Exerion, 1983 Jaleco/Taito

Channel:

crazyclimber80

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Published on October 28, 2018 9:54:09 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlOxtw2YiOo

Game:

Exerion (1983)

Duration: 10:50

207 views

14

Enjoyable shooter with impressive (for 1983) parallax scrolling of the terrain below. Pilot your ship all over the screen to engage and avoid enemy aliens. The coolest dynamic isn't even the parallax scrolling; it's the use of 2 different shots and knowing when to use them. One shot is rapid-fire and you have limited use of it (a counter at bottom left shows your stock remaining), and one fires stronger double shots but you can only shoot one at a time. The game doesn't tell you that using the double shot to finish off large enemies or a group of enemies can lead to some really nice bonus points! This is hard to do if you're not a seasoned EXERION player, though; since the enemies can swoop all over the screen just as you can (and the "swooping" technique can get you out of some scrapes, just know that you can't stop your ship on a dime and that veering towards an enemy is likely to kill you since you can't react in time). Most enemies will fire shots or missiles (the latter can be shot) and the missiles will tend to move toward you a bit. If you can get fairly far in the game you will be treated to a bonus round-- you now have unlimited rapid fire shots and even though you don't get a "perfect" bonus (kind of stupid), you get some "stock" added to your rapid fire counter. Lovely shooter with some cool elements to it; it's just a shame the enemy shots/missiles can be hard to see sometimes in the colorful terrain.