THE HAMSTER SUPER EDGE: ARCADE ARCHIVES BLASTS OFF SUPER XEVIOUS
The 2025 Namco Month started with a return to the early 80s, pitting us in a sci-fi dogfight against ancient alien races. What I'm talking about? I'm talking Super Xevious.
Xevious is back in the 'hood.
In gameplay, graphics and sound, is virtually identical to Xevious, so you'll be asking: "¿What is "Super" on Super Xevious?" Despite its difficulty and challenge, Namco knew that players were "Devious enough to beat Xevious" (also known as "The Atari game you can't play at home"), so they revised the game...and apparently did it in the wrong way.
One of the major problems of Xevious was how slow the Solvalou was. If you've played Xevious, you'll notice how much of a sitting duck your ship was five minutes into the game as the enemies pelted you with simultaneous 5 way shots in random directions or teleporting away. Well, those issues were made even worse. Even the Toroid and Zakato act more cowardly by flying in larger formations and fleeing away when you're about to shoot them. The same goes for the Grobdas, when your Zapper is about to hit them, they just move away, and if for some sort of miracle you can at least take one, they can give you 10,000 points. Yeah, ten thousand points for hitting that Grobda. Sounds challenging, but with the slow fire rate of the Zapper is more of a frustrating chore, and to make things worse, the Brag Zakatos are just an almost unavoidable deathtrap that will burn all your lives even before reaching your first battle against Andor Genesis, and I'm not talking "Oh, I didn't saw that one coming". I'm talking a swarm of Brag Zakatos exploding their 5 way curtains in random directions like "You dodged 3 of the frontal bursts, but the one from the right hit you", and sometimes bursting too close to avoid the curtain shot. Also the enemies will now appear from the bottom of the screen, resulting in a "No Safe Spot" where you're completely exposed to either enemy fire and collisions.
Basic data for a rule changing situation.
Just in case you're wondering what's so different between Xevious and Super Xevious (ignoring the Famicom/Nintendo VS. System Super Xevious: Mystery of Gump) you've better realize that the location of secrets are no longer those from before. The enemies are more frequent and more aggressive and the second Andor Genesis will be tougher than before with the Brag Zakatos shooting you in all directions. Looks like the situation is no longer in your favor in this game.
In other words
The "Be nicer to your plane, Mage 2" rule applies on them.
The game introduces new characters with new rules. While most are your common hostiles, the others are much like neutrals or unmentioned allies because there's enemies that if they get hit, they will drop your hard earned score to zero. Even for a penalty, that's way too absurd. While I can understand a slight point drop for taking down an ally, this is taking the concept of punishment to absurd levels.
Golem 4 Footpad
< < Mage 2? Talk to me, Mage 2! > >
*"Mission Failed" from Ace Combat 7 plays*
The unfair difficulty not just resulted in an infamously hard game, but also a "Who would want to port it?" dilemma since the majority of consoles and computers dodge it like the plague. But believe it or not it had a few ports. The first one is for the Sharp X68000 computer by Dempa (Baraduke, After Burner II) which was a very faithful conversion in gameplay and graphics, but it sounds slightly different in the sound department, at least on the "Solvalou Ready" fanfare. Aside from that, it is a quite decent port. While it wasn't ported to the NES or Sega Master System, it had a PlayStation port back in 1997 as part of Xevious 3D/G+ where it was included as a bonus game along with Xevious and Xevious Arrangement, and later on PC as part of Namco History Vol. 1. In 2007 it made one last return on the Nintendo DS as part of Namco Museum DS. Until May 1st when Hamster and Bandai Namco brought this game as part of Arcade Archives. Fortunately, we have a little advantage on our side in this version and is not the Trophy support or the "manual", I'm talking about the Save state function, which will allow you to get the elusive 120,000 point Trophy. So, prepare to do some save state abuse if you want to tackle the trophies.
Is the music of the game annoying you? Here's a playlist to solve that.
Yngwie Malmsteen - Fury
Allen-Lande - Wish for a miracle
Demons & Wizards - Winter of Souls
SUPER TRIVIOUS: THE FUN FACTS YOU CAN READ AT HOME
Everytime you see an earthly tank, remember: PICK, not kill.
- The Arcade Archives manual calls Grobda as "Globda" AGAIN.
- Unlike the original Xevious manual, the Super Xevious release also includes the callsigns of some of the enemies like Addor Guileness (Andor Genesis).
- The tank sprite seems to be recycled from Tank Batallion.
- Xevi Kites are actually Galbosses from Galaxian, implying that Galaxians exists in both Strangereal/UGSF continuity and our familiar Earth.
- Unfair difficulty spikes seems to be a common issue on Namco games. Being the ADF-11 Ravens from Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown the latest examples of cheat-like difficulty.
Well done! But it looks like we're gonna need to send somebody to pick up the pieces.
TURN AROUND AND PICK UP THE PIECES!!
Looks like Bandai Namco wasn't fooling around when they said their first title of the Namco Month would be "Super Hard". Super Xevious is a testimony of what happens when the developers push the difficulty in levels that greatly favor the game while putting the player on a great disadvantage. If you're a pro-player or someone who likes dumb moves in their videogames, then pick it. Otherwise, look for something else.
Now we can only wait for Arcade Archives: Xevious Arrangement and Arcade Archives 2: Xevious 3D/G to fulfill the lineup.
Super Xevious final score is of 4 R-9's out of 10 in the R-Scale due to the dipshit difficulty moves:
There's a thin line between challenging and downright cruel, so the final question is "Are you Super Devious enough to beat Super Xevious?" The Arcade Archives game that you can play at home.
Difficulty that hurts.