The History of Xevious - arcade console documentary 

A massive thanks for letting me be a part of this one! Great video as always mate

Started playing this in '84 in the uni arcade and it became my all-time favourite arcade game. I couldn't quite play indefinitely but did loop the map a few times. Pretty sure I knew where all the citadels (sol towers) were, definitely more than documented on the net. I own a bootleg arcade PCB (Xevios by Watson) and the Namco Classics Vol 1 PCB which contains Xevious, Super Xevious and Xevious Arrangement. I wrote the original MAME driver for Namco Classics Vol 1 PCB specifically for this game! Currently RE'ing the arcade ROM but the code is very data-driven and after a point it's very difficult to decypher. There's an unreleased arcade-perfect Jaguar port and I was hoping to make a Neo Geo port based on my RE. Some day.

Grew up playing this...MEMORIES!

Hardest part of any day is seeing a PatmanQC video on your timeline and having to wait to watch it. Looking forward to the conversions!

Xevious was my favorite game on my 7800. The good Ole days!

One of my faves.

played it in on the Microsoft arcade compilation years ago. never made it to the big ship tho. it had namco classics like mappy etc.

Really great documentary on Xevious! I really enjoyed this. 👍

I love the story of this game, which you don't often say about a space shooter from the 1980s! Thousands of years ago there was a massive advanced civilization, yeah, the Atari promotional video mentioned in PAtman's vid covered that, but the game had a limited language made for it. "Xevious" means "fourth" in that language, and the Xevious fleet is from ( you guessed it ) the fourth of 7 colonies made in deep space to survive the ice age. Your ship is a gift from a defector from the colonies, and your player character, the pilot, is actually an archaologist who discovered remnants of this civilization in Peru. The GAMP briefly mentioned during the talk of ports and sequels is the Genetic Artificial Matrix Producer, a machine that created a race of superhuman servants for the civilization, and by extension, Gamps are also the term used for it's vat-grown minions. Somewhere in this history there was a Gamp revolt before the ice age. A lot of this could be found in the manual to Xevious 3DG+ on PlayStation, as well as online.

love you PatMan. Always look forward tp your drops.

Another fantastic retrospective. Thanks, Patman!

Fantastic video that makes justice for one of the most important shooters

I love this iconic, genre starting game. I sadly don't like Galaga but I would play with fun cousins (at least during childhood). God bless and thank you sir Endi-san.

Xevious is my favourite arcade game of all time.

Hey wow I thought I was a Xevious superfan knowing everything but I learned some things here. Thanks for this!

Yes! One of my favorite games of all time. Keep up the good work as always.

Great video. Like the game, would love to see a Patch or a new version with pink bullets. Those pesky white bullets are hard to see on the background

I started playing this game in 1984 along with Super Xevious I got so good at Xevius $1 dollar would last me 5 hours 👍 👍 I remember Super Mario sitting right next to Xevious I never played Mario Xevious all day long and that's what I liked about the PlayStation 1 they released a lot of space shooters like Xevious if course the PS1 had better graphics but the feel of the later shooters still kinda felt like Xevious and that's what I liked about the 90s Space shooters

I like going to slopes live streams and saying..ellllo you. He likes it.

This game title won me so many games of hangman.

very cool you collabed with slopes

I loved this game in the arcade.

scramble was a blast !

Oh man, really looking forward to the roundup of all the ports!

I have a Namco Museum disc for Gamecube. Not surprisingly Xevious is the title i play the most there. It is evergreen.

Wow that 3D 1991 😍 21:45

Thanks!

My dad and I played the hell out of this on the Atari 7800

A Xevious novel? Wow!

Nice Slopes Cameo!!!

You totally glossed over the fact how many believed you could destroy the undestroyable monoliths by hitting them 255 times which was impossible to do

2:15 WAIT A SECOND... is that the Pac-Man intermission song playing on Rally X???

I use to call this game X-Evious

0:44 - What is the 3D Xevious footage from?

I wanted to sit through a 60 min video .

One of the few games I never managed to finish. Is there even an ending?

great job when are we gonna see trubo by SEGA?

You outdid yourself again patty

Bad ass game.

Whenever I feel compelled to redo my mame setup, this is one of the core games I install along with Burgertime, TMNT, Space Harrier, and Ms. Pac Man.

Great video, with solid research! I was the Xevious champion in Brazil, during the period I played (1984-6), according to the technicians who distributed the machines across the country. I played in an arcade in the city of Lages (SC). Some fond memories: - Played the same game for up to 13 hours (when the arcade closed...); - It reached the limit of points that the game counted: 9.999.990; - My Souvalous record (accumulated extra ships) was 72; - When crossing the entire map became easy (we called it “turning the tables”), I started to cross it without shooting a single shot or bomb, just dodging enemy shots; - I once went through the entire territory (loop the map) with the same ship; Thanks, PatmanQC! Thanks, Mr. Endo! Thanks, Xevious civilization!

I believe Xevious was included on one of those Jakks joystick Pac-Man games back in the mid 2000s. It was fun to tinker around with.

One of the classics - your arcade game history videos are great.

Masanobu Endō, in my personal opinion, was the Rembrandt of video game character design. And Xevious is my favorite shoot-em-up of all time. I mean, the best of its kind, ever!

I love your videos. They are truly wonderful and a joy to watch.

I always loved Xevious, especially the design of the world map and the various enemy sprites, not to mention the hidden enemies/flags. It's almost up there with Dragon Spirit, my favorite vertical scrolling shooter. Gotta admit, I do not understand the immense, enduring popularity of Galaga. Gyruss, which was essentially the same game, was superior in almost every way IMHO. But my favorite "enemies in formation" vertical shooter was Solarian II on the 90's era Mac. It was just so weird.

Fantastic documentary again as always, Patman, and cool to hear the narration by Slopes!

Your videos bring back memories of me and my late brother growing up. We hung out a lot on arcades as kids. Keep it up!

Great video! I first tried this a year ago and got hooked trying to discover every sol tower. It's become one of my fav shmups, top 25 material! (and without nostalgia involved) :D Almost didn't play it because of its outdated presentation (particularly the looks of the main shot and the "OST") but I'm so glad I gave it a chance (^.^)

OK my collaboration idea is Guilty pleasures. I need a video of about 1 min. Lots of crossover youtubers will be involved. it would be a huge honor if You will help with this video :) Really big fan. Thanks again

You could always hear this game in the background at Panama Bowling when I was a kid.

Strange I remember playing Solvalou as a young kid in the US. There was one in the arcade at the Excalibur Hotel in Las Vegas. I remember it being a big sit down cabinet and I was very impressed by its 3d graphics. I asking my dad what the game was called as I couldn't pronounce Solvalou. I distinctly remember him saying "Solvalou its the ship from Xevious". He would have know this as he was fan of Xevious and had bought me a copy for the NES.

Xevious is devious.

I always loved the "metalic" look to everything with such simple graphics.

Hey, cool. The bacura enemies show up in some of the Tales games, and I never knew they came from Xevious.

The background music always reminds me of the Starcade Tv game show.

I live in Japan, and there's a retro arcade I visit that has Xevious and Xevious Arrangement on one machine. Thanks as always, PTQC.

Capcom even had there own version called exed exes. lots of game companies tried to copy it. but none could match the original.

Xevious, this is a good one!

ABSOLUTELY superb video again maestro When XEVIOUS came out I hunted it after school at various riding-distance locations & still clearly remember each!' always preferred the loudest one as the sound of shooting the Hal-slabs is just too good There are several hidden bonuses in the water you know. . . . Your new LRLRLYXRBA startup version also tops 🗿🗿✌️

Endo-san sounds an awful lot like DJ Slopes, accent and all.

I put a lot of quarters into this game back in the day

Wow, that Slope's voice over was unexpected! But, hello you. (Joking, I know that's yet a different guy.)

House.....of the dead

They need to come out with a sequel on Playstation 5 and give it a option if U want to play it on 2D or 3D with the graphics they can now do in 2022 I'm sure it would be a beautiful looking game Xevious 2 on PS5 would be awesome

When I was little I hated this game I am not kidding I wasn't good enough to reach the 16 areas and I can still cannot do it because it always get blasted right away whenever I start up a game I use that namco message for good luck and whenever I can be the endor Genesis I tried countless times to make it deep into the game it's just very well done that you cannot even make it far without pelted by lasers and bombs everywhere without losing the the spacecraft

The later game looks almost exactly like another game I use to love playing: Slap Fight where you gained extensions to your ships sides giving you extra fire powers.

I love Xevious! My first experience with this game was on the 7800 and I was not even aware of the fact that it was an arcade port! Another excellent video!

good job, but you left of the japanese only tv plug and play : xevious scramble mission which is basically a series of levels you fly through quickly and bomb and shoot enemies ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zZ0Fi8Uq_Ps.html you can play through an emulator though.

This thing was ahead of it's time for 82' Amazing game... still enjoyable today

Man, I need to find a copy of that PS3 version. =)

I sent you an email. Looking for help with 1 clip if you wouldn't mind. I can't get citra to run on my PC & was wondering if you had the 3ds clip available so I can use it in my video. I'll credit you of course.

I made an Arcade1up Xevious cabinet.

FUN FACT: Xevious is apparently in the same shared universe as Ace Combat, Galaga, and weirdly enough, Dig Dug.

I had no idea it ran this deep. I played it on those joystick 🕹️ plug ins i remember finding at a Walmart back then. I never remembered the name but the mirror squares are so iconic.

Interesting thing I have noticed was that the Souvalou's bomb cursor flashes red when over an enemy or the hidden towers of sol, which have to be bombed twice for a big bonus.

Another great video! I didn't know about the sequels, and didn't know about the later games having 2 player coop. That just makes the game that much better! I know you mentioned having a separate video for the conversions, but I definitely love the 3DS version with 3D!!! An amazing way to play, and an amazing sense of 3D. If only they did a version of the later one's so you could have local wireless coop. That would definitely be the definitive version. The PS1 version looks great, but rather pricey these days, and with the PS3 version being de-listed (that version looks great too!), I've unfortunately missed out on that as well (another big CON for digital-only!). I'll definitely keep an eye out for those though. I definitely appreciate all the effort you put into these videos. Jam packed with information and I'm always learning something new (if only my wallet could keep up)! Keep up the great content!

This game is awesome

I used to play this game before!!! Can you please upload Karnov???

And here we go with another jewel! Great documentary Patman!! Keep on the memories alive! We really need it! 😀

Happy little space ship Vs alien shooters from the 70s & 80s.

Hey, thanks a lot for your videos. This one in particular inspired me to start my own channel and talk about games I love, such as Xevious

I played the NES version a lot growing up. It’s one of those games you can just play for hours.

One of the most important things about Xevious was the sound design. The way the note progression of the music is interrupted by player shots and other effects created a feeling that the players inputs were creating the games music in real time. This effect inspired other game designers in the creation of their music-focused games. One well known example is Rez, Tetsuya Mizuguchi mentions how he was inspired by Xevious in some of the game commentary extras.

I played the spectrum version and it was fine, at the end it came a gigant ovni...

Patman, you're the best. Get well soon! Now, about Xevious: the computers predicted an ice age that would wipe out humanity. Ice ages are cold and inconvenient, but something even colder and more inconvenient would be taking your entire civilization into the vacuum of space! 7:43 lol

I first played this at a holiday camp I went to as a kid circa 1986. I always loved the stylised, clean, minimalist aesthetic of the graphics and thought the game to be very unique as shooters went. Even 4 years after its release it still looked good next to newer games, IMO. I liked it so much I asked my parents to get me the C64 version when it came out, but the less said about that the better! 😭 Thanks once again for a great video. Xevious was a good choice! 😊

Such an incredible video and just wow.

Recently, the trailer for that lost Xevious movie was found, and posted on RNDstranger’s channel with a documentary on it

I've always wanted to play this game since my laundromat has it on a Multicade machine, but never got to. Funny enough, there was also a collab back in 2012 between Bandai Namco and Coca-Cola (their Japanese division) for a Xevious flash game, except a couple of the enemies are Coke caps and Sprite bottles (watching it may make you thirsty) 😅

The version of this game on the sharp Super MZ (mz-2500) was a thing to be hold!

WOW !... This was a fantastic documentary on a fantastic game ! My absolute favorite from the Arcade era of the late 70's to early 80's. I always have to think a bit about what games round out my top 10 video arcade games are... EXCEPT for Xevious which automatically always, ALWAYS immediately get's #1 !

There was also an NES conversion released in 1988.

Actually I was looking forward to the conversions and ports. Now I feel...deflated.

Great video

Because “X” sells

Masanobu Endoh is my nemesis >:) 5:22 That's punny enough to hurt someone.

9:02 I like that with this game you have two different ways of blasting depending if they are land targets or air targets you can either shoot little short range pellets so we can press the blaster But to charge up a Take and rover destroying missile. It’s a namco Brended dog fight and what not to say about that

Great video

Xevious is such a simple but fantastic game. One of the top 10 arcade titles for me, my first experience with it was the NES version included in Star Fox Assault.