Xevious

Xevious was an arcade video game by Namco, released in 1983. It was designed by Masanobu Endoh. In the U.S., the game was manufactured and distributed by Atari.

Game play

The player uses an 8-way joystick to pilot a combat aircraft called a Solvalou, which is armed with a forward-firing zapper for aerial targets and a blaster for ground targets.

There are various aerial enemy aircraft which shoot relatively slow bullets, as well as (presumably unpiloted) fast-moving projectiles and exploding black spheres. Ground enemies are a combination of stationary bases and moving vehicles, most of which also fire slow bullets. A gigantic floating fortress appears in certain areas; this is defeated by knocking out its core.

There are no discrete levels, rather the Solvalou continually advances over varying terrain. However, if a player dies, play continues from a set point. (i.e., there are levels but they merge into each other with areas of forest.) Nor are there "level-end boss enemies" that must be defeated to progress. As the Solvalou constantly flies forward, it is theoretically possible to advance without defeating any enemies.

History

Xevious was one of the earliest vertical scrolling shooters, and greatly influenced games in this genre. The graphics were revolutionary for their time, and characters were rendered with remarkable clarity and effect through careful use of shades of gray and palette-shifting. It was the one of the first games to have "hidden characters" which are not mentioned in the instructions but can be revealed by a secret maneuver. Among these was the "special flag" which gave the player an extra life. This feature was carried over to numerous subsequent Namco games.

While it saw limited popularity in the U.S., Xevious was a huge cult hit in Japan, and to this day is considered one of the greatest videogames of all time. Popular musicians Haruomi Hosono (Yellow Magic Orchestra) and Kuwata Keisuke (Southern All Stars) were known to be fans of the game, and the former produced an album of music from Namco videogames, with Xevious as its centerpiece. A follow-up 12" single featured in its liner notes an entire science-fiction short story by Endoh, set in the world of Xevious, with even a rudimentary fictional language.

There were several arcade sequels and a spinoff, though none achieved much popularity:

Super Xevious (1984) was practically the same game made significantly harder, and with a few rarely-seen new enemies.
Solvalou (1991) presented the same game with 3-D polygon modeling and a pilot's-eye view.
Xevious 3D/G (1996) was an update on the classic with improved graphics and a simultaneous two-player feature.
Grobda (1984) was a spinoff starring an enemy character -- the tank with corkscrew treads.

Tricks and trivia

The highest score possible is 9,999,990, at which point the game terminates abnormally and resets. Some time before this score is reached, the game starts to award extra ships on every blaster shot fired.
A designer credit can be revealed at the beginning of the game by immediately moving to the lower right corner of the screen and firing the blaster continuously. This feature is absent from unauthorized copy versions. "Evezoo End" is a pseudonym of designer Masanobu Endoh.
The names appearing by default in the Japanese version's high-score list are pseudonyms of the game designers, music composers, etc. (The U.S. version only allowed three characters for high-score names.)
The zapper and blaster buttons were reversed between the Japanese and U.S. arcade versions.
It was rumored that the black shields could be destroyed by shooting them 256 times, but this is impossible as they would scroll off the screen long before that.
At one point in the game, the Solvalou flies over the Nazca lines.