Gaplus

Gaplus is a fixed-shooter-style arcade game released by Namco in 1984. It was the only other game that ran on the Namco Phozon hardware, and a conversion kit was later released in the U.S. to change the name to “Galaga 3”—possibly to increase name recognition among fans of the games, even though there was no “Galaga 2.” Since Gaplus is a sequel to Galaga, it features similar gameplay. The player controls a spaceship that can now move both vertically (limited to half the screen height, similar to Atari’s “Centipede”) and horizontally, firing at swarms of approaching, insect-like aliens that fly in formation above it and dive down in a kamikaze-style nosedive to attack it. In this sequel, the level restarts from the beginning if the player is killed before all enemies have appeared. Once all enemies are defeated, the player advances to the next level. By collecting certain power-ups, it’s possible to fire sixty shots per screen—more than in any other game in the Galaxian series.