Overview

Xevious is one of those rare games that is able to combine excellent graphics and sound with fun and challenging game play. The graphics are as good as Zaxxon's or Tron's, but the game play is much better. The basic concept is simple, as in all shoot-em-up games - try to stay alive as long as possible, while ranking up points by blasting anything that gets in your way. But Xevious adds a few new twists that make it far more interesting than a simple shoot-em-up.

The basic premise of Xevious is to fly a Solvalou spacecraft over various landscapes while 32 different enemies try to destroy you from the ground and air. The Solvalou can fly anywhere on the bottom half of the screen, an advantage when dodging enemy shots. Your spacecraft is equipped with two weapons: a fire button, which shoots missiles straight ahead to hit air targets, and a bomb button, which drops powerful bombs on the ground targets. A bombsight moving across the screen in front of your ship shows where each bomb will land. If the cross hairs are over a ground target, the radar glows bright red.

Flying Enemies

Several types of metallic enemy crafts will attack from the air, each with its own method. The first to appear are the rings, your weakest enemy. Often, they won't even shoot at you, making them easy targets for your missiles. The evasive stingray shaped ships are the most difficult to hit and they fire several shots at a time.

There is one type of flying obstacle that can't be destroyed by any weapon. The flying shields, rotating mirror-like walls that float through the air by the dozens, create a mobile obstacle course for your ship and deflect your shots away. Ships flying around the shields can be very dangerous; they will be protected from your shots.

Ground Targets

The ground targets are pyramids or circular domes that attack by shooting up at you. They always appear in the same places, so anticipating their location is very helpful. Destroying them is important because ground targets are worth much more than air targets.

There are two types of moving ground targets: Mobile Ground Bases and Tanks. Mobile Ground Bases always appear in the same places and always move in patterns. They can and will shoot at you, so destroy them as soon as possible. Just place your bombing target slightly ahead of them in the pattern and drop a bomb.

Tanks behave a little more intelligently than Mobile Ground Bases. They only move north and south across the screen, but they sense your bomb dropping and react to it. They won't shoot at you, so they're nothing more than a distraction and cheap points. If you must destroy them, use two bombs. They react only to one bomb at a time, and will move right into the second one.

Sol Citadels (Domes)

The last type of ground target is underground domes. They are completely hidden from your view, and can only be destroyed by two bombs. The first brings the dome to the surface, and the second destroys it. Underground domes don't fire at you, but destroying them is worthwhile - you get 2000 points for bringing one up, and 2000 more for destroying it.

Andor Genesis Mothership

The most awesome of the Xevious forces is the immense Mother Ship. A low hum warns you of its approach. The Mother Ship flies at a lower altitude than your Solvalou, so firing at it is useless. Only a direct bomb hit on one of its glowing hatches will do any damage.

Black Balls

Black balls are the last - and perhaps the most annoying - Xevious adversary. There are three different types and they appear on the screen and then explode into bullets if you don't destroy them quickly enough. The first type is the smallest and most troublesome. These appear out of nowhere and then disappear quickly, leaving bullets all across the screen. The larger black balls appear later in the game. One type stops near the bottom of the screen and explodes into a semicircle of shots, which are hard to avoid because they appear so suddenly. The other type of black ball is the largest and most devastating. It stops higher up on the screen and then explodes, spraying shots in a complete circle. The only effective way to deal with any black balls is to shoot them before they explode.

Snowstorm

In addition to all of these various types of opponents, you have one other concern in Xevious - the weather. Periodically, you will encounter a snowstorm, where small crystals fly diagonally through the air. These crystals can destroy your ship, so stay near the bottom of the screen and shoot any crystals that come toward you. The storm never lasts long, so just try to survive it, rather than chasing down the crystals.

Hidden Flags

Some of the best - and most important - features of Xevious are carefully hidden in the game. Secret targets hidden at certain points in the terrain can earn you extra turns or thousands of points. These targets always occur in the same places, but the only clue you'll have to their position is a red glow in your bombing sights when you're directly over them.

One type of hidden target is the flags. Each flag lies along a horizontal line across the terrain, and can only be uncovered by dropping a bomb directly on it. Since the flags are not always at the same points on the lines, you must drop bombs all across the screen to find them.

When a bomb hits a hidden flag, the flag will suddenly appear with a small S next to it. Exposing the flag earns you 1000 points, but the real value of the flags comes when you pass over one - an extra turn is awarded for each flag you pass over.

Another type of hidden target is the Sol Citadels, which are worth up to 4000 points each - 2000 points for uncovering one, and 2000 more for destroying one. Like the flags, Sol Citadels will cause a red glow in your bomb targets even though they are not visible on the screen. A direct hit by a bomb will uncover a citadel, and another bomb hit will destroy it.

Single Sol Citadel	One single Sol Citadel can be found just near to the three stationary vehicles shown on the left screen shoot. Another single Sol Citadel can be found just to the left of the big pyramid you encounter during the shields phase - just before you have to get the flag in the inlet. ( Anders S. Johansen)
First group of four Sol Citadels	The first group of Sol Citadels can be found in the small clearing shown above, just before the second Mother Ship. There are four citadels in this group, so it's worth 16,000 points. A crystal snowstorm always occurs at this point in the game, so take that as your cue to watch for the telltale glow in your bomb sights. When you reach the citadels, drop four bombs to uncover them and then four more bombs to destroy them.
The only group of eight Citadels	There are eight citadels in the second group. which occurs just after the third large bird that appears in the terrain. You can use the bird s foot and leg to guide your Solvalou to these citadels; just fly over the leg and continue up the screen until your bombsights glow. This will be the lower left citadel in the group. Drop a bomb on this one and then move to the right to find the other seven. It is not possible to uncover and destroy all eight citadels in this group before they scroll off the screen, so you must decide how many to attempt. You can either uncover all eight and then bomb as many as possible (up to four), or uncover six citadels and destroy all of them. Either one of these approaches will earn you up to 24,000 points, the maximum possible on this group. Don't be discouraged if you get less than this total; it's very hard to get 24,000 on this group.
The next group of Citadels	The next group of citadels is much easier. There are only four again, and they come at the end of the third set of flying shields (rotating walls). Watch for where the two roads come together just before the forest, and drop your bombs along the top edge of the slanted section of roadway. As in the first group, uncover all four citadels before destroying them.
The last group of four Sol Citadels	The last group of Sol Citadels is hidden along the left edge of the screen near the first river. The best way to anticipate the approach of this group is to watch for a conspicuous formation of defense sites and domes that comes shortly before it. The domes and defense sites are clustered in two groups of four along both sides of the road shown above. This is a very dangerous area - the defense sites fire rapidly - so be careful not to forget about the Sol Citadels because of all the other action on the screen.

After the fourth group of citadels, your score will be over 300,000 points. This brings you close to the end of the terrain, which occurs around 400,000 points. After the end of the terrain, the game starts over again with all of the hidden targets in the same locations again. But before you can go back to the beginning, you must pass through the biggest challenge in the game - four sets of defense sites and domes that will attack you with a barrage of shots that is almost impossible to survive. Although the folks at Atari probably thought this section was so hard that players would never get through it, it is possible to survive if you plan everything out.

Start with your Solvalou all the way forward on the screen, so that you can drop back and continue firing when the defense sites come on the screen. This will give you extra time to hit all of the ground enemies that are attacking.

It's best to move through each set of ground enemies in a sweeping motion that brings you to the right edge of the screen and then back to the left. You must slip in between many of the shots fired by ground enemies while you do this, and at the same time you must destroy enough of them to allow you to continue moving forward. The sets are a little over one screen length apart, so there is just enough time to get back in position and move forward after each set.

The Andor Genesis Mother Ship

XEVIOUS DESIGNER'S NAME

Because most game-manufacturers don't give their designers name credit, a game designer will often include in the program a trick for: generating his or her name. This provides permanent proof of who programmed the game.

The designer of Xevious included a trick for generating his name right at the beginning of the game. As soon as your Solvalou appears, move to the far right edge of the screen and begin bombing constantly. Continue bombing until the first set of attacking rings is very close to you, and then shoot the rings. The message shown in the picture above will appear on the screen.

 Evezoo End (Masanobu ENDOH) was a game designer and programmer of XEVIOUS. Mr.ENDOH has left namco and founded his own company 10 years ago.

PLAY IT AT HOME

!!! Visit my XEVIOUS Emulator Page !!!

To play Xevious on your PC at home, download this great MSX Emulator for MS-DOS by Marat Fayzullin. You will also need the required Xevious Mega ROM.

Please use the following command line to run the game: C:> FMSX-DOS -msx2 -rom 5 XEVIOUS.ROM

OTHER INTERESTING LINKS

Ancient Astronaut Society (AAS)

This picture (looks like a Solvalou, is'n it ?) is only one of many golden models, made by the prehistoric Inca, Columbia. The shape of this plane was confirmed by aerodynamic investigations. The original is archieved at the Smithsonian-Institute, Washington DC.

A lifelike remote controlled replica was built (Wingspan: 87cm, Length: 93cm) and a test flight was made on 08/26/96. (Construction: Peter Belting. Conception:: Algund Eenboom and Conrad Lübbers)

Also take a look at Noriaki Ozawa's Xevious Page. Most of his Xevious related information is also available in english.