Anyway, here's Exerion, one of my dad's favorite Arcade games.
He played this shit so much when i was a child, i remember it well. I never saw anyone ever getting as far as he did. I'd play the technologically superior Arcade version, but MAME is an absolute bitch to emulate on pc even to this day with all the new technology, so NES version it is
I really like the character design here. Your ship kinda looks like an 8 bit rendition of the Arwing from Star Fox. And the enemies remind me of Dark Nebula from Kirby. Obviously this game came out much, much before either of those, but still it's lovely to think about and look at
Your movement options are as usual in these games, but it does feel a little stiff. Not in a bad way, more like in a "realistic aircraft inertia" kinda way. It feels funny to control. And you get 2 attack options, one is the slow unlimited dual shot, and the other is a much better but limited singular rapid fire shot
The music is kinda weird and really simple, but feels appropiatedly alien for what i assume is the lore of this game. The scenery however is quite stiking. Many colorful 2D layers on the background scrolling in a way that makes you feel you're actually flying across a round 3D map. It even features confusing backgound details
And of course there's the aforementioned creatures. I never knew what they were. All i know is the little X shaped ones are fun to destroy with the rapid shot. The tiny 3 headed dragon is some bonus and very colorful. Everything is really colorful in this game. Then there's the tiny birds, that were actually probably dragons, but my dad called them birds. Then the rounder ones that my dad called the popcorns. And then the big birds, there's increasingly bigger birds in this game as bosses. Really fun and you get tiny medals on the corner for beating them
If you have time, give Exerion a try. On arcade. It's a fun time
