Exerizer

The game is a vertical shoot 'em up in the style of Galaga and Phoenix, but with eight-way movement across the screen and parallax scrolling for the stars backgrounds. At the player's disposal to fight the approaching enemies, some of them made in pseudo-depth 2.5D graphics with scaled sprites, is a small space fighter capable of firing two types of projectiles: the unlimited but slow rockets and the fast laser shots that are limited by draining the ship's power. The power can be refilled, and the ship itself upgraded, through collecting the power-ups that appear after destroying certain enemies. The game can be played by up to two players in alternating turns. Similar as in Gorf, it features several different types of waves (stages). For instance, one stage features space witches saddle-perched on either serpentlike Chinese dragons or Western-style winged dragons: the dragons must to be hit repeatedly in the weak point of their heads to be killed, after which the riders themselves can be shot for a score bonus. The player progresses through most of them by either destroying all the enemies (resulting in the score bonus and power-up awards) or alternatively just surviving their attacks for a long enough time. The game was mostly well received by Western game critics, albeit some criticized it for its depiction of women.