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.

Walkthrough
To complete Falsion, you must fly through six stages, in order and in their entirety, and destroy the boss ships at the end. Most of your time will be spent dodging enemy attacks and firing back at them with your weapons. Many enemies are destroyed with a single shot from your main guns, while other take a few more hits to defeat. Some objects are invulnerable to attack. Bullets from your gun will ricochet off these objects to the right or to the left. The bullets that ricochet are still capable of destroying craft that collide with them. There are two major strategies to employ while playing through Falsion:
 * 1) Never stop moving.  If an enemy is capable of firing, it will fire bullets at your present location.  Enemy bullets travel rather fast, and it won't take long for them to hit you.  As long as you are moving around and don't return to your original position, you can safely avoid all enemy bullets.  Some enemies fly straight towards you, but they can be avoided in the same manner.
 * 2) Don't occupy the center. While no spot on the screen is entirely safe from attack, the center of the screen is particularly dangerous.  Since your view of the screen is skewed down an angle at every location except the center, you will be unable to see if an enemy is firing at you from the center since your ship will block your view.  If you must utilize the center of the screen, do so briefly before any enemy has a chance to fire at you, and move away quickly before someone does.

Stage 1
The game will start out with two waves of very simple enemies before the first two power ups arrive, one blue and one red. Collect them, and keep moving when a squad of ships fly straight toward you before the next two power ups appear. Few enemies will appear before you get another pair of power ups, both red. You should now be up to 20 missiles. Meteors will first appear here. They are indestructible, and your bullets will just ricochet off of them. The next enemies appear from behind, fly foward, shoot at you, and then return behind you. After the next pair of power ups, enemies will be mixed in among meteors. Don't allow yourself to be lured into attack enemies from a location with a meteor flying toward you. Eventually one meteor will fly straight through the center, and three enemies will line up to the right. They take a few shots to kill, so you may want to use missiles to remove one or two. More missiles are provided shortly after. After pairs of enemies arrive from behind, shoot, and return, three more hard to kill ships will appear. Use missiles against them, and two red power ups will appear afterwards. After some more enemies, a single craft will fly up through the middle, split into two, and circle around the outside firing at you. Use missiles to take out one while you shoot down the other. After a few more waves of enemies, the meteors will stop, and the boss appear

Boss: The weak point of the first boss craft is also the source of it's offensive power. The orb at the top of the center of the ship continuously fires bullets at you. You must hit this orb with your guns or missiles to destroy the craft. Because it fires bullets non-stop, you must also make sure that you move non-stop or one of the bullets is sure to home in on you. The craft moves about in a weird way, so if you attempt to follow it around the screen, you will give yourself enough motion to dodge the bullets that stream from the ship. Pelt the orb as quickly as possible or launch a few missiles to take it down.

Stage 2
The second stage sees you flying over a lush forest at dawn. Two waves of enemies appear from above, and then two waves appear from below, with power ups appearing during that second wave. The next squads of enemies fly in sine waves over the canopy. They will fire at you, and its easy to miss that fact if you are in front of them, so move out of the way. More enemies will appear from behind, launch forward, shoot at you, and return. If you destroy them before they get far enough out, they won't have time to fire. After another pair of power ups, a new enemy will zoom forward, and then split into three units at the last moment. After the next two power ups, hoppers will appear, jumping up from below the canopy to fire at you before landing back down. Shoot them at the height of their jump. Like last stage, a single enemy will appear in the center and split in two before circling around. Unlike last time, they will also fly further into the depth of the screen. Use missiles to take them out quickly. After they are destroyed, the sky will lighten up. Fast moving squadrons will appear from the sides before two more power ups appear. Then a new enemy will arrive. A circular craft will fly at a high altitude, getting closer to you, but stopping twice to bombard the space below them with a laser. The first laser can't harm you since it's out in the distance, but the second laser most certainly will hurt you, so avoid it. These ships are invulnerable to missiles, and though they can be shot, they take a lot of hits, so they are best ignored. You will be presented with a mix of familiar enemies for a while until a new enemy arrives. These new enemies have heat seeking missile of their own. Their missiles will chase you down unless you outmaneuver them, or shoot them down with guns or your own missiles. For the rest of the stage, you will encounter a mix of enemies, including the hoppers, the craft that fire lasers, and the heat seeking missile launchers.

Boss: The boss ship at the end of this stage has a companion guardian that resembles a snake. This snake is invulnerable to attack, and can destroy your ship if you occupy the same space when it gets closest to you. Your bullets will bounce off of it. Meanwhile, the ship itself will fire a few bullets at you, so you can't necessarily hold still either. The ship itself doesn't necessarily move around as much as the previous boss, but rather wobbles a short distance to the left and right. Focus your attack on the orb at the center of the ship, and stick with it, diverting your attack only to get out of the way of the large snake. Beware that when you destroy it, the snake can still destroy your ship until it fully explodes.