Namco Limited - Publisher

Galaga
Galaga

The objective of Galaga is to score as many points as possible by destroying insect-like enemies. The player controls a starfighter that can move left and right along the bottom of the playfield. Enemies swarm in groups in a formation near the top of the screen, and then begin flying down toward the player, firing bombs at the fighter. The game ends when the player's last fighter is lost, either by colliding with an enemy or one of its bullets, or by being captured. Galaga introduces a number of new features over its predecessor, Galaxian. Among these is the ability to fire more than one bullet at a time, a count of the player's "hit/miss ratio" at the end of the game, and a bonus "Challenging Stage" that occurs every few levels, in which a series of enemies fly onto and out of the screen in set patterns without firing at the player's ship or trying to crash into it. These stages award a large point bonus if the player manages to destroy every enemy. Another gameplay feature new to Galaga is the ability for enemies to capture the player's fighter. While the player is in control of just one fighter, a "boss Galaga" (which takes two shots to kill) periodically attempts to capture the fighter using a tractor beam. If successful, the fighter joins the enemy formation. If the player has more lives remaining, play resumes with a new fighter. The captured fighter flies down with the enemy that captured it, firing upon the player just like normal enemies, and can be shot and destroyed. The player can free the fighter by destroying the boss Galaga while in flight, causing the captured fighter to link up with the player's current fighter, doubling his or her firepower but also making a target twice as large. Galaga has an exploitable bug that can cause the attackers to stop firing bullets at the player, due to a coding error. In addition, similar to the famous "Split-Screen bug" in Pac-Man, a bug exists in Galaga in which the game "rolls over" from Level 255 to Level 0. Depending on the difficulty setting of the machine, this can cause the game to stall, requiring that the machine be reset or power-cycled in order to start a new game.

Publishers: Midway , Namco Limited , Dempa Shimbunsha
Super Hydlide
Super Hydlide

Super Hydlide is an action role-playing game for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. It incorporates a 'good/evil character' morality/alignment system. Like its predecessor Hydlide II: Shine of Darkness (1985), the player has a morality meter that can be aligned with either Justice, Normal, or Evil. The game has both good and evil monsters. Evil monsters attack the player character on sight, while good monsters only attack if the player character attacks them first. Killing any monster, good or evil, results in a reward of experience points, money, and occasionally a piece of equipment. However, if the player kills a good monster, points are lost from a statistic called "MF" (Moral Fiber). If the player's MF stat drops to zero, frequent traps will appear across the world. If the player manages to keep it over 100, rewards appear in the form of random items found around Fairyland. The player can also kill good monsters, which usually lowers the morality meter. Unlike Hydlide II, however, the morality meter no longer affects the way in which the townsfolk react to the player. The game also features an in-game clock setting day-night cycles, where the character must eat two times a day and sleep regularly. If the characters stay up late or fail to eat regularly, their HP and attack power gradually drop. Every item in the game (including money) has weight. If the total weight of items the player character carries exceeds their "Load Capacity" (LC), they will move slowly. The game uses cut scenes for its opening and ending sequences, a combat system similar to Ys, a choice between four distinct character classes, and a wide variety of equipment and spells.

Publishers: Seismic , T&E Soft , Asmik Corporation , Namco Limited