Boss Galaga

Boss Galaga (, Boss Galaga) are the strongest of the main enemies in the Galaga series by Namco.

Origin
In Galaga, Boss Galagas appear as one of the common enemies of normal stages. They attack by flying down and firing their tractor beam at the player: if they hit they capture the player's ship, flying back up to the swarm with it and causing the player to lose a life. During the procedure, the same sounds heard in SSB4 and SSBU are played. If the Boss Galaga with the ship is defeated while flying at the player, the captured ship will join up with the player's current ship, doubling their firepower. Like in SSB4 and SSBU the Boss Galaga takes two hits to defeat: it turns purple when hit once and it explodes when hit twice.

As an item
The Boss Galaga appears as an item, and is one of the two items introduced in Smash 4 (the other being the Beetle) that can potentially KO opponents by sending them up to the upper blast line. When thrown, Boss Galaga will fly to the top of the screen (dealing a small amount of damage to anyone it collides with), then fly in formation as it did in its home series. After such, it will dive down and home in on the targeted player's last known position and fire its tractor beam. If it misses, it will fly offscreen and do nothing, but a character caught by its tractor beam will turn red and be taken to the top of the screen and over the upper blast line while 8-bit sound effects from the original Galaga plays: this can be avoided by mashing buttons to escape. The tractor beam can only catch fighters a few moments after being fired; anyone near the beam after that will not be affected.

A Boss Galaga can take damage while it lies on the ground, while being held, as it hovers in mid-air and while it fires its tractor beam: after the first hit it turns blue and purple, and after the second it is destroyed in a flurry of purple pixels. Similarly to the Beetle, it is incredibly difficult to escape from the Boss Galaga's grasp if the victim is at 50% or higher, though it is possible to shake out at low percents. It's possible for a Boss Galaga to remain in place with a captured fighter if a solid ceiling or something similar blocks its path, which gives the victim time to escape or after a while, will cause the Boss Galaga to release them.

Boss Galagas will disappear if thrown above the upper blast line.

In Smash Tour
The Boss Galaga appears as a blue item: when selected, the opponents' positions on the map will be randomly swapped.

A "Boss Galaga Smash" is one of the possible battle types: in it, only Boss Galagas appear as items.

As an item
The Boss Galaga keeps its function from SSB4. Additionally, when a character gets caught the background of the stage changes into a spacescape reminiscent of the original Galaga game. It always carries the player into a Star KO, except on stages that don't allow Star KOs. The Boss Galaga will remain alongside the Star KO'd player in the background as they fly off and disappear. In addition, the Star KO'd opponent will have a sideways tumble animation identical to the Star KOs in the first four Smash games. It cannot be spawned on Princess Peach's Castle, Kongo Falls, Green Greens, Onett, WarioWare, Inc., Frigate Orpheon, Lylat Cruise, New Pork City, Mario Bros., Prism Tower, Tortimer Island, Coliseum, Town and City, Boxing Ring, Moray Towers, Mementos, King of Fighters Stadium, Minecraft World, and Mishima Dojo, despite the bolded stages allowing star KOs.

Spirit
Boss Galaga also appears as an Advanced-class support spirit.

In Adventure Mode: World of Light, Boss Galaga is presumably one of the countless spirits captured by Galeem during his takeover of the universe. After Galeem's defeat, Dharkon takes control of Galeem's spirits, including Boss Galaga. Boss Galaga's spirit is located in the Mysterious Dimension sub-dungeon of The Dark Realm.

Boss Galaga can be summoned using the cores of and.

Boss Galaga's Spirit Battle uses an army of Tiny puppet fighters and is fought on the Lylat Cruise stage's Battlefield form. During the battle, Boss Galaga items will appear while the Pac-Man puppet fighters are easily distracted by the items.

Trivia

 * A bug can occur if Boss Galaga takes a player suffering the slow effect caused by the Timer, Shadow, or Swirlix past the blast line. Should this happen, when the player returns the special effects such as the colorful starbursts from taking damage, their launch trails from high knockback and other similar effects will stay slowed down, despite the player moving at normal speed. This effect will remain for the remainder of the match.
 * It is possible for Boss Galaga to get stuck under objects such as floors and blocks. It and any character Boss Galaga has abducted will then be stuck until the abductee manages to escape or the obstacle disappears.
 * Unusually, the beam is portrayed differently between the Boss Galaga's two different trophies, with the for 3DS trophy portraying it as being more fanned out and solid, and the for Wii U trophy depicting it as more curved at the beginning and entirely pixelated, matching both the original Galaga and Smash.
 * A prerelease screenshot of Smash 4, however, depicts the beam as fanned out and solid, much like the for 3DS trophy.
 * The beam used in the item also serves as Pac-Man's grab.
 * In Ultimate, if a character is at very low damage (mostly around 0% to 20%) and gets captured, Boss Galaga will somehow let go of them and they will more than likely escape without needing to make a single input.
 * The Boss Galaga is the oldest item in the entire series, having made its debut in 1979.