![]() The month of March brought with it some new retro games to play in the Switch Online emulators. This time around, we only have the one NES addition. BACKGROUND:
I'm only vaguely familiar with Xevious, with the most I know of it is that you fight a massive mothership in it (the design of which is rather memorable). I did some reading on it after I played it once and learned that it's originally an arcade game (meaning what I played here is a port, like many NES games I've encountered) that came after Galaga (arguably the more iconic arcade-era Namco shmup), and that it featured a lot of firsts (or at least earliest known examples) for gaming: the boss fight and pre-rendered backgrounds for the arcade version. It also set the template for the many vertically scrolling shmups I've played before (from TwinBee to Ikaruga). I learned some new things that day, which was exciting. SUMMARY: As established, Xevious is a vertical scrolling shmup, and like most other titles in this genre, you control a ship, shoot at enemies, and try to stay alive as long as you can. Your ship has two modes of attack: the regular shot, and the bomb. The former is used to destroy flying targets, while you use the latter to blow up ground-based targets like turrets and such. This is a mechanic I first encountered in the NES version of TwinBee, and it's cool to see where that originated. Unfortunately, that's as deep as your abilities go, as there's practically no power-ups here apart from the hidden extra lives you can get. Apart from a few exceptions, most of the enemies are generic fodder that either move around in some formation while also shooting a given pattern of projectiles. The challenge, as usual, is weaving through the onslaught of bullets and enemy ships flying about while also trying to shoot down enemies. In particular, it's quite tricky to attack ground-based targets with the bomb since it has a limited range; you'll need some ace maneuvering to get into that range without getting shot down yourself. Xevious holds the distinction of having perhaps the earliest example of a boss fight in a video game that I've seen. This comes in the form of the Andor Genesis mothership, a massive octagonal ship that shoots an endless barrage of bullets. The fight itself probably can't hold a candle to the plethora of iconic boss fights throughout gaming history that have come since (all you have to do is either blow up the core or dodge around like a coward until the ship leaves), but there's something quite novel in experiencing one of the firsts (allegedly) of video games. This game is interesting in that it has hidden secrets on the map that you can blow up for bonus points if you're particularly attentive. I don't know if this game can also lay claim to being one of the first games to have secrets of that nature, but I nonetheless found it interesting that it even exists here. Unfortunately, they're only good for points, but points are at least valuable here for extra lives. Compared to the arcade version (which I went and looked up screenshots of out of curiosity), the NES version looks incredibly plain. The scrolling backgrounds, while varied in terms of locations, barely have any detail, while enemies are mostly on the gray side despite a handful of neat designs. The Andor Genesis is definitely memorable, though, and that's thanks to how bloody massive it is compared to everything else you run into. VERDICT: Arguably more complex and engaging shmups have come out since Xevious's heyday, but despite how simplistic it is, I still enjoyed killing a few minutes just trying to get as far as I can and getting to face off against the mothership. Plus, it's really cool to have played at least a port of a game that turned out to be more influential on the history of games than I initially realized. Like I said, you could probably find more interesting vertical shmups out there to play if this is the kind of genre you want to indulge in right now. That being said, I think this game is worth playing once if only to appreciate a historically significant title (a major criterion that compels me to label this as an "essential" title). - end -
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June 2024
Derryck
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