Falsion

Falsion is a behind-the-cockpit Shooter game developed and published by Konami in 1987. It holds the rare distinction of being developed for not one, but two of the Nintendo Famicom's peripheral systems, the Famicom Disk System, and the Famicom 3-D imaging system. The 3-D imaging system used an LCD display to shutter the left and right eye, allowing the user to "see" a 3-D image by alternating which eye the screen was drawn for every frame. It was originally designed to work with Highway Star and was considerably unpopular.

Falsion does not present any breakthroughs in the shooter genre, and the game play is rather unimaginative and repetitive. However, it does manage to make fantastic use of the 3-D imaging system, and is considered by those who have had the chance to play many of the system's games to be among the best. Falsion pits player as the pilot of a ship while the camera remains fixed some distance behind the ship. Enemies appear off in the distance and rocket toward to player, or appear from behind and shrink as they get farther away. The player must survive through six stages, each of which presents a dramatically different scene for the battle to occur.

Controls

 * : Use the direction pad to guide the ship in any of eight directions throughout the screen. You can move along the four cardinal directions, as well as any of the diagonals, to the edges of the screen.
 * : Press the A button to launch a heat seeking missile if you have any ammo currently stocked.
 * : Press the B button to fire your main weapons. Up to four bullets may be fired on to the screen at one time.
 * : Press the Start button to begin a new game, or to pause the action mid-game.
 * : Press the Select button to toggle the 3-D effect on and off in the middle of game play.

Player
Throughout the game, you view the Falsion from behind the ship. Your mission is to successfully pilot it through six stage, dodging and destroying fleets of enemies that come at you wave after wave, until you ultimately reach the mother ship found at the end of each stage. You begin the game with three lives, and earn one extra life every time your score reaches another 100,000 points. Your ship is destroyed by colliding with any enemy craft or bullet. You can fire an unlimited amount of bullets from your main weapon, with a limitation of up to four bullets on the screen at any one time. You can also fire heat seeking missiles provided you have collected a red power up, and have missile ammunition remaining.

Power Ups
Throughout the game, a pair of orbs with the letter P on them will appear and rotate around the center of the screen. You can collect them simply by colliding with them. They will rotate for a short while, then zoom ahead into the distance, before snapping back behind you. When they fly back to the camera, this is your last chance to collect them. When collected, the blue power up orb will increase the movement speed of your ship (not the flight speed ahead, but the speed at which you can adjust your position on the screen.) Every red power up orb that you collect will increase your missile count by five, up to a maximum of 99.