Game Center CX Special – Back to Contents
Arino no Chousen 3D: "3D Classics: Xevious"

For the next 3D Classics playtest, Arino takes on Xevious, Namco’s classic arcade shooter, now with a 3D effect. Oh, but first, those toys — Arino blows on some crazy party whistles and a champagne popper. 3D!!! He has a specific challenge for this one, though: defeat the Andor Genesis boss at the end of the first "round," but also reveal two Special flags beforehand. There’s lots of hidden stuff in Xevious, and it’s all pretty easy to miss if you’re not careful.

Arino starts up the game, and the 3D effect surprises him right away at the title screen! In-game, it’s even better, as the effect of flying above the world is really pronounced. Arino keeps playing with the depth slider in the middle of playing — sure, it’s cool, but there’s a challenge to tackle!

Regardless, he keeps dying early on, and eventually gets a Game Over. Perhaps this time he’ll concentrate on the game a little more. Well, he does start getting a little farther along. Still dyin’, though, and pretty soon it’s another Game Over.

But then, amazingly, he lucks into finding a Special flag! That’s one down. Arino continues through the second third of the roundwhere the big metal plates start flying at him. It’s around there where the second flag is, but Arino’s not quite finding it even after a couple of tries. He continues on, and reaches the Andor Genesis.

The big boss is hard to land a hit on, and soon Arino’s killed again. After lots of dodging, he eventually blows the thing up, but he still needs that one last flag…

AD Takahashi comes by with some advice. In that section with the flying metal things, the flag does indeed appear near the little lake off to the left. But it doesn’t appear in a fixed spot — rather, it appears along a horizontal space, and depending on what side of the screen Arino approaches it, the flag will be on the opposite side. Confusing in writing, and not much easier to grasp in practice, especially when you also need to stay alive.

Arino tries again, and reveals a Sol citadel, another hidden bonus item. He misses it, but that’s OK for this challenge. He reaches the lake, and drops bombs like crazy, but still doesn’t reveal the flag. He resets and tries again.

Death upon death continues to rack up. Things are looking dire, and even moreso when he’s told his time is up. He has one more session to get that flag. With three lives left, he goes for it. But then he has two. And then one.

On the last life, he’s destroyed again. Or is he? Right as he was killed, he hit another enemy that brought his score up to the bonus point, meaning he got a free extra life! OK, so now it’s the last chance.

Arino steels himself and reaches the metal plates again. He reaches the lake from the left side, surprises himself by revealing a Sol, but that just distracts him enough to ram into an enemy. Unfortunately, the challenge isn’t complete. But he just leans in and amuses himself with the 3D effects. Later, Takahashi shows us how it’s done.