Argus

Overview

Argus is a shoot-em-up game made for the Arcade and eventually ported to NES. Argus was published by Jaleco Ltd. and developed by NMK Co. Ltd. in 1986. The game supports one or two players.

Argus is functionally similar to Xevious: The screen scrolls vertically and the player has separate buttons for ground (bomb) and air (gun) attacks. Shooting at three structures on the ground with the same letter will give the player a power-up and it's also possible to temporarily transform into a powerful robot variant. The game also introduces an odd feature where the player is expected to land their ship at the end of each stage: This requires some precise control and timing with the D-pad, otherwise the ship will crash and explode.