No, not that One

Jesus begins aboard the space station "J.E.S.U.S." (presumably an acronym for something).  20,000km above the Earth's surface, players take the role of Hayao Musou.  According to the in-game text he, along with a multi-nation team of astronauts and scientists are on a mission to explore Hailey's Comet on its 2061 visit to the inner solar system.  The protagonist supposedly has some kind of military background training, but really just looks like your typical 80s action hero.  In fact a lot of this game feels like it was written using a standardized anime checklist:

• 18 year-old main character...check
• Big hair...check
• Little to no personality...check
• Multiple women attracted to him...check
• Adorable mascot sidekick...check*

*It should be noted that said sidekick is a robot that looks like a cross between a wi-fi router and a bunny rabbit.

After being introduced to the crew, the game jumps ahead in time to a rendezvous between two spacecraft - the somewhat confusingly named "Comet" and "Corona".  "Comet" has already done a close pass on Hailey's Comet in order to gather scientific data, but has since become unresponsive.  Therefore, it has fallen to the crew of the "Corona" (including Hayao) figure out what happened.  It doesn't take long for him to discover that an alien entity has gotten onboard.  In fact, this game has a lot in common with the film "Alien".   Two anime productions that also had a lot in common with that classic sci-fi/horror movie ("Lily C.A.T." and "Roots Search") were both released the same year as Jesus (1987).  It is also somewhat of a thematic precursor to video games such as Enemy Zero (1996) and Phase Paradox (2001).  Unlike those two video games though, Jesus doesn't have much in the way of gameplay.  In reality, it is more of a visual novel than proper game.  The presentation consists of mostly static less-than-half-screen sized images.  Player inputs are limited to menu-selected commands such as "use", "take", "look", "search", and "speak" while the story is conveyed via a textbox taking up the bottom part of the screen.  Officially, the game is only in Japanese although a crude English fan translation does exist.  Overall, it's also very short...clocking in at roughly one-and-a-half hours to complete, with very little in the way replay value.  So far, I haven't presented Jesus in a very positive light, but it doesn't have one thing going for it.

The majority of the game runtime is spent poking around the two spaceships, and I have to admit the atmosphere of these locations does a surprisingly good job of setting a creepy mood.  Granted it's not as scary as Sweet Home, but for an 8-bit era game it's still impressive.  The music, which in the early game sounds very jaunty and adventurous (one of the tunes is literally the theme for Dragon Quest) turns ominous and almost klaxon-like at times.  The spaceship "Comet" is divided up into a series of four cylindrical levels connected via a central lift.  Players can control their character here by choosing to go either direction in a circular looping corridor.  Doors on the outer wall lead to various rooms while a door on the interior wall accesses the elevator.  Incidentally, this method of navigation feels almost identical to a segment from Space Quest III which considering that it came out two years after Jesus leaves me wondering if the Two Guys From Andromeda copied the concept.

Anyway...after conducting a room-by-room search, Hayao finds the out what happened to the crew and has several run-ins with the intruder.  As it turns out this particular alien is vulnerable to cold.  Eventually, the player has to make a hasty retreat back to the "Corona", but as one might guess the creature manages to get aboard this spacecraft too.  What ensues is kind of a repeat of the prior events except it is revealed that the monster is stealing the DNA of people it kills.  Pretty soon it attempts communication using a mix of various languages indicating that it has also stolen the memories of its victims as well.  Now, evolved into a stronger form, the alien boasts that it is immune to cold and will destroy humanity in order to claim Earth for its own species.  Our hero, undeterred, lures the monster into meeting him near the airlock by bluffing that he has a detonator capable of destroying the "Corona".  Once these two come face to face Hayao uses the power of music to stun the alien and eject it out into space....what can I say?...anime...

A Famicom port of the game entitled Jesus: Terrifying Bio-Monster was released in 1989.  Changes include some tweaks to the graphics and story.  Simplified environmental layouts, the removal of a pointless minigame, and a visual upgrade to the aforementioned robot sidekick.  By far the biggest change though is the removal of a potential failed state.  Based on decisions made during the first encounter with the monster, it's possible to see a "game over" screen, meaning the player either has to start at the beginning again or else reload from a previously save.  This was removed from the Famicom version resulting in what I can only describe as a prelude to the Lucas Art's adventure game experience.  In 1991, a sequel entitled Jesus II was released for home computers, but as hard as it is to believe this follow-up title was not set in space and somehow managed to be even less interactive that the original.