This videogame was released in 1985 by Nichibutsu and is one of those classical, vertical shooters like Raiden and 1943. Terra Cresta is not the first game of this series, rather its the follow-up game of Moon Cresta, which was a Space Invaders-style game. I hadn't heard of this game before testing it, and I was surprised to find such an interesting shooter right on the tip of my gamepad.

The first thing that strikes the eye is the power-up system. I haven't seen this kind in many shooters (actually, the only other game that comes to my mind is Hybris, released for the Amiga). Your spaceship takes off from some kind of submarine base, and it's armed with a twin cannon - not powerful at all. However, you do have one advantage: your craft is small this way, and you can easily evade enemy bullets. You power-up when friendly bases appear on the ground: you have to shoot these bases in order to let a component appear and float around. As you collect it, it gets attached to your ship. There are five parts in total.

But here comes the special clue in this game: collect all five modules and your ship turns into the "Terra Cresta", a phoenix-shaped spaceship. This is the only time in the game when you are invincible, and believe me: it will be a great relief since this game is very tough.

Let's take a closer look at the different parts: No. 2 broadens your wings, doubling the power of your twin cannon (making it a quad cannon). A power-up which you will really be needing in this game comes with No. 3: it's a twin cannon shooting backyards. You'll often encounter ground enemy cannons mounted behind X-shaped barriers and you can't get to them unless you maneuver very near and shoot them, or you have part No.3 and take'em out from backwards. No. 4 is a nice addition to your bang-bang repertoire: that's a beam weapon mounted in front of the main twin cannon. The final part (No. 5) adds some kind of shield to the back of your ship - its not a bad addition but it doesn't work against all enemies. What's a nice thing with module 5 however is that, when you shoot a dinosaur his skeleton will remain on the ground: you can destroy it with that module only; then a strange, blinking thing appears and it's worth 1000 points as you destroy it (is it thought to be the soul of the dinosaur or something?)

It's interesting to note that you don't have to get power-ups in a particular order: that's a small advantage since when your ship is hit, it loses one or more modules and when it gets hit again it, all other parts are destroyed... no need to tell you what happens with the third hit, do I? BOOM!

There is no real smart bomb, but you can detach the modules you have  collected and they then fire on their own. You need at least one part in order to get this feature. Detaching one part gives you an extra bright beam; detaching two parts you get some diagonal shots; three modules adds a spinning shot; lastly if you detach four parts you really fill the screen with diagonal and straight shots. Another small advantage for such an hard game: if you detach all four modules (notice that your ship is part number one!), your ship will be changed to the "Terra Cresta" for a few seconds, as modules merge back (you can do this 3 times).

As for the points you get when shooting down enemies, here is a small list:

Some enemies are quite interesting, like some indestructible spikeballs that surround your ship for around 20 seconds: you are then unable to fire but have to evade the enemies as best as you can - or detach your parts so that they can fire outside of the circle of enemies. Since there are only three different bosses (which repeat over and over again) I'll give you some small hints on how to defeat them.

The first boss, some kind of metallic, floating cross, is pretty easy to defeat. It flies around the screen firing off small ships from the ends of its spikes. Just keep on moving and roast it.
The second one is the toughest of all: it has a very dense shooting pattern, and on top of that it throws out small fighters like a carrier. The only chance I see is to get to him with a complete spaceship, detach all four modules and then stay in front of the boss: you will always get the fighters before they start shooting this way.
The final boss (which at least has an original look) is shaped as a four-armed mech. It will be firing its fists and laser beams at you - not really hard. You won't even need to detach your parts: just stay in front of him and keep on firing while avoiding laser beams.

I played this videogame for a couple of hours and it doesn't seem to have an ending. There are no real defined levels: they seem to merge into each other and bosses appear randomly, at different places in the levels. It happens often enough that you meet two bosses pretty quickly and the third one only after a couple of minutes.