Scion, a simple, but odd shooter from 1985, published by Sony for the MSX.
Odd, because of the game rules and other things:
- aim of the game: hit all ground targets
- you can't hit any ground target until you have the white ship-attachment thingie
- you can shoot enemies, but it's mostly to prevent them shooting you (I shoot some enemies for entertainment and when they're in the way)
- it has 3 scenes (per stage), but the game only counts 2
- it has 2 easter eggs in scene 2 (which I show, as they cost no time): when you drop bombs on the race track and baseball field, some yellow thing will appear in the next level. I have no clue what the purpose is, it doesn't seem to matter at all.
- the background (including ground targets) is only about 1 screen high and loops continuously
- there's an end boss at the end of a stage, which has very tricky 'hit' checking (I really can't shoot earlier than I do)
- all stages are identical...
With these things as a given, I optimize the place where the white ship-attachment thingie appears (with luck manipulation) and follow an optimized route to hit all ground targets. As the player's ship moves very slow, it does not make sense to move too much downwards (the scrolling is almost as fast), moving upwards is a lot faster; although some cases are worth it. At the end of a scene it is of course best to be as high as possible (you can't fly the bombing cursor out of the screen, though).
Anyway, enjoy this run of this unusual and badly known game.
feos: Accepting for Vault. Wow, how can people play it >_>
