A classic
vertical-scrolling spaceship game from the
Eighties. Its first version was for the
arcade, but there were conversions for several platforms, from videogames such as the
NES (which I owned the
cartridge), to computer systems, such as the
Apple II.
You had two types of weapons: the regular air-air shots and the air-ground bombs (you always had a target ahead of you indicating the bomb's aim). Extra lives could be obtained shooting bombs to uncover flags that appeared in random places of the map, with absolutely
no reference. One would just shoot bombs everywhere to look for flags.
There were several types of
enemy ships and the occasional
boss.
Each time you started a new life a characteristic fanfare (which I can still remember) played, with the message "X SOLVALOU LEFT" (where X is the number of remaining lives). To this day I wonder what
Solvalou means in the Xevious universe: is it the ship's name, or the pilot's?...
IIRC, the game has no ending: the game just restarts from the beginning with more and faster enemies. This is an annoying characteristic of games of its age.
(In case you're wondering, I never went that far -- my brother did)
In some ports the game had a different name -- I remember seeing it on the
MSX named as
Columbia. As usual in
conversions (as oposed to
ports), there were a few differences in the game.
Enough of memories of this game -- I have to go and
download its
ROM right now!!