|
CHŌ FUYŪ YŌSAI - EXED EXES
|
|
|
|
|
超浮遊要塞 エグゼド エグゼス
©Takuma Shoten 1985
©Capcom 1984
Release: 1985-12-21 (¥5200)
Cartdridge GTS-EE
Shooter/vertical
|
Exed Exes is a vertical shooter by Tokuma Shoten and conversion
of an arcade game originally released by Capcom in 1985. The game takes
place in the midst of a raging war - insect like creatures called the Exes
have invaded Neg-Nin, a far distant planet in a remote galaxy, thousands of
light years away from Earth. Scientists on Neg-Nin started to build a
warship in reaction to the sudden bug invasion. The fighter comes equipped
with a particle cannon which can be upgraded to double or triple laser beams
by collecting special Pow icons dotted around each level. Unlike most
other shooters of its kind, upgrades in Exed Exes are not cumulative,
and specific Pow icons power-up the craft to the lowest, middle or
highest power level (some, called woP even downgrade the main weapon).
The ship comes with a limited amount of Mega Crush bombs that clear
all enemy bullets from the screen. Levels follow a traditional structure, with
waves of all kind of multicolored insects (bees, beetles, flies, dragonflies),
large bugs and ground cannons that relentlessly bombard the player. Also,
through several levels, the player automatically enters bonus phases called
Hi-Point Areas. The background turns black and different types of
enemies (usually skulls) slowly move down the screen. They can easily be
destroyed, but collecting special Pow icons instantly turns them into
fruits for extra points. Each level ends with a boss battle, and each one of
them is made out of different components (skulls, guns and
flashing cores) that need to be destroyed in order to proceed to the
next stage. Exed Exes features a two-player simultaneous option.
|
The original Exed Exes was released in 1985 by Capcom (picture on the left).
The game was known as Attack of the Savage Bees in America.
The Famicom version tested here displays various differences.
First of all, the parallax scrolling is (obviously) gone and the screen
is vertically a lot shorter. The original arcade game was later included
in Capcom Generation vol.3 (Playstation & Saturn, 1998),
Capcom Classics Collection vol.1 (Playstation 2 & Xbox, 2006)
and Capcom Classics Collection (PSP, 2006).
|
Apparently, Tokuma Shoten organized a contest to commemorate the release of
Exed Exes in Japan. Four special words appear throughtout the game,
all triggered by a certain hi-score - BABYBOY (between 500,000 and
2,000,000), TOUCHME (between 2,000,000 and 5,000,000), KICKPOP
(between 5,000,000 and 9,000,000) and RAPYTUA (over 9,000,000). This
is rather tricky to achieve because although the game gives players unlimited continues,
the score counter resets to zero after a game over.
The game's manual reveals some information about the contest -
It seems that prizes were awarded through
Tokuma Shoten's Family Computer Magazine to players who could
send such passwords. Prizes came in the shape of member stickers that
players would put on their original Famicom game cartridge of Exed Exes
(picture on the right). The prize stickers were Silver (2000 winners),
Gold (500 winners), Platinum (100 winners) and
Royal (10 winners). See the Omake section below for more
images of the silver cartridge.
|
O
M
A
K
E
|
|
|
|
|
Click on picture to enlarge |
S
E
C
R
E
T
S
|
|
Continue:
The game features infinitie continues. Press A and B
when the continue message appears at the bottom of the screen.
|
|
|
|
|
|
LK
|
|
Add your Pov here !
|
P
O
V
s
|
|
Well, the first thing that immediately hits you in the face like a fistful
of nails is the horribly choppy animation (and sprites flicker like crazy).
This really overshadows the rest of the game to me - it is a shame really,
because Exed Exes is reasonably faithful to the original arcade game
(within the technical limitations induced by the hardware it's running on though).
And you want to love Exed Exes, with its whimsically and unpronounceable
name, and its unusual and appealing insect theme. But levels are terribly
repetitive and the game will leave you yawning, and put the controller down way
before the dreaded 'game over' screen pops up (to be fair, this was also true
in the original arcade game). There are some interesting ideas here, but in
practice Exed Exes is just passable and overloaded with annoying
technical flaws.
|
|
|
|
