Xexex. How do I last more than 20 seconds in this game.

[NOAH]

Alright, so I was scroungin' the web for videos and came across Xexex. The game looked pretty appealing as I'm a big fan of R-Type and the aesthetics were pretty impressive, especially given the age of the game. I gave it a shot in MAME and failed miserably. I'll admit, I'm not as good of a player as many of you out there, but I've never sucked so bad at a game in my life. There were times where my credit was literally gone in 10 seconds. Never have I had to credit up so much to beat the first loop of a game. By the end of the final stage, I had a little bit better idea of how to use the Flint, but it still took me 3 credits to beat the first stage. I should note that this is the Europe region rom that was used with a life bar, not the JP with life stock. Has anyone succeeded at this game?

[mesh control]

Play the JP version.

From my understanding the world version is complete unbalanced garbage.

[Herr Schatten]

Play the JP version.

From my understanding the world version is complete unbalanced garbage.

This is true. The japanese version is obviously the way the game was meant to look and play. It's still a bit unbalanced (in addition to not really a good game in the first place) but at least it's playable.

[Drum]

I never understood why people think this is one of the best-looking shmups of the era, or of all time - I put it as one of the ugliest.

Play X-Multiply instead.

[Herr Schatten]

I never understood why people think this is one of the best-looking shmups of the era, or of all time - I put it as one of the ugliest.

I agree. Apart from the now dated-looking Mode7 effects, the artwork is average at best.

Play X-Multiply instead.

Well, that one ain't very pretty either. There's awful pillow shading all over the place.

[mjclark]

The game looked pretty appealing as I'm a big fan of R-Type and the aesthetics were pretty impressive, especially given the age of the game.

Yeah I'm a sucker for aesthetics,too and love R-Type Leo cos it's sooooo pretty and relaxing. I love Xexex for the visuals too but never got very far with the world version. Will try the recommended JP version then and see if it's any friendlier.

[Venom]

Play the JP version. I owned it for a while and got to the 5th or 6th level boss on a credit, much better than the world version.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

We were just playing this game in the STGT2010 (the JPN version as the US one is crap) if you pop over to the highscore section therell be a thread were we posted our scores and talked about it, Youi might beable to pick up some titbits of info there aswell as the strategy section of the forum.

As for videos of the Japanese Xexex they are like rockin horse shit in the english area of the internets. Wasnt it Xexex the one where a participant of the tourney removed all his superplay videos from the web in some mean attempt to get an advantage over the other gamers?

Anyway heres a superplay my team used, youll need a niconico video account to watch the 1st loop, the 2nd loop vid doesnt

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm2671229
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/video/niconico/sm8017528

Its worth remebering that there are 5 (it could be 4) hidden power ups in each stage. They give random drops with a 1up given every blue moon. Its this fact of the game giving out random 1ups that wreaks the game for many scorers, me included

edit: by copy and pasting the last part of the web address onto the non niconico site you can watch it without an account http://d.hatena.ne.jp/video/niconico/sm2671229

[NOAH]

Wow. I only thought the game was long because I died a countless number of times. Great vid links, TrevHead. Seems like the learning curve might take a while on this one. Am I wrong?

[saucykobold]

It's a traditional Irem-style shmup, so success hinges to a great extent on memorization. When you're just starting out, you're probably not going to beat level 3 with any consistency (this was certainly true of me). You'll make progress by learning where enemies spawn, when to switch to a particular weapon, reliable paths through the levels, etc. That last point is very important--for every section of the game, there's at least one safe route that doesn't require any free-form dodging.

Wasnt it Xexex the one where a participant of the tourney removed all his superplay videos from the web in some mean attempt to get an advantage over the other gamers?

TrevHead, I wanted to give my team special access to those resources for a few days. Shortly before the week ended, I made them publicly available again. That's not so objectionable, is it? Besides, I don't think anyone complained when Icarus withheld some of his replays from rival teams in the past.

[Drum]

I never understood why people think this is one of the best-looking shmups of the era, or of all time - I put it as one of the ugliest.

I agree. Apart from the now dated-looking Mode7 effects, the artwork is average at best.

Play X-Multiply instead.

Well, that one ain't very pretty either. There's awful pillow shading all over the place.

Sure, but that gels with the macabre weirdiness of everything. The right amount of wrongness can really enhance stuff like that, see: Splatterhouse, Data East's weirder games, UPL's weirder games, Chimera Beast, Toki etc. Nobody would call them pretty, and at times they come off as amateurish, but it just makes them look slightly unhinged. Xexex just comes off as messy and incoherent to me.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Personally my feeling are that considering theres only a week of play time with many ppl leading buzy lives and not been able to put much time into the game, the scoreboard certanly had a large gap between those who had played the game before and those who hadnt. Been able to watch a superplay whould help those new to the game close the gap in some way. But I see your point, they are your videos and you can do with them what you want. And the tourney is a competition so all fair in love and war.

As for Noah, I only got to the start of stage 6 myself but learning where all the hidden power ups are is important as it increases the chances of getting a 1up. youll find stages 3 and 5 to be quite difficult as abit of twitch gameplay and abit of luck is needed stages 6 and 7 are were memorisation is most important. Using the right weapon for a section can make a world of difference. An d one good thing about Xexex is that losing a life doesnt automatically mean game over as most of the time its quite easy to power up again quite quickly. Unlike the world version which respawns you at the same point as you died which could be far away from a power up.

Urg i hate the world version of Xexex, I might moan about Cave removing slowdown from DS localisations but thats nothing compared to some of the fuckups in the past. Bad localisations is something ive never really understood why Japanese devs and western publishers do it when theyve got a perfect original which might only need a translation. Gamers shouldnt put up with it but unfortunatly most dont even know about it.