Xevious is a vertical-scrolling, flying shooter arcade game developed and published by Namco of Japan in 1983. It was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) by Bandai, renamed Xevious: The Avenger in North America in 1988.
I got turned off playing this game during the late 1980s because I never liked the graphics but played it anyway. During that time your game choices were quite limited in the Philippines.
The Story
Your mission is to seek and destroy the damn XEVIOUS enemy aircraft and their bases. Go fly your awesome secret fighter plane with laser-pulse anti-aircraft missiles and strike bombs. Skillfully manuever your fighter through the dangerous air space to gain the strike advantage over the enemy.
The Graphics and Sound
Xevious has got no textures. The water is just plain blue, the green grass is just boring green, even the forests look like a drunk, little kid drew them. The enemy ships look like flying metal scraps that shoot at you. Your ship is boring, small, white, and a bitch to look at. For an old game it really looks pretty dated.
The audio is better than the visuals, but not that much. The sound effects are okay and the background music is a little on the catchy side. The background music can get repetitive after awhile but it never gets in the way and the intro theme is a bit above average.
The Gameplay
The game plays simple enough. The B button shoots out a pair of quick-fire lasers, designed to shoot down flying enemies, and B button is for bombs. Now, the bombs allow you to shoot down enemy land units such as tanks, turrets and bases. The game is a little bit on the difficult side. The controls are quite Okay, your ship is controllable for the most part.
You do not even have an options menu to adjust the game's difficulty. It is either a one-player or a two-player game.
Thankfully, the gameplay is compelling enough for a gamer to play the game several times. You will actually desire to improve your score. Still, you will forget this game pretty much later on.
My Verdict
Having less than impressive visuals, audio and game play, Xevious is still a game that is worth playing! If you are a die hard video game shooter fan, then you may want to check this out just to see what Xevious has to offer.
However, if you are not really into these type of games, then you might as well avoid this one and play something else, because this one has nothing to offer to the already over-done genre of vertical-scrolling shooters.
Play this on the NES or on emulators.