is a

fixed shooter Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs ) are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of charact ...

video game developed and published by

Jaleco was a corporate brand name that was used by two previously connected video game developers and publishers based in Japan. The original Jaleco company was founded in 1974 as Japan Leisure Company, founded by Yoshiaki Kanazawa, before being rena ...

for arcades in September 1983, and licensed to

Taito is a Japanese company that specializes in video games, toys, arcade cabinets and game centers, based in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The company was founded by Michael Kogan in 1953 as the importing vodka, vending machines and jukeboxes into Japan. It ...

for manufacture and distribution of the game in North America. The player controls a starship and must fire at enemies on the screen while avoiding projectiles. The game uses a pseudo-3D

scrolling In computer displays, filmmaking, television production, and other kinetic displays, scrolling is sliding text, images or video across a monitor or display, vertically or horizontally. "Scrolling," as such, does not change the layout of the tex ...

background, giving a sense of depth, and the player's ship has a sense of inertia while it is being controlled with the joystick. ''Exerion'' was ported to the

MSX MSX is a standardized home computer architecture, announced by Microsoft and ASCII Corporation on June 16, 1983. It was initially conceived by Microsoft as a product for the Eastern sector, and jointly marketed by Kazuhiko Nishi, then vice-p ...

Family Computer The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in American ...

, and

SG-1000 The is a home video game console manufactured by Sega. It was Sega's first entry into the home video game hardware business. Developed in response to a downturn in arcades starting in 1982, the SG-1000 was created on the advice of Hayao Nak ...

. Two sequels were released.

Gameplay

''Exerion'' features

parallax Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to foreshortening, nearby object ...

effects and

inertia Inertia is the idea that an object will continue its current motion until some force causes its speed or direction to change. The term is properly understood as shorthand for "the principle of inertia" as described by Newton in his first law o ...

simulation. The player shoots formations of bizarre alien

amoeba An amoeba (; less commonly spelled ameba or amœba; plural ''am(o)ebas'' or ''am(o)ebae'' ), often called an amoeboid, is a type of cell or unicellular organism with the ability to alter its shape, primarily by extending and retracting pseudo ...

, egg-throwing

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

s and

Pterosaur Pterosaurs (; from Greek ''pteron'' and ''sauros'', meaning "wing lizard") is an extinct clade of flying reptiles in the Order (biology), order, Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cre ...

ic creatures, as well as

UFOs An unidentified flying object (UFO), more recently renamed by US officials as a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon), is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. On investigation, most UFOs are ide ...

while flying over the surface of a planet. The player has two types of guns: a slow double shot (unlimited) and a fast single shot (limited).

Reception

In Japan, '' Game Machine'' listed ''Exerion'' as the top-grossing new

table arcade cabinet An arcade cabinet, also known as an arcade machine or a coin-op cabinet or coin-op machine, is the housing within which an arcade game's electronic hardware resides. Most cabinets designed since the mid-1980s conform to the Japanese Amusement Ma ...

in November 1983, and then the top-grossing tablet cabinet in December 1983.

Legacy

The Family Computer version of the game is included in the compilation ''Jaleco Collection Vol. 1'' for the PlayStation in 2003, as well as in the Game Boy Advance game ''JaJaMaru Jr. Denshoki Jaleco Memorial'', along with five other Jaleco Family Computer games. The original arcade version was later released for the PlayStation 4 as part of the ''

Arcade Archives is a series of emulated arcade games from the late 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, and Nintendo Switch, published by Hamster Corporation. A sub-series called is focused on rereleasing Neo ...

'' label on October 23, 2014 in Japan and on July 7, 2015 in North America and also on the

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a tablet that can either be docked for use as a home console or used as a portable device, making it a ...

in the

Nintendo eShop The Nintendo eShop is a digital distribution service powered by the Nintendo Network for the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS, and by a dedicated online infrastructure for the Nintendo Switch. Launched in June 2011 on the Nintendo 3DS, the eShop was en ...

Hamster Corporation is a Japanese video game publisher, with office located in Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan. The game division of Toshiba-EMI Limited spun off Hamster Corporation in November 1999. On the Japanese PlayStation Store, more than 200 titles are distribu ...

as part of the same series. Two sequels to the game were released. ''Exerion II: Zorni'' was released for the MSX in 1984 alongside a port of the original arcade game. The second, ''Exerizer'', was released for arcades in 1987, which was released in North America by Nichibutsu under the title ''Sky Fox''. The player's ship, the Fighter EX, is a playable character in Jaleco's '' Game Tengoku'' series.

Notes

References

External links

*
''Exerion''
at

Page {{Jaleco 1983 video games Arcade video games City Connection franchises Jaleco games MSX games Nintendo Entertainment System games Nintendo Switch games PlayStation 4 games SG-1000 games Fixed shooters Tose (company) games Virtual Console games Virtual Console games for Wii U Taito arcade games Multiplayer and single-player video games Video games developed in Japan Hamster Corporation games