Welcome to the 80th issue of the GBAtemp Recommends Revival Project! This is a weekly feature where we share some our favourite games and the occasional "something else". Some may be well known, others I feel have been ignored but all are fantastic and deserve at least a play.



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We're week three in showcasing four "lesser known" NES titles, games that may not be famous but are still some of the highlights of Nintendo's iconic console.

Like action platformers? Like shooting crap in a horizontal fashion? If yes then here is Atlus's fantastic genre mash up, Xexyz. If no...go to the EoF and post something unfunny, preferably about Beaverfly.

Xexyz is pronounced like this "Zeks ees"... is a island nation on a post-apocalyptic Earth in the year 2777. The island is now threatened by bastard alien robots and as Apollo, you must fight back to reclaim this island of Fairies, pixies, frogs and Greek inspired creatures back.

Half the game is a platformer shooter kinda like Super Mario meets Ghoss 'n Goblins with a smidgeon of Metroid in their. The platformer levels are always odd numbered for example 1-1, 1-3 etc. These levels start with a open air level first, so like a forest, desert mountain etc and have the usual platforms & pitfalls you must navigate through and of course and enemies that you must defeat. During these levels you can go into...huts? I think they are and inside a friendly islander will greet you and will either offer information on how to progress, things for you to buy or will gladly give you currency to buy stuff with or offer a special power up (more on those later) for you to use. Some of these will have a little mini boss for you to fight. After going through these levels you'll be able to find a hidden door that leads you to a larger boss and once you have defeated this boss it'll give you a "Force Star" which is essentially a key that lets you enter a "mechanical castle". Now when you get into the castle you'll find that these sections are kinda maze like in their design, though not in a"ARRRGHIMFRIGGINGLOST" manor, more of a "yup, dead end...I'll go up instead". There are doors to go through above and below and of course enemies to fight as well. Once you have reached the end of the castle you get to a shooter section!

You do get some power ups during these sections to get a stronger weopon and also you can obtain other new weapons (for example a bouncey ball). You can also get "magic abilities" some of which let you jump and float higher, become invincible or protect and kill enemies without you shooting them.

The shooter sections are pretty much the standard horizontal shooter fair, in fact I'd say they were quite like the levels you'd find in Parodius. They're not particularly difficult and even people who suck at shooters can play through them with ease. There isn't much else to say about these levels (which are always even numbered 1-2,1-4 etc) but they control well and are a nice diversion from the game. The only annoying thing about these levels is that near the end of each is the option of going through one of two doors, pick the wrong one and you have to go through the shooter stage again...it's kinda cheap if you ask me. Once you have got to the end of these parts you will do a little more platforming to get to the end of the castle where you must fight a large boss while you navigate this floating platform. The bosses are quite easy and you can find a simple pattern to get rid of them. The game follows this pattern right until the big end boss where suddenly instead of shooting horizontally at the baddy, he is infront of you so it's kinda like a 3rd person, fixed "tube" style shooter and as Apollo, you are now in a much more advance ship to battle this meanie...this boss fight in contrast to the others is much more of a bugger to get through but most seasoned old school gamers can pass it.

Musical it's quite nice but repetitive, what you hear in the first world is pretty much what you'll hear in every world but it's not grating at all. It all looks nice, there isn't much slow down on the screen like with some NES titles are any clashing sprites. The backgrounds are pleasing enough for a NES title. All in all, while the looks and sounds could be better they could be a lot worse and at least they show the character and themes of the game well.

This game is one of those titles that I guess didn't get talked about when it was released, magazines didn't talk about it and I guess that it could be either because it didn't quite have a hook (the boxart is bland), the name was odd and maybe some people weren't sure what kind of game this was, the commercial (see below) didn't even show any platforming sections! Also this was a later NES title getting a release in 1990 (2 years after the Japanese release) and by then people were looking beyond the NES and forward to the SNE but it's a fine gem of a game that should be in every collectors posession and should at least be given a try.



If you enjoyed this week's edition of GBAtemp Recommends! please leave a comment in the thread. This helps us monitor feedback and ensures we keep posting these articles in the future. Wanna submit something? Send me a message.

Platform NES
Released 1990
Developer Atlus
Publisher Hudson Soft
Genre Platform/Scrolling shooter

 

When I was a kid my uncle came back from a vacation with a bunch of NES games, including this one. I had a lot of fun playing it, even if I didn't understand exactly what was going on...

 

Did someone mention anything like Nxenz?

 

Thanks for the review Hadrian. Want to point out a quick typo...Ghoss 'n Goblins...

Just did a quick playthrough over two days, it's very, very repetitve, but otherwise fun overall. I would say it reminded me more of Faxanadu meets Blaster Master, just with less exploration.

The shooter sections can be done without even shooting in some sections. You get to listen to the cool music in those sections without any noise obscuring it. It's not without its faults, lots of graphic glitches obscuring bullets and such during boss fights.

I was going to point out the Hudson/Atlus thing as being wrong, till I looked it up and saw Atlus did do it?!? Count me as surprised.

Yeah it was one of those games that I kinda knew about but the lame cover artwork never did anything for it. And it isn't one of those games that everyone talks about years later, and after playing it, I kinda see why, technically sound, decent gameplay, but nothing that stands out and makes it memorable like other forgotten (or lesser known) games like Shatterhand, Vice Project Doom, etc.

Still....appreciate the article and glad you managed to get me to play one that I never really paid attention too for all of these years. One of these days I'll get around to Star Tropics and then maybe play the sequel as well.