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It is no secret that retro gaming titles have carved out their own prospering niche in the video game market. Games from the late 70's (Head On by Sega) spanning all the way to the late 80's (Dragon Spirit by Namco) have attracted the 19+ year old gamers who grew up on classic and memorable titles like Dig Dug, Space Harrier and Pengo, to name a few. Companies like Namco, Sega, Toaplan and Technosoft have released retro gaming CDs with some of their most popular titles, to varying degrees of success. Aside from Sega's popular "Ages" series -- which includes sterling titles like After Burner II, Space Harrier, Out Run, Fantasy Zone and the upcoming Power Drift -- Namco's "Museum" series has enjoyed the greatest success. With strong, recognizable titles such as Galaga, Mappy, Pac-Man, Pole Position, Assault and Galaxian, this comes as no great surprise.
However, it was one of Namco's most popular titles, Xevious, included on Namco's second "Museum" collection, that excited most players. Last year, when I heard that Xevious was going to be released again, the thought of playing this game again brought back fond memories of the hours I spent on this title in arcades. Showing friends the secret trick near the phoenix in the sand was, at the time, a great feeling. Flying over lush forests, dodging those rotating indestructible monoliths, polished graphics, and performing precision bombing runs on ground installations (remember how fun it was to successfully hit multiple targets with one bomb?) was an experience that really couldn't be matched back in 1982.
Now, 15 years and 5 Namco Museums later, Namco has brought its arcade shooter, Xevious 3D/G+, to the Sony PlayStation. The premise behind this game is a solid one: take a very popular game of yesteryear, update it with a 60fps 3D graphics engine and an arranged soundtrack, while also offering several other new features including a variety of weapons, a power-up system and PlayStation-only CG movies. All of these elements were nowhere to be found in the original Xevious. I believe that Namco also wanted Xevious 3D/G+ to feel like its predecessor so that it would have more in common with the original game than just its name.
Unfortunately, this approach is flawed by the simple fact that as a shooter, Xevious has not aged well over the years. When I played Xevious on the Namco Museum Vol. 2 CD early last year, I was extremely shocked. Prior to this, I really believed that Xevious was a much better shooter than what I was playing on my PlayStation. What were once perceived to be beautiful forests, plateaus and rivers, were reduced to 2 or 3 tone tile sets, which did nothing to give me that nostalgic feeling that other classic games have achieved. The ship's movement was slow, sound effects were painstakingly basic, and bombing ground targets just did not have the same impact as it did many years ago. This surprised me, because almost all of the other games of that time from Namco (Galaga, Dig Dug, Ms. Pac-Man, etc.) are all still lots of fun to play. The graphics are still pleasant to the eye and they have good music, sound effects, and solid gameplay.
So, when I heard that Xevious 3D/G+ was on its way to the PlayStation, I was extremely excited. After experiencing the possible directions that the genre could be taken to with Taito's beautiful shooter RayStorm, I had high hopes that Namco would bring us a similar experience. Could Xevious 3D/G+ do for Xevious what RayStorm did for RayForce/Layer Section? Considering the nearly 15 years separating these two games, as well as taking into account Namco's strong presence in leading-edge PlayStation software development, it seemed inevitable.
Or so I thought. Instead of utilizing the true 3D potential of the PlayStation, exhibited in games like Tobal 2, Rage Racer or Final Fantasy VII, Namco has opted to use the outdated 3D engine used in the arcade title of the same name. Xevious 3D/G+ was originally released in Japanese arcades roughly a year and a half ago, and from what I have read, was developed using PlayStation hardware, a la Tekken. What results, however, is a PlayStation title which is uninspired, tedious, and not up to Namco's regular standards.
Graphically, Xevious 3D/G+ really suffers for a number of reasons. For starters, the game is marred by a serious amount of slowdown which really hurts the visual impact of the title. The entire game has a tendency to slow down and stutter even when you are simply firing your weapons with no enemies on the screen. What makes this even more curious is the fact that a vast majority of the polygons in the game are flat shaded and very small. Landscapes are, for the most part, simple constructions and reflect the look and feel of the original Xevious, but one must wonder what could have been done had the designers and programmers used more creative license instead of limiting themselves to the archaic source material of the original Xevious. Xevious 3D/G+ begins to show signs of its true potential in the final levels, but by then, it is too little, too late. The last level especially exemplifies wonderful color usage and also provides a nice feeling of depth and immersion sorely missing from earlier levels. The PlayStation-only CG movies are also rather bland, and offer very little in the way of music and sound effects. In fact, they feel almost as bad as the CG movies in the Thunderforce Gold Packs released on the Saturn last year. They are about the same quality as the cookie-cutter Namco Museum opening CG movies. Again, after seeing what has been done with some of Namco's latest CG accomplishments (Tekken 2, Rage Racer and Soul Edge), seeing uninspired CG like this practically hurts the game more than it helps.
Xevious 3D/G+ also comes up short in the music and sound department. In-game music is a subdued mixture of ambient and trance tracks -- music which would be well-suited for a different kind of game, but is hardly appropriate for a shooter such as this. There are times when the music turns into a wonderful example of progressive trance, but for the most part, the music did nothing to establish mood or pace. Sound effects also do not have that needed spark and polish required in shooters. In their goal to retain the feel of the original Xevious, Namco has used a lot of the same sound effects in this title (explosion and projectile sounds, for example), which are oftentimes so loud that they both drown out the BGM as well as many of the other sound effects in the game. Conversely, some of the sound effects, such as your own ship's explosion, have almost no sound. Namco's sound engineers should have spent a little more time mastering the sound effects in this game, as they are poorly balanced in terms of volume levels.
As for gameplay, this is essentially Xevious with 3D graphics. There are a few new features, such as 2 additional weapons. All 3 of your weapons (standard spreadfire, a green laser, and tracking lasers) can be powered up only 2-3 times, and when you die, you lose all of your power-ups. There are no speedup options or smart bombs, so you may often find your ship unable to move successfully through a storm of fast-moving enemy projectiles. Fortunately, your ship is quite responsive, which is perhaps one of the most important aspects of a shooter. Bombing ground targets is another area of the game which has been downgraded. Instead of being able to drop a bomb precisely on a particular target (or in-between them), your bombs now lock onto targets. In effect, all you have to do is put your targeting reticle over a moving tank, press the bomb button, and you'll hit it automatically. I liked the fact that in the original Xevious, you had to take into consideration the time it took for the bomb to hit the ground. In Xevious 3D/G+, bombing takes almost no skill, and you also no longer have the option of taking out 2 targets at once with 1 bomb. It takes the fun out of that aspect of the game considerably.
In terms of the game's difficulty, I found that the default difficulty level was a little too easy, and after playing the game for the second time, I was able to beat the entire game with only 1 continue, using a total of 5 ships. The game also lacks variety and length within its 7 stages. Boss encounters are extremely short, averaging anywhere between 10 seconds and 1.5 minutes (the final boss encounter is over within about 2.5 minutes), Basically, the game is over before you even get a chance to settle in.
In what has become the norm from Namco, Xevious 3D/G+ possesses a great wealth of options and extras. For starters, included on this CD is the original Xevious, Super Xevious, and Xevious Arrangement. All three are essentially the same game, except that Xevious Arrangement has new music, an additional arranged soundtrack, new enemies, and very minor power-up options. They are all presented in the PlayStation's high-resolution mode, which makes enemy projectiles very difficult to see when they travel over bodies of water. Additionally, when you finish Xevious 3D/G+ (and possibly the other versions of Xevious -- I have not done this yet), a special "omake" (extra) options menu opens up on the main menu, giving you free reign over such things as a music test menu, movie player, etc. I would speculate that more options appear if you finish the game on higher difficulties or without continuing. Otherwise, the standard options menu is complete with everything you would expect from Namco.
In closing, with the recent resurgence in the shooter genre in Japan, I was definitely expecting a better entry from Namco. Even without drawing comparisons to Taito's RayStorm, Xevious 3D/G+ is a very average shooter at best, and I can only suggest this game to the most hard-core of Xevious fans. Ordyne, a sleeper shooter from the 80's, included on Namco Museum Vol. 4, is a much more entertaining and rewarding shooter than what Xevious 3D/G+ turned out to be.
FINAL SCORES:
Graphics 3.0
+ great color usage in game's later levels.
+ clean texture maps on some of the level scenery.
- undetailed 3D models and choppy 3D explosion routines.
- elementary terrain models and poor boss design.
- uninspired CG movies.
- slowdown occurs on every level very often.
- very unimpressive weapon presentation.
Sound/Music 4.0
+ a few well-done arranged music tracks.
- most of the music is inappropriate for this type of game.
- sound effects are poorly balanced and executed.
Gameplay 5.0
+ solid control which is very responsive.
+ playing through the game reveals extra options.
+/- this is Xevious -- either you love it or you hate it.
- precision bombing, a classic feature, is no longer in the game.
- gameplay gets tiresome and monotonous after only a few rounds.
Overall 4.0