Sleeper of the day, NES Exerion

[vintagegamecrazy]

I'm going to bring these threads back by popular demand. I am going to start out with some quick and simple games and expand into some more deep and obscure stuff. I am going to use a variety of systems and any genre of games period. If it's rare, obscure and good it's going to get posted here.

And to start things off, my first game is for the NES and is in the form of a classic shooter and an import at that. It only appears on two known consoles, NES and SG1000. I hope you enjoy this restart. Please post friendly criticism and don't feel afaid to PM me with a Sleeper you know of.

REVIEW

I’d be darned if this wasn’t one of my favorite NES games and a darn strong contender for a Galaga killer. I first played it on the Sega SG1000 and liked it there and now I found it on a pirate multicart and can say it’s even better on the NES. This game takes the best from all of the good shooters and combines it all into one great game. There is so much strategy and variety in the game play that it seemed ahead of its time for 1985. The screens scroll like Buck Rogers and your ship can move up, down, left, and right. You have two kinds of shots, your standard shot is a twin shot that fires slowly but is wide and can kill several enemies at once. As you kill enemies you charge up a special single shot that is extremely fast and can wipe out entire rows of enemies within seconds but it gets exhausted in a few seconds and needs to be recharged. The strategy comes in with trying to find a good balance between the two without getting vaped by the enemies.
Enemies are extremely smart and will dodge out of the way of your fire, kill a few waves and new enemies appear, the birds are quite smart as they fire shots that drop down then loop back up at you from the bottom. Every once in a while a special enemy will fly across the screen and is worth 1000 points if killed. There are even bonus stages similar to Galaga where you have to kill as many enemies as you can and a perfect score of 40 is quite a challenge.
The graphics are quite simple but look so good here, there is a lot of detail in the enemies and backgrounds and it constantly changes as the waves progress.
Sound is extremely simple but like Galaga is quite catchy and will always stay enjoyable.
The whole game is a great job on Jaleco’s part, there’s traces of Galaga, Space Invaders, Buck Rogers, Demon Attack, Phoenix, Megamania and many more that don’t come to mind. This game would be an instant classic if released in the states, it can easily be imported on Ebay. This game is well worth owning for game play’s sake alone, go get it today.

Graphics 10
Sound 9
Game Play 9
Overall 9

End of review
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v465/vintagegamecrazy/ExerionJ1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v465/vintagegamecrazy/ExerionJ2.jpg

Import it or Buy it, but just play it.

[Jehuty]

I used to play this game in the local Fish and chips shop, man was I gutted when they went out of business as that was the only arcade game within 5k of my house.

[MrRoboto19XX]

This is indeed a solid game. A friend and I broke out my powerjoy over last week and spent a good long while playing this game. Controls are surprisingly tight for a game that at first would seem awkward to control.

[Steve W]

I could swear I've played that in the past, but I don't know where. It must have been on a pirate Famicom. I didn't give it a whole lot of time, though. I guess I'll have to locate whichever machine I saw it on and give it another shot.

[kainemaxwell]

I play this often on my 191-in-1 cart. Definitely a fun shooter with cool graphics.

[vintagegamecrazy]

Bumpty since it's gaining interest on my other thread.

[DarthKur]

I have both the Sega and Famicom carts. Obviously the Sega one is much more graphically inferior but they do both play, control wise, identically. The way your ship moves does take a little getting used to. It's like the controls are slightly "mushy" being that there is a slight delay from the moment you push the pad in whichever direction that you desire to move and to the moment the ship actually moves. It has a very fluid like feeling. I don't feel that this detracts from the game but instead contributes to it's uniqueness. A very fun game on either platform.

[coinheaven]

i made a repro a few months ago:

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e371/coinheaven/exerion.jpg

[NE146]

I’d be darned if this wasn’t one of my favorite NES games and a darn strong contender for a Galaga killer.

I actually remember this game coming out waaaay before Galaga. It was shortly after the Space Invader era when Exerion (and Alpine Ski and others) hit our arcades.

As far as the arcade version which the console versions are ports of, yes it was definitely a great shooter. I loved it when you made it far enough to shoot at the "big" birds :)