this week's EGG CONSOLE release: the original PC-8801 version of Thexder, the side-scrolling mecha action game that put Game Arts on the map back in 1985. This was one of the smoother pasocon action games of its day, owing to certain clever scrolling tricks akin to the "adaptive tile refresh" technique used by John Carmack for Commander Keen, and it did receive a few Sierra-published international conversions in its day, so it maintains a little more name recognition outside of Japan than one can expect for other EGG CONSOLE releases.
(Modern players might be tangentially familiar with Thexder via Game Arts' later Mega Drive action game Alisia Dragoon, which was recently reissued via the Genesis/Mega Drive Mini and Nintendo Switch Online—that game uses Thexder's signature auto-aiming shot system, and was originally conceived as the third game in the Thexder line before it was decided that a fantasy theme would be more attention-grabbing.)
