+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
                          | M O O N   C R E S T A |
                          +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

              GAME:  MOON CRESTA
          PLATFORM:  ARCADE
             GENRE:  ARCADE SHOOTER
           CREATOR:  NICHIBUTSU Copyright 1980
AUTHOR OF THIS FAQ:  Kevin Butler AKA War Doc
            E-MAIL:  kevinb(at)technologist(dot)com
       FAQ VERSION:  1.01

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                              TABLE OF CONTENTS

    UNIT   I:  INTRODUCTION

1.  Legal Stuff
2.  Version Information
3.  Acknowledgements
4.  Welcome
5.  Overview

    UNIT  II:  GAME INFORMATION

6.  The Game

    6.1  The Controls
    6.2  The Playing Fields
    6.3  Scoring
    6.4  The Levels

    UNIT III:  STRATEGIES

7.  Playing the Game

    UNIT  IV:  CONCLUSION

8.  Conclusion

_______________________________________________________________________________

To find a particular chapter or subchapter do the following:

1.  Highlight the chapter or subchapter name you wish to find.
2.  Press CTRL-C
3.  Press CTRL-F
4.  Press CTRL-V
5.  Press CTRL-F
5.  You will arrive at the desired chapter or subchapter.

_______________________________________________________________________________

                                **************
********************************* U N I T  I **********************************
                                **************
+=================+
| 1.  LEGAL STUFF |============================================================
+=================+

This guide may not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal
private use.  It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed
publicly without advanced permission from the author.  Use of this guide on
any other web sit or as part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and
a violation of copyright.  All content in this guide is Copyright 2003 by
Kevin Butler.  Only the sites listed below have permission to publish this
work or to display it:

www.gamefaqs.com
www.cheats.de
faqs.ign.com

If you wish to put this guide on your site, e-mail me and ask.  Save yourself
the headache of putting up with lawsuits and whatnot because you failed to ask
a simple "Can I post your guide on <insert site>?".  If you wish to use info
in this guide, please acknowledge that you have done so.

If you see this guide on any other site then the one listed above, please
e-mail me.  If you wish to ask questions or give input to this guide, please
e-mail me.  Just have Moon Cresta as the subject so I know it isn't another
kooky vendor trying to sell me hair gel or another XXX site telling me I have
new friends.

+=========================+
| 2.  VERSION INFORMATION |====================================================
+=========================+

Version 1.0   8/ 3/03:  A guide is born.

Version 1.01  8/28/03:  Fixed a couple of errors.

+======================+
| 3.  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS |=======================================================
+======================+

The following are a list of people or organizations that have made this FAQ
possible:

My wonderful family (who has had to put up with the tapping on the keyboard)
Nichibutsu for making a great arcade game
GameFAQ's for putting up this FAQ

+=============+
| 4.  WELCOME |================================================================
+=============+

Welcome to my FAQ for Moon Cresta.  Since the game has you continuously
destroying aliens until all your men are killed, there is no walkthrough per
se.  Instead it will be broken up into the game itself and strategies for
survival.  Input is appreciated along with constructive criticism.  If you wish
to e-mail me thoughts on this FAQ, better ways of doing things, other
strategies, etc., feel free.  Make sure you put Moon Cresta as the subject.  If
you don't, I'm liable to discard the e-mail as spam.

+==============+
| 5.  OVERVIEW |===============================================================
+==============+

Moon Cresta was created by a company that is not generally known outside of
Japan.  Nichibutsu did more marketing and licensing of games from Japan and
that's where most of the company's games are.  Moon Cresta takes the battling
of space aliens to a new level.  Instead of just sitting there with one ship,
you now have ships in stages to take on the continuous streams of aliens.  In
addition, you get to deal with the hazard of docking ships together.  Another
good game to look into is Crazy Climber.  Good luck in your quest to make the
universe safe through 8 screens of action.

                               ***************
******************************** U N I T  II **********************************
                               ***************

+==============+ 
| 6.  THE GAME |===============================================================
+==============+ 

Moon Cresta is a two-dimensional, shooter style game.  You start out the game
with a little ship with one laser cannon (I like to call this fighter your
"pea-shooter").  After you successfully complete the first 4 waves of alien
attacks, you will dock on the next stage of your fighter.  After successfully
clearing out two more waves of aliens, you will dock the third and final time
to deal with the last two screens of aliens.  After getting through 8 screens,
the process starts again with your pea-shooter.  If you lose any ships along
the way, then the docking sequence occurs only after the first 4 waves have
been completed.

 ____________________
/ 6.1  The Controls /__________________________________________________________
--------------------

The controls on this game are very easy.  It may, though, take just a little
bit of time to get used to them.

-  A joystick for moving right and left

-  A fire/thrust button

 __________________________
/ 6.2  The Playing Fields /____________________________________________________
--------------------------

Moon Cresta involves battling eight screens of enemies.  The only things that
change between screens are the enemies.  I have included an example of what the
playing screen looks like:

    +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
    |                                                                   |
    |           __                                                      |
    |          /  \                                                     |
    |          \__/ <- ENEMY                                            |
    |           ||                                                      |
    |           ||                                                      |
    |           ||                                                      |
    |          _||_                                                     |
    |          \  /                                                     |
    |           \/                                                      |
    |                                                                   |
    |                                                                   |
    |                            _|_                                    |
    |                           /   \                                   |
    |                          /  I  \ <- STAGE ONE ("PEA-SHOOTER")     |
    |                          |/|_|\|                                  |
    |                            | |                                    |
    |                           / II\                                   |
    |                         |/ ___ \|                                 |
    |                         |_/|_|\_| <- STAGE TWO                    |
    |                          /\/ \/\                                  |
    |                        |/  III  \|                                |
    |                         |/\   /\| <- STAGE THREE                  |
    |                            \_/                                    |
    |                                                                   |
    |                                                                   |
    +-------------------------------------------------------------------+

You control your fighter through these eight screens.

 _______________
/ 6.3  Scoring /_______________________________________________________________
---------------

Scoring in this game is relatively simple.  Each alien (except meteors and
arrows) come in two different colors for each screen.  See Chapter 6.4 for
details.

Eyes (Break in half):        50 points
Eyes (Destroy other half):  100 points
Flies:                       30 points
Birds:                       60 points
Fireballs:                  100 points
Arrow Ships:                100 points

Docking is a big way to increase your score.  You get the time remaining from
30 seconds multiplied by 100 for your docking bonus.

You do not get free ships in this game.  Instead, at 30,000 points, you will
get a new, three-stage fighter to continue on where you left off.

 __________________
/ 6.4  The Levels /____________________________________________________________
------------------

There are eight screens in Moon Cresta.  However, 3 of these screens are
duplicates of each other.  The way the screens and dockings happen are listed
below (all stages have 8 aliens in them):

 1.  Purple Eye Screen
 2.  Yellow Eye Screen
 3.  Yellow Fly Screen
 4.  Purple Fly Screen
4a.  Dock (only if you still have your "pea-shooter")
 5.  Purple Bird Screen
 6.  Yellow Bird Screen
6a.  Dock (this is to dock stages I and II or stage II on stage III)
 7.  Fireball Screen (8 sets of two from the upper left and upper right corners
     that move diagonally)
 8.  Arrow Screen

After the eighth screen, the screens start over again with your lowest stage
ship.

                               ****************
******************************** U N I T  III *********************************
                               ****************

+======================+
| 7.  PLAYING THE GAME |=======================================================
+======================+

When you start the game, all three stages of your ship will come from the
bottom of the screen.  After going halfway up, the ship on top separates from
the other 2 and it settles onto the bottom of the screen ready for battle.

-  Remember, you can only keep one set of shots in the "air" at one time.  This
   means you need to plan your shots out so you don't end up with a lot of
   misses when the aliens decided to come after your ship.

-  In the later screens, the aliens start moving much quicker and you have to
   be on your toes to keep up with them and avoid being taken out.

-  Although the aliens do not fire, they still can cause a lot of hate and dis-
   content by their wild maneuvering.  There is no real safe place on the
   screen from the aliens since they go into the lower corners of the screen,
   reappear from the bottom after they have apparently "left" the screen, or
   just appear right above your ship.

-  In the earlier waves, you have to split apart 2 eyes before the rest auto-
   matically split and come after your ship.  In the later screens, the eyes
   automatically split upon entering the screen.  That means eight instead of
   four aliens you have to deal with.

-  If you manage to dock all three ships together, you will have a lot of fire-
   power (5 shots at once) to send out.  Here are some ways, unfortunately, you
   can lose ships and what ships are lost:

   -  Besides the aliens, docking is the second way people lose a lot of ships.
      The only ship destroyed is the ship attempting to dock.

   -  If an alien hits any part of your ships (if all stages are joined), only
      the stage hit is lost.  This can create an amusing circumstance if you
      lose stage II and you only have stages I and III to fight with.

-  Don't worry if you lose stage I early in the game.  One has to be very
   skilled to fight four screens with stage I.  Stage II, in my opinion, is the
   best stage to fight with.  It is a small target plus it has enough firepower
   to defend itself.  Stage III on the other hand, is just a lumbering junk-
   yard.  The lasers are too spread out to do much good plus there is a very
   wide-open area in the middle for aliens to hit.

-  The bird stages present the most challenge of the aliens.  They appear and
   disappear at will.  Sometimes they will appear right next to your ship so on
   these stages, be extra alert.  If you see one disappear and don't hear the
   familiar bird chirp of it reappearing, assume it is on the screen somewhere
   still.

-  The best place to "hide" during the fireball stage is in the lower right
   corner.  The fireballs will not hit your ship in this corner.  You can do
   hit and runs by moving your ship out, shooting at a fireball, then going
   back to the corner again.

-  During the arrow screen, the aliens will hover around the top, then turn
   into arrows and attempt to ram your ship.  In the later screens, they won't
   even hover but just try to ram your ship.

-  Your goal is to make it to 30,000 points so you can have a fresh ship
   waiting in case you lose all the stages of your present ship.

-  Docking isn't that hard to do.  After finishing off a wave just before the
   docking stage, try to center your ship on the screen.  That way, all you
   have to do is move that ship left or right to successfully dock.  You want
   to avoid using the thrusters unless your ship is in extreme peril.  The
   docking bonus can be the most amount of points you score in the game.  If
   you happen to miss a dock, then you will continue the next set of screens
   with the ship that failed to dock.

                               ****************
********************************  U N I T  IV *********************************
                               ****************

+================+
| 8.  CONCLUSION |=============================================================
+================+

When this game came out, the standard fare of shooters was basically moving a
ship along the bottom of the screen and shooting at the aliens.  This game,
though, added an extra twist to things.  First, being able to have a multi-
stage ship was quite intriguing.  It became a challenge to have your ships
survive just so you could build even deadlier ships.  The second thing was
docking.  Although it wasn't too hard to dock the ships together, it was more
the challenge of doing it quickly for the most amount of points.  Even the
aliens were interesting.  Although they didn't fire at your ship, they were
still a challenge just by the way they moved and made all parts of the screen
unsafe.  Unfortunately, it is very rare to find this machine anywhere.
However, through the miracle of emulation, a whole new generation is realizing
what we "old" folks enjoyed those many years ago.  In addition,
www.shockwave.com is bringing many of these classic games back.  Check out
their site to see what ones are there.  I hope this guide helps you in being
able to get the most amount of gameplay for this game.  If you do have other
ideas or thoughts, please e-mail me and share them.  Who knows, maybe I'll
start a Q&A Chapter in this guide if enough people ask the same questions.
Anyway, thank you again for reading this guide.

To see other FAQ's I have written please go to:

           http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/recognition/32691.html

           ~~~  No trees were harmed in the making of this FAQ ~~~