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I
have somewhat of an obsession with the game Xevious. The classic arcade to NES top-down
shooter is an example of purity in gaming. Here's your ship, it has bombs and lasers.
Shoot the badguys before they shoot you. It used to be that this is all you needed to
sell a game, back in the days where gaming was for nerds and mallgoers only. Nowadays,
you can take the game that was once trapped in the big cabinet anywhere you want, and
when Nintendo celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Famicom, they decided to release the
Classic NES Series in order to both draw attention to gaming history and to port classic games
directly to the Game Boy Advance. If you are expecting a dramatic improvement to the 8-bit
style of this wonderfully simple but challenging top-down shooter, expect to be let down. This
is an almost direct port of the original, save for a few minor details in game design
that even if I pointed them out wouldn't make a difference. Even the GBA cart of Xevious
has the same light gray color as the original NES cart, for crying out loud. But there is
one feature that will make the die-hard shoot-em-up fan's eyes light up like the North Star: saving.
That's right, I said it. Xevious is known to be punishingly difficult in terms of level
progression and time needed to actually complete the game. Knowing that you don't have to restart
the entire level when you haven't made it to an arbitrarily chosen checkpoint is a big
load off your shoulders, and will allow you to have more confidence when tackling enemies
from both the air and the ground. This will help with putting together an effective strategy
to use your lasers and bombs to rack up a monstrously high score, and the guy who owned
this cart before I picked it up at the game store is now on the chopping block as far
as I'm concerned. My confidence comes from knowing that I can just lay on the laser button
and launch bombs onto ground targets at the same time. Getting used to a rhythmic method
of bomb and laser is essential for your survival and score-building, as well as learning how
to dodge wide arrays of bullets while destroying their sources. Once you've established it,
you'll be hooked. There's simply no way around it. Xevious The Avenger is solid gaming you
can go back to as often as you like, and if your fondest memories of the arcade or the
NES are with this game, you will not be disappointed. For those who are looking for a little bit
extra as far as visuals or audio goes, however, fugedabadit.