The Galaxian Flagship in-game
The Galaxian Flagship originated in the 1979 arcade title Galaxian as an enemy flagship with this title. Following Galaxian's release, the Flagship would be referenced in numerous other Namco games, such as Galaga, Dig Dug and various titles in the Pac-Man series.
In Pac-Man and Pac-Man Plus, it is a regular item which gives the player 2,000 points. In Pac & Pal, the flagship acts as a special power-up to blast Ghosts with. In Pac-Man World, it acts as a generic item again, but it can also open corresponding doors that items, fruits, and mazes are kept in and still gives the same point value. In the whole miniseries, they transport our hero into mazes to race against the Ghosts for extra points. The main menu in World 3 even makes their mazes playable.
Trivia
- Due to its relatively unusual origin and appearance, some 1980s Pac-Man write-ups and merchandising (both official and unofficial) would misconstrue or mislabel the Galaxian Flagship. One common mislabeling was calling the item a "Thunderbird", which seems to originate from the "How to Win at Pac-Man" book by Consumer Guide.
- Across many earlier home ports of Pac-Man (alongside Super Pac-Man), various alterations were made to the Galaxian Flagship bonus item, often being widely inconsistent between ports. These alterations may stem from legal confusion, given its origin point was from a separate IP; no official reason is known behind the changes, however.
- In the Atari 8-bit computer and Atari 5200 versions of Pac-Man, the Galaxian Flagship is replaced by the Atari logo. In the later Atari 8-bit version by Datasoft, the Atari logo is swapped out for a proper Flagship sprite (albeit with its red-and-yellow coloring swapped).
- The Commodore 64 and IBM PC versions of Pac-Man feature a very primitive Galaxian design with a flattened-out top, likely to avoid association with the Galaxian IP.
- The Apple II version of Pac-Man, amusingly, appears to redraw the Galaxian to resemble a thunderbird, likely due to misconstruing the original arcade sprite.
- In the Atari 8-bit computer and Atari 5200 versions of Super Pac-Man, the Galaxian Flagship is replaced with a computer.
- Some Pac-Man ports remove the Galaxian Flagship entirely; with the item simply being skipped in the ports' fruit order. This occurs in the Intellivison port, the Atarisoft VIC-20 version, and the NEC PC-8801 (non-mk11) port.
Gallery
Sprites
