Moon Cresta is a 1980 fixed shooter video game developed and published by Nihon Bussan for arcades. In North America, it was licensed to Sega/Gremlin and Centuri, the latter releasing it in arcades as Eagle. Incentive Software published ports of Moon Cresta for the Amstrad C, Commodore 64, Dragon 32 and ZX Spectrum home computers. In 2022, the original arcade version was included in the Sega Astro City Mini V, a vertically-oriented variant of the Sega Astro City mini console.
Moon Cresta (Atari 7800)
The player begins the game with a small spaceship armed with a single laser cannon. After successfully completing the first four waves of alien attacks, the player must attempt to dock the ship with the next 'stage' of the ship. This second stage has two lasers in addition to the original one. Each docked stage is one of the player's 'lives'.
After successfully clearing two more waves of aliens, the player must again dock with the third and final piece of the ship, which also has two more lasers (giving the player five lasers in total). The trade-off for this is that the entire ship is a much larger target. Failure to correctly align the stages during either docking sequence causes the destruction of the stage being docked with.
After completing the first eight waves, the player's ship reverts to the first stage and the process is repeated. If any of the player's three ships are lost along the way, the docking sequence occurs only after the first four waves have been completed. Play ends when all three of the player's ship-stages are destroyed.
Moon Cresta helped propel Nichibutsu into the video game business, and it was one of their most successful arcade games. In Japan, it was the fourth highest-earning arcade game of 1980, below Crazy Climber.
Moon Cresta spawned a series of sequels, spin-offs and alterations. Gremlin Industries released Super Moon Cresta, a modification kit that allows the enemies to fire back at the level and changes some of the text. Nichibutsu itself created Moon Quasar, a spin-off that gives the second ship more firepower and a brief 'refueling' segment, where the player must dock their vessel into a mothership towards the center of the screen.
More details about this game can be found on Wikipedia.org.
This version of Moon Cresta was designed for Atari 7800, which was video game console of third generation manufactured by Atari in the years 1984 - 1992. It was fully backward-compatible with the Atari 2600 with significantly improved graphics hardware. However, the console was not successful and less than 4 million units at a unit price of $ 80 were sold. Also the current games library containes less than 100 games designed for Atari 7800. More information about the this console can be found here.
Recommended Game Controllers:
You can control this game easily by using the keyboard of your PC (see the table next to the game). However, for maximum gaming enjoyment, we strongly recommend using a USB gamepad that you simply plug into the USB port of your computer. If you do not have a gamepad, buy a suitable USB controller in Amazon or AliExpress or in some of your favorite online stores.
Available online emulators:
3 different online emulators are available for Moon Cresta. These emulators differ not only in the technology they use to emulate old games, but also in of various game controllers, multiplayer mode, mobile phone touchscreen, emulation speed, absence or presence of embedded ads and in many other parameters. For maximum gaming enjoyment, it's important to choose the right emulator, because on each PC and in different Internet browsers, the individual emulators behave differently. The basic features of each emulator available for this game Moon Cresta are summarized in the following table:
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This version of Moon Cresta was designed for Atari 7800, which was video game console of third generation manufactured by Atari in the years 1984 - 1992. It was fully backward-compatible with the Atari 2600 with significantly improved graphics hardware. However, the console was not successful and less than 4 million units at a unit price of $ 80 were sold. Also the current games library containes less than 100 games designed for Atari 7800. More information about the this console can be found 
