JALECO AND HAMSTER'S EXCELLENT EXERION ADVENTURE
The Arcade Archives library of shmups is vast and most of the times worthy for any enthusiast of this game genre. Awesome Responsibility, man!
Especially when the shooting games are classic arcade titles such as Exerion by Jaleco, that company of E.D.F., Brawl Bros. and Tuff-E-Nuff fame. Excellent!
How’s it going, royal ugly dudes?
Exerion's gameplay mechanics are different from any 1979-1982 shmup you've played. Most Cosmic! To being with, you have a "Double Beam" which is your default weapon. While having a basic firing rate of 1 bullet on screen, it is all what you need, or at least that's what the game makes you think. No Way? Yes Way! Because you have one secondary weapon and its the Single Beam. This weapon has a very fast firing rate acting more like a fast vulcan, making it more effective against the enemies due to its speed. Bogus! But here's the catch; The Single Beam has limited ammo, so you've better use it wisely in specific moments such as facing enemies that take multiple hits like the large bird-like creatures, but here's the good news: Each enemy you take down you'll replenish one ammo point for your Single Shot. So the best strategy is to rack up to let's say 120 Ammo Points and then use it. While any other game divides the enemy waves in stages, Exerion is a single stage that keeps throwing enemies non-stop. Exerion takes cues from Galaga and mostly Galaxian in the concept of formations. You'll be facing enemy groups of four enemies in a single line, and most of the times two or three lines of four or five enemies simultaneously, requiring you to move fast. This is where you'll be facing the true enemy of this game: Force of Inertia. No Way?-Yes Way! For an arcade shmup made in 1983, no one cared of implementing physics and only required the basic directional movement. In Exerion's case you can have an idea of what is piloting a fighter aircraft with those controls as it recreates the physics of high speed flying and the time required to increase or drop altitude. Getting used to the physics is required in this game and the learning curve is considerable since you'll be dying and even getting Game Over a few times like three lost playthroughs or so. The concept of formations and even firing accuracy from Galaga are utilized, but in a more score-approaching take. While Galaga tells you how perfect your firing was after losing the game, Exerion grants you bonus points for not missing a single shot after taking down an enemy formation. Excellent! Not only that, it keeps increasing the formation bonus points as long as you don't miss your firing accuracy. Awesome Responsibility, man!
This should be most triumphant.
After a few waves, you'll be sent to a bonus level where you have to take down the major number of enemies as possible. Most Cosmic!. A total of 40 enemies on each Bonus Stage. This is where you are allowed to use the Single Beam without consuming AP. Each enemy defeated will add 1 ammo point, and clearing all 40 of them grants you 60 for the all clear bonus. Most Excellent!
As an experimental game with brand new physics in motion and the perspective effect on the surface, Exerion was a success in arcades and subsequently, got home ports. Galactic, man! The first off is the Sega SG-1000 computer which managed to recreate the 3D effect in a simpler way, but also rebalancing the physics removing the ship's inertia and increasing the Double Beam's speed making it far more useful. It also has new backgrounds which are more colorful than the arcade. Most Excellent! The MSX version by Dempa (After Burner II, Baraduke) is a port of the SG-1000 made by Jaleco which is identical on every single aspect at the point to tell you "Have you played the SG-1000 port? Then you've played the MSX version without even knowing it". The most remembered version is the Famicom/NES release developed by Tose which was quite a great approach to the arcade and with a greatly improved enemy attack patterns which are more aggressive than before. It is worth to mention that the NES was the lone port to feature a title screen music, improving a little over the music-less arcade version. The Famicom port was re-released on the PlayStation as part of Jaleco Collection Vol.1 by PCCW (Pacific Century CyberWorks) who were known for Darius R the Gameboy Advance. In terms of homeporting its a bag of mixed opinions because it reuses the Famicom version instead of the arcade, which will be disappointing for most players. Also, the game's emulation is a bit off mostly in the title screen music which plays faster than the original Famicom. This was a "Most Heinous" decision since the PlayStation had the potential of an arcade perfect port. PCCW once again re-released the Famicom port on the Gameboy Advance as part of Jajamaru Jr. Denshouki: Jaleco Memorial. The emulation of this release is better than the PlayStation version, but as most NES releases on Gameboy Advance like Castlevania and Metroid (both Classic NES Series and unlockable in Metroid: Zero Mission), it suffers from slight squished graphics to fit on the GBA's screen. After those ports, Jaleco never ported it again. The company died out and its former employees funded City Connection (formerly Clarice Games) and took Jaleco's assets. In 2015, City Connection and Hamster finally gave us an arcade port as part of Arcade Archives which featured the additional Hi-Score and Caravan Modes which I've already mentioned in all of my Arcade Archives reviews. It also features trophies, but since this was one of the very first Arcade Archives releases, you have to access each menu on original mode, reset the game and submit your score after losing the game. Curiously, the first entries of the collection had more trophies than the actual releases in the lineup.
Jaleco City: The best place to be is here.
What made Exerion's graphics "Excellent" over the rest was the three dimensional perspective effect as buildings and mountains "emerged" from the top of the suface layer and slowly scrolled down while other appeared behind increasing the effect of distance and depth. The best way of describe the effect is an "horizontal cylinder" effect, something that we would see later on the background of R-Type III's first level. While the game lacks of music, it has a few sound effects to break the silence a little, letting the stereo equipment at the arcade room to do the job, which was common back then.
Tired of the heinous lack of music on Exerion? Here's a few songs to party on in your mission, dudes.
Nadia Cassini - Get Ready
Charlie - Spacer Woman
Digital Emotion - Go Go Yellow Screen
Taffy - I Love My Radio
The Alan Parsons Project - Stereotomy
TRIVIERION
Are those the "Gradius Heads"? Most Cosmic!
- The use of Moai heads in the background predates Konami's Gradius.
- The Famicom version of Exerion is among the "Bootleg fodder" games as it was included in almost every "Famiclone" multicart among with Super Mario Bros., Contra, Macross and Battle City.
- Some of the enemies made an appearance in Game Tengoku/The Game Paradise: Master of Shooting!
- The Arcade Archives release is the sixth home port of the game.
- It is the second release of this game in Playstation and third on Nintendo, but most important the first Arcade Perfect release after all.
- It is also the second Jaleco title in Arcade Archives library.
This has been a most excellent adventure.
As a vintage shooter, Exerion innovates with the implemented physics in favor of improving the challenge factor by making control mastering more important than attack patterns. Combined with the visual 3D effect of the background we've got an experimental classic with surprising features for the time being.
All I have to say about picking this game on Arcade Archives is to "Be Excellent (and Exerion) with each other and party on, dudes!"
The Eda Scale looks A-OK again.
No way-Yes Way!