Galacticon

Review

The head of the Interstellar Council started his speech with . . ." We need to do something about these little bugs called humans!" Well, who wouldn't if an entire species was invading all corners of the Galaxy and imprisoning and using other species as slaves? But humans are far more equipped and stronger than all the other species, and the only way to rescue and save the Galaxy is to call upon the all-mighty half-God, half-machine . . .  I'll give it to you straight without curves, Galacticon! 

Galacticon is a pixelated arcade game developed by Radin Game and published by Flynn's Arcade on the 21^st of May 2022 on the Steam Platform. The game is also available on Nintendo Switch. 

What a little beauty this game is! If you like arcade games as I do, don’t miss this one. The nostalgic pixelated graphics and gameplay just threw me back to the 80'S and I was addicted. 

Each wave consists of eight levels, including a final boss fight. Each level has two phases. The first phase is to rescue three different species. Interestingly, two species (red and blue) are enemies, and the other (brown) is neutral. Within the levels, there are three platforms where one of each species will be moving horizontally and waiting for you to rescue them. There are also three rescue capsules with four free spots each. Your objective is to recover the colourful characters and place them in the capsule. But you have a time limit which will be displayed on the top of the screen in the middle. Next to it, you'll be shown which of the next species will fly in their flying cage. To free them, you have to shoot their flying cage, and then you'll be able to rescue them. However, when you destroy their flying prison, they can only stay the air for a certain time; if you don’t rescue them beforehand, they will fall – SPLAT - and die. To make it more difficult, you'll have human flying units appearing all around the screen, and if they touch any of the characters you are currently rescuing, they'll also die. And if Galacticon is touched, even being half God/half machine, it will also die.

You must be mindful of where you position the rescued species inside each capsule. Four of the same colour species is best as you will earn 20K points at the end of the level. Two of the same species in the capsule is fine too, and it will give you 5k points at the end of the level. You can also have three of the same colour if the fourth spot has a neutral brown character placed in it, then you'll receive 10K points. But, if you have three blue and one red character or vice versa in the capsule, the poor lone soul will be shot, and no bonus point will be given at the end of the level.

Each level will have different enemies, and when you beat the first wave (eight levels including the boss), the next wave will become more challenging and so on and so forth. But there are a few boosters that you can acquire in the first level phase. They will drop from the top of your screen, so you can upgrade your weapons, armour and get an extra life or extra time. There are also crystals that will drop, but you must pick them up for another booster or crystal to drop again. It is just full-on fun!

When all three capsules are occupied, you can move up the Galacticon to the top of your screen to start the second phase, and you must reach Galacticon's main spaceship. On my best run so far, I was able to reach the third wave and get halfway through.  Oh boy, that was something!

I can assure you that arcade fans will love having this little beauty in their game library ready to go anytime. The pixelated graphics are superb, the gameplay is just amazing, and you also have a little bit of puzzle mechanics. You also have a global leaderboard which allows you to receive additional content when you upload your latest score.

Review written by THE CPT FROGGY for Zeepond.com

Galacticon Steam Store Page