EXERION'S TRIBUTE PAGE WELCOMES ALL THE FANS ! PLEASE HAVE PATIENCE HEAVY GRAPHICS AHEAD !

 

Best viewed at 1024 x 768 or more!

 

 

PROLOGUE

 

Ok let's go back to '80s when all or almost all video games were unique, attractive and full of magnetic and frenzy gameplay.

I remember how much I was mesmerized by this particular machine when I first saw it in arcades.

How many times I skipped school just to walk in the local arcade and play with it again and again !

I remember the big stacks of coins I spent and the endless hours of wiping out the alien ships, especially the big birds which changed colors and exploded with a big BANG!

Oh man those were the days!...but just a minute!...Here it is AGAIN thanks to a group of VERY talented programmers and their achievement called MAME.(I am a faithful follower since ver.03!)

Unfortunately the emulation of my beloved EXERION isn't perfect yet, lacking accurate colors but thank god everything else works fantastically.Thank you guys out there for the great gift you gave me once again, for the opportunity to relive a part of my youth!..(I am now 33, not very old I hope :) ).

Because all of the above I decided to make this tribute page , to preserve EXERION's memory and to gather every piece of info I can to help its emulation to be perfect.Of course every help wanted and every advise is a gem which will probably help to accelerate the progress.C'mon don't hesitate, contact me , I need all of you ; your memories, your playing experience, everything useful concerning the game.

Thanx for reading this...enjoy the rest!


NAME

EXERION

 

MANUFACTURER

JALECO (there is also a TAITO licensed version).

 

YEAR

1982 (Initial release)

 

SEQUEL

SKYFOX (aka EXERIZER)

 

CABINET PICTURES

Exerion's cabinet (upright version)

Exerion's side art

(Thanks to MARKLINE VENDING)

 

FLYERS

For more flyer needs, please pay a visit at arcadeflyers web site.

 

GAME INFO

From the game's flyer: "...is a futuristic world of brilliant colors and imaginative creatures.

It's formations of alien birds, bats and winged beasts that must be destroyed by the fighter ship in fierce outer space combat. It's bonus challenges and feats of flight and daring. It's non-stop action, excitement...and profit...all in a universal conversion kit!

Using the rapid fire gun too often means loosing charges which can be re-energized only by on-target shooting with the dual space cannons. The larger-than-life mutant space birds, genetically bred by the Exerions and on the attack with heat-seeking missiles, take eight hits to be destroyed... and take on a bright rainbow of changing colors when hit! And the EXERION adventure becomes more and more challenging as play continues!..."...need I say more ? ; )

The space craft moves in a pseudo 3D colorful background which changes very often when a different attack wave comes up. There are lots of scenes and alien spacecrafts to shoot, showing a very high AI from the early stages. The game behaves in a very cunning way and some times cheats the player !

There is a notorious bug. In the challenge stage, if you shoot all 40 aliens you normally get a bonus charge of 60. Sometimes a red hydra comes out during this stage. If you shoot it and all 40 aliens, you get a total of 41. The game seems to fail the test of 'hits=40' and only gives you a bonus charge of 41. Pretty obscure I admit, but there you go!

The player has to be extremely precautious when the purple vessels come up, cause they move randomly and very often appear surprisingly from the bottom of the screen.

Part of this game was later used in the fifth stage of "The Game Paradise". The stage is called "23bit CPU captured by 8bit CPU".

 

HINTS

from KLOV:

(1) Try to build your supply of bullets for the fast cannon so it can be used in critical situations.

(2) To get a high score, if you do not miss any shots your bonus score will keep on doubling to 10000 then reset to 000. When at 10000 miss a shot then bonus score will revert to 5000.

 

HIGH SCORE ENTRY

from :

Best player is Giorgio Bonetti from Legnano, Italy with 3.679.100 pts.

Second one is Joe Janiec with a score of 653.400 pts.

More info at the above link.

 

TECHNICAL INFO

Exerion PCB

Class: Wide Release

Genre: Shooter

Type: Video Arcade

Monitor: Orientation: Vertical

Type: Raster: Standard Resolution

CRT: Color

Conversion Class: unique

Number of Simultaneous Players: 1

Maximum number of Players: 2

Gameplay: Alternating

Control Panel Layout: Single Player

Controls / Joystick: 8-way.

Buttons: 2 - Slow Shot, Fast Shot.

Sound: 2 AY-3-8910, amplified Mono (one channel).

CPU: 2 Z80 (NEC D780-1(Z80A), SHARP LH0080A(Z80A)) (In Japan Genuine version).

BOARD: CPU-BOARD:EX-8313, VIDEO-BOARD:EX-8314 (In Japan Genuine version).

X'tal: 19.968MHz (In Japan Genuine version).

PINOUTS: Thanks to Malcom Moody this is the pinout sheet for download.

SCHEMATICS / MANUAL: Thanks to SPIES here is a local mirror for download .

 

ROMS

There are 4 known versions of the arcade game's romsets.

EXERION (Original Jaleco)

Download ROMS

EXERION bootleg

Download ROMS

EXERION Taito licensed

Download ROMS

EXERION Genuine JAPAN version

Download ROMS

 

Important UPDATE ! ! !

For more screenshots click HERE ; ). Thanks to RxMage and Michael Weishaar for the piccys!

 

HOME CONVERSIONS

Nintendo NES 8 bit

Download Nintendo's ROMS

MSX version 1

Download MSX 1 ROMS

Download TAPE image

MSX version 2

Download MSX 2 ROMS

SEGA SC3000-SG1000

Download SEGA'S ROMS

VECTREX VERSION

"Vectorion"

Please visit KRISTOF's VECTREX PAGE

for new Vectrex games .

As you can see from the screenshots, the MSX 1 and SG1000/SC3000 graphics are pretty much similar. I would rather play the Nintendo version.

 

CARTS' SCANS

MSX VERSION 1

MSX VERSION 2

NINTENDO (NES) VERSION

SEGA SC-3000/SG-1000

Thanks to Omar Cornut (Zoop) who scanned the box of this rare cart.

Please check his cool site, SMS POWER !

CART PICTURE WANTED

CART PICTURE WANTED

CART PICTURE WANTED

 

RELATED LINKS

 

SCREENMANIA.

A great web site with TONS of screenshots of various systems maintened by Opi.

KLOV - EXERION's page.

This is the treasure vault of information about any arcade game in existence.

WWW.SPIES.COM

Tons of manuals, schematics etc.

WWW.ARCADEFLYERS.COM

Valuable source of arcades' promo flyers.

OTHER LINKS

Click on LINKS section of my index.

 

Lord13 and Spector... where are you men ?...

That's all folks, more to come soon ! Keep up good playing !