Exerion - MAME machine

Arcade Video game published 41 years ago:

Exerion © 1983 Jaleco Company, Ltd [Japan Leisure].

Exerion is a vertical shooter that is operated with an 8 direction joystick and two fire buttons. The game's biggest features are the parallax scrolling which occurs in the background, and the sensation of inertia that is applied to the motion of the ship. The ship is equipped with two kinds of weapons. You can fire the dual shot gun which can only release one pair of shots on the screen at a time, but has an unlimited supply, by tapping the first fire button. The single shot gun can fire a rapid stream of shots on the screen at one time by holding the second fire button down, but it is limited in ammo according to the number of charges indicated on the bottom. Each weapon is best used in different situations, in order to defeat the enemies which come flying down from the top part of the screen.

Due to the inertia of the ship, you must input any reverse in direction much sooner in order to cancel the ships momentum. This was not a common feature for similar games that came out around the same time, so it distinguished Exerion from other shooters. Because the Famicom conversion was played on a horizontal screen, the enemies appeared much closer to the player's ship, which changes the feel of the game since you have to react to the enemies' location much sooner.

TECHNICAL
Main CPU: (2x) Zilog Z80 (@ 3.333333 Mhz)
Sound Chips: (2x) General Instrument AY8910 (@ 1.666666 Mhz)

Players: 2
Control: 8-way joystick
Buttons: 2

TRIVIA
Exerion was released in November 1983.

Licensed to Taito for US distribution.

A part of this game was later used in the fifth stage of "The Game Paradise". The stage is called '23bit CPU captured by 8bit CPU'.

A bug can occurs resulting a return to the titlescreen...

Another bug is know during the challenge stage: if you shoot all 40 aliens you normally get a bonus charge of 60. Sometimes a red hydra comes out during this stage. If you shoot it and all 40 aliens, you get a total of 41. The game seems to fail the test of 'hits=40' and only gives you a bonus charge of 41.

Giorgio Bonetti holds the official record for this game with 3,679,100 points.

TIPS AND TRICKS

• Hint:

To get a high score, if you do not miss any shots your bonus score will keep on doubling to 10,000 then reset to 000. When at 10,000 miss a shot then bonus score will revert to 5,000.

• Hint:

When fire from the double shot (slower) weapon hits an enemy, it re-charges the faster single shot weapon. To keep the single shot re-charged it is possible to fire both weapons at once by tapping both fire buttons, maintaining charge, giving a higher rate of fire and more chance of hitting enemies.

PORTS

• CONSOLES:

[JP] Sega SG-1000 (1983) "Exerion [Model G-1028]"
[JP] Nintendo Famicom (1985) "Exerion [Model JF-01]"
[JP] Sony PS4 [PSN] (oct.23, 2014) "Arcade Archives - Exerion [Model CUSA-01255]"
Sony PlayStation 4 [PSN] [US] (jul.7, 2015) "Arcade Archives - Exerion [Model CUSA-00986]"
Sony PlayStation 4 [PSN] [EU] [AU] (jul.22, 2015) "Arcade Archives - Exerion [Model CUSA-02659]"

• COMPUTERS:

[JP] MSX (1984)

CONTRIBUTE
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