Namco re-imagined Galaga and brought us Galaga Legions in August 2008. It is a fun but flawed game. The big one is the satellite system. You can drop off "satellites" in positions around the screen to fire at your enemy, or you can use them as extra fire for your ship. Problem was, you could only fire your ship in one direction, forward, and the satellites fired in the direction they were placed. You could deal with it, but it got annoying in higher levels. Galaga Legions DX brings something to the table that saves the Legions brand in a twin-stick shooter style!
Your satellites are stuck in a small radius of your ship, but they control like every twin-stick shooter. One stick moves, one stick points the way to fire. The standard fire is all-one-direction Blue Satellite Focus Fire, and the secondary Red Satellite Spread, or mirror style, clears out walls of enemies on both sides, leaving you with much more opportunity to survive. That small change in control in Legions makes the game more accessible and much more enjoyable.
The difficulty has been ratcheted down a bit from Galaga Legions, and it's a lot less annoying. Legions DX gives you a fighting chance at survival. That's not to say the game won't eventually kick your ass in some way or another. You still have smart bomb-type enemies that, when destroyed, will destroy the whole formation it is flying in, and mid-bosses which act the same way, but are much larger and are surrounded by enemies, resembling the classic Galaga arcade gameplay from the 80s. There are even graphical options brought forward from Galaga Legions, featuring the sleek new graphic style, the retro style, even a style that you might find on an old PC with letters used to form your ship.
The set-up for gameplay is very similar to that of PacMan Championship Edition: DX, the obvious difference is lack of mazes. There are three gameplay modes: Championship, Level Selection, Time Attack, and Tutorial. Championship Mode runs you through the game from start to finish. Level Selection allows you to do one level at a time. There are 9 levels to choose from, and each level has 5 sections. Time Attack allows you to play each section individually, so you don't have to commit to a long play session if you don't have time. Also, in Time Attack, taking damage to your ship will decrease the time you have left to complete the level, so you don't just explode, you can get timed out. Tutorial is 5 levels of learning how to play and how to usge your satellites. Your score will also be tracked and ranked online for each section, which brings you back to the days of high-score battles on the leaderboard on the arcade machines.
Galaga Legions DX again shows that Namco knows what they are doing with re-imagining the classics. I also wonder what Namco could do with re-imagining licenses from other game companies. Or if they might do something with a downloadable Ridge Racer title- not a full-fledged retail title like Ridge Racer 6 or Ridge Racer Type 4, but a Ridge Racer 2/Ridge Racer Revolution compilation.
Galaga Legions is, of course, highly recommended.
Above: Blue Satellite Focus Fire, or"Standard" twin-stick firing
Below: Red Satellite Spread Fire, "Mirror" twin-stick firing
Screenshots from the Godfather, XBox.com 2007-2015 Four Tokens Media