The A button allows you to drop bombs to take out ground forces, and the B button fires your main guns to take out incoming air enemies. The attacking system is simplistic as well. Maneuvering your ship is easy and it responds quickly to your commands with the D-pad. Don’t let the sound scare you off, because Xevious definitely has more to offer in the actual game play department that easily trumps the lackluster sound effort we get here. Luckily this is the only glaring weakness that Xevious has, and one that I can forgive very easily. Unless you have played the game it’s tough to describe, but if you have then you know what I am talking about. The hitch with the music isn’t that its boring, or bland. Playing with some of my own music, or just in silence really never bothered me. Mostly I just turn the volume off for this one. The game has one theme with the standard sound effects thrown in. There are NES games out there that had great soundtracks to them, but Xevious clearly isn’t one of them. While not necessarily a bad thing, I do think the sound of Xevious is lacking. The sound is also the exact same that was on the original NES Xevious. Sadly you are missing out on pieces of history that trump a lot of what we see today on the market. However, if you’re a person who needs his graphics to be amazing every single time, then I feel a bit sorry for you, because this game really isn’t for you. Xevious delivers for you if that’s what you’re after. What you want is classic gameplay that still holds up. Basically, what I’m saying is if you bought this game or any other classic NES game then you are not concerned about the graphics anyways. They add to the fun factor of a game like Xevious giving you, the retro-gamer, a look into the past. Their simplistic but that’s the whole point. Playing Xevious exactly as it is on my NES SP really is my new favorite thing to do at the moment, and I wouldn’t change the graphics for anything. They work though, because they bring back memories of a gaming era that has almost been forgotten by the new generation of gamers. The graphics are exactly as they were back on the NES days, as Xevious is a true port of the NES edition. However, once I thought it over for a bit I realized Nintendo made the right call in the end. Initially I was upset that Nintendo had not updated the graphics for these classic games.
![xevious nes cartridge xevious nes cartridge](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/ETwAAOSw9fZeqflc/s-l640.jpg)
Still it’s nice to just play a game that only asks you to destroy as many enemy ships as possible in route to a high score that gives you nothing but bragging rights over your friends or whomever you play Xevious with (if you play it with anyone at all.) Since Xevious took place in a different era I think its only fair if I discount the story portion for this review and base my review on the other nine categories we employ here at Inside Pulse Games. Don’t get me wrong, I love a deep story as much as the next person. Xevious is a shooter that strives to give you mindless fun with the sole goal of bettering your top score. Well that just clears everything up, doesn’t it? Anyways, when this game was released, stories were definitely not the priority as much as the actual gameplay was. “Infiltrate enemy territory in your Solvalou strike fighter, gun down hostile aircraft, and drop your deadly payload to destroy the XEVIOUS war machine!” This is quoted directly from the Nintendo instruction guide that came with the game. Still, I’ll be nice and give you the official plot. Well, I didn’t come into this game expecting a story. And while I do plan on picking up more of these titles for portability, playing a game I missed out on back in the 8-bit days was the hook for me. Why Xevious instead of the other, better known, titles? It’s simple: I have all the other ones in one shape or another. So the subject of today’s review will be very much in a retro vein as we discuss Xevious. As I was buying it, I couldn’t help myself and went home with one of those eight titles that have been released in conjunction with this new SP model.
![xevious nes cartridge xevious nes cartridge](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/aBkAAOSwhEteLToq/s-l300.jpg)
I myself succumbed to the allure and finally upgraded from my original GBA to get the very sleek NES SP. With an initial lineup of Super Mario Bros., Bomberman, Ice Climbers, Pac-Man, Donky Kong, Excite Bike, The Legend of Zelda, and Xevious, Nintendo has effectively captured the spirit of nostalgia on the system built for that very purpose: the GBA. Despite the various complaints I have heard from different areas of the net in terms of pricing of these games, among other things, I think this is a great idea.
XEVIOUS NES CARTRIDGE SERIES
So when I got wind, along with the rest of the gaming community, of the classic NES series that was coming out for the GBA (along with the very cool retro NES GBA SP) I was naturally, very excited. Some people may hate them, and abhor their pricing polices, but when it comes to Nintendo I’ve been loyal since day one.