huge enemy formation ; D)--enemies of all colors gradually move into wider and wider-ranging dive patterns, making them increasingly more dangerous and hard to hit!
And Galaxian doesn't have any of Galaga's "let aliens capture my ship so I can capture it back so I finally have enough firepower to perfect the bonus stages but now it's way harder to dodge anything" rigmarole to worry about.
Galaxian's sound FX as heard in Namco Museum Vol. 3 on PS1 sounded like slightly simpler Galaga sounds, kinda standard bleeps and bloops--Galaga makes them sing a bit more--but in this ROM played in MAME they have an entirely different, atmospheric quality, with a deep WHOOSH surrounding the player's shot, for instance, making it feel like a real event each time you launch a projectile. Pretty fantastic!
(On PS1, it's Namco Museum Vol. 3 that has Galaxian, and Vol. 1 that has Galaga. Went back and tried that Galaga out after recording this MAME Galaga and yep, I do like the closer-range action of that one's optional "Panorama" screen mode better than the arcade version's long vertical screen. : D PS1 Galaxian doesn't have that mode though, and doesn't have the awesome whooshy SFX this ROM from Namco Museum 50th Anniversary (PS2) has!) |
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