Xevious

Getting Started

When you start Xevious on the FDS, you'll see a title screen with Japanese text. Press Start (Enter) to begin. There are no menu options to speak of, so you will jump straight into the action. Your ship, the Solvalou, appears at the bottom of the screen. The game scrolls upward automatically, and enemies will appear both in the sky above you (brightly colored aircraft) and on the ground below (darker structures and cannons). Your two weapons are mapped to the A button (zapper for air targets) and the B button (blaster bomb for ground targets). You can only fire one type at a time, so you need to tap the appropriate button based on what is approaching.

The core loop is simple: destroy everything that moves or shoots at you while avoiding collisions and enemy fire. The blaster bomb drops a bomb that falls straight down and can destroy ground targets even after you have passed over them, so you can lead your shots. Your ship has a hit box that is smaller than its sprite, but be careful - enemy bullets and collisions will cost you a life. There are no power-ups, so your survival depends entirely on your ability to dodge and shoot precisely. The game ends when you lose all lives, but you can continue using the FDS's disk save feature if available.

Since this is the Japanese FDS version, all on-screen text is in Japanese. However, the interface is minimal: the score, high score, and remaining lives are shown with numbers and simple symbols. You don't need to read anything to play. Focus on learning the patterns of different enemy types and ground installations - some require multiple hits, and the ground towers often fire projectiles that arc upward. Practice makes perfect, and this port is just as tough as the arcade original.