Xevious Review – While Not Too Popular in the West, How Is This Early Shmup?

Although many popular Japanese titles were also successful in other parts of the world, some didn’t experience as much notoriety in North America as in their homeland. One example of this was Xevious, an early vertically scrolling shooter developed by Namco. According to Wikipedia, it was an unprecedented success in Japan, with it being the most successful arcade game since Space Invaders (Review). Sadly, when it came to the United States, it was only a modest success.

Today, I expect most gamers have little interest in it. While a port of it was released in Japan on November 8, 1984 for Nintendo’s Famicom, it didn’t come to North America until 1988, many years later (Source). By that time, many other (arguably better) shooters were already available on the system including 1942, Gradius, Tiger-Heli, and Life Force. Reflecting back on that time, I don’t remember playing Xevious much.

Furthermore, before this review, I’d often think of it as a boring, early shmup that had little to offer. Yet, after playing it for some time, my opinion of it has changed.

Gameplay

As is typical of the genre, you control a space ship as you move around the screen with the D-pad and fire your weapon with the A button. The goal of the game is to defeat the invading Xevious forces. Their numbers are numerous, with both ground and air-based enemies to confront. One of your first foes are the simple round ships that are easily destroyed with your aerial weapon, the zapper. As you progress, there are more challenging enemies that attack in different ways. Some actively try to avoid your bullets, one type is an indestructible panel that flips down the screen, and another can only be destroyed before it attacks you.

Although we take it for granted today, as I’ve just briefly shared, Xevious features a wide variety of adversaries. Including the aforementioned flying foes, there are also turrets, amphibious vehicles, flashing red Zolbak radars, and the huge flying fortresses known as Andor Genesis. To combat these, you have to use your bombs by pressing the B button. Thankfully, your starship has an unlimited supply of these blasters.

Additionally, if you’re playing this on the Namco Museum Archives 1, then you’ll also have access to built-in rapid-fire. This really helps a lot!

Not that the game is easy. There aren’t any power ups in it. Nor is there a way to speed up your Solvalou starship. However, if you destroy the Zolbak radars, the aggression of the enemy forces will decrease for a short time. Likewise, if you bomb the flashing red parts of the air fortresses, their rate of fire will lessen.

Why All This Matters

The reason I point out all that is because multiple aspects of the gameplay demonstrate innovation on the part of the developers. If you recall, many of the Famicom games from 1983 and 1984 were single-screen affairs (See my reviews of Pac-Man, Galaxian, and Donkey Kong Jr. for examples). They didn’t feature vertically scrolling playfields. Yet, Xevious has smooth scrolling with over a dozen enemies or bullets on the screen at once. Sure, it slows down some times, but for 1984, the amount of activity happening at once is impressive!

It also has over a dozen areas to fly through before it restarts at the beginning again. Additionally, Xevious was one of the first shooters to give you two separate weapons to use against your enemies.

Plus, it’s surprising how well your bombs work in this game. They have a blast radius so they can destroy two adjacent structures on the ground at once. I’ve even been able to destroy four at once with a well-placed blaster attack! This isn’t too difficult to accomplish thanks to the targeting recital that shows where your bomb will land before pressing the B button.

Finally, the fact that the game’s challenge adjusts based on the destruction of the Zolbak radars is really forward thinking and not something I would have expected from 1984! I tested to see what would happen if none of the radars were destroyed, and I could tell a significant difference in difficulty because of it.

Music and Sound Effects

Although up to this point I have been speaking positively of the game, there are some areas where it’s boring. For me, the worst example of this is the music! The main theme, if you can call it that, is an endlessly looping 6-10 second composition that just goes on, and on, and on… I don’t like it at all. The best thing about it is that the volume level of it isn’t very high so it mercifully gets drowned out by the game’s sound effects. To be honest, I usually forget that it is playing after a couple minutes.

The sound effects are slightly more interesting than the music and have a charm about them that I enjoy a bit. Specifically, when you fire your zapper, the sound effect is pretty low key. For whatever reason, it works in the context of the game and I almost consider it iconic. The sounds for destroying enemies and dropping your bombs are also kind of chill.

Although I dislike Xevious’ music a great deal, the volume level of it makes it so that it isn’t as grating as it could be.

Yet, I kind of like the sound effects in general. Oddly enough, when I play it, the sound design makes me feel like I am playing a title from the late 1970’s. Now, to be fair, I actually expect that Xevious sounds much more advanced than games from that time period. But for me, that’s the best way I can put it.

Graphics

Beyond the less than stellar music and sound effects, I expect that a lot of what sets people off against this game is its seemingly simplistic graphics. Much of it is covered in gray enemies and various splotches of green, yellow, and blue. When focusing on the ground itself, there isn’t much definition in the details. As you play, you’ll be flying over very similar areas of desert and sea repeatedly.

The enemy designs also make me think of the late 1970’s.

Perhaps part of that perception stems from the circular UFO crafts that you destroy throughout the game. Of course, there are about half a dozen aerial and land enemies to destroy, so the diversity is there. I just don’t find the design of them to be very exciting or engaging.

I consider the game’s appearance to be rather pedestrian.

Final Thoughts

Despite Xevious’ unexciting graphics and sound design, I shockingly grew to enjoy it! It became addictive to play, weaving through enemy fire and dropping a well-timed blaster was satisfying, and I discovered it to be more innovative than I ever thought it to be. Part of my newfound appreciation for it also stemed from studying its Wikipedia article and reflecting on how it was different than what came before it.

And personally, I think this is the crux of how someone views this game.

If one compares it to other titles in 1983 and 1984 on the Nintendo Famicom, it stands out as an endless vertically scrolling shooter where Galaxian was its only competition on the system at the time of its release. However, both of these early shooters were developed by the same company so they weren’t really competing with each other.

On the other hand, when faced with more advanced titles from 1988 on the NES, it looks pretty drab in the graphics and sound departments. Especially because Konami’s Life Force had just been released the month prior with a two-player simultaneous mode and incredible music.

Still, I am reviewing this title against its contemporaries in 1984. From that vantage point, Xevious stands out as a pretty fun game with good control, the ability to attack enemies on two planes at the same time, and a reasonable difficulty that can be modified by player actions.

That’s all really cool, and some of the reasons why I’ve decided to give it a positive rating.

My next review from the NES will be another Namco title, Mappy. Like this one, I haven’t played much of it before. Will I grow to like it like I did with Xevious? Time will tell.

Title: Xevious (Price Charting)
Genre: Vertically Scrolling Shmup
Year Released: 1984 on the Nintendo Famicom and 1988 on the NES.
Developer: Namco
Available On: NES, Steam, Nintendo Switch 1 & 2, Sony PlayStation 4 & 5, and Microsoft Xbox One & Xbox Series X|S. All but the NES version listed here is through the Namco Museum Archives Volume 1 (Official Site).
Price Paid: $0.39 or $4.22 for the collection.

Remember, we can have different opinions about the games we play. If you like something more (or less) than I do, both of our perspectives are valid. Please see my Review Rating Scale to know more of how I rate games.