This 16-bit style vertical shooter has been crafted with a very astute eye for detail, borrowing graphical tricks from both the Mega Drive and SNES and employing them with surprising authenticity. It also uses elements from Truxton and Axley as inspiration, using demonic imagery but never fully committing to full hellishness. It perhaps helps that alongside a liberal use of skulls and sinister aliens, the menus use fetching rainbow formations.
If you’ve played a few of eastasiasoft’s low budget shoot’em ups, you’ll know that most veer on the more casual side of things, coughing up 1000G for an hour or two of playtime. Super XYX doesn’t walk this path, being far more challenging. The higher $9.99 price point has also seemingly allowed for richer presentation, offering more features and well drawn pixel art. The number of modes is limited to begin with, and only a handful of options are available, but over time a few extra spacecraft – each with wildly varying projectile formations – become available, along with more modes. The criteria for unlocking new things is a bit of a mystery, although it seems based on the amount of retries and medals collected.
The difficulty level here is a tricky one to gauge. Super XYX – named after a villainous alien race – is challenging but you may question why you’re dying so often. This is a very ‘busy’ example of the genre with a fast pace, numerous enemies on screen at once, and starting craft that fire solid rows of bullets which can obscure the action. Enemy bullet formations aren’t standardised either, being a mixture of colours and varying from homing shots to searing lasers. Most problematic of all are the circular bullet chains that bounce around the bottom of the screen, forcing you into a corner with little room to manoeuvre. It also has several encounters with enemies that appear from the bottom of the screen – with only the final stage having a warning indicator – while larger enemies are bullet sponges, often not defeatable before they vanish off screen unless a bomb is deployed.
A single hit will also kill you here while using a continue puts you back to the start of a stage – even if you died on a boss. There’s no grace period when dying, meaning it’s not uncommon to lose two lives in quick succession – only using a bomb grants temporary invincibility. This is a game that wants you to work for its achievements. To become fully powered-up requires you to stay alive for a long time – usually for a level or two without dying – and when that moment finally hits, it’s mightily satisfying. The same goes for finishing a stage without dying – which, admittedly, was something I wasn’t able to achieve until around 2 hours in.
There’s a gimmick present here too, and it’s one most players will likely be oblivious to until exploring the options menu. Pressing RT will flick through bullet formations, with some arrangements pointing side cannons horizontally. Usually, though, changes are barely noticeable. It’s still possible to rack up high scores going in blind to this feature, with score-chasing elements including collectable medals, a combo metre, and a scoreboard to top that’s formed of the developer’s best scores. There’s no online leaderboard, sadly.
Weirdly, very little challenge comes from the bosses. There are six stages to beat here, varying from calm seas to a lava-filled volcano, and most bosses go down easily using a mix of concentrated fire and bombs – with bombs causing significant damage. Blitzing through a hoarded stockpile can take a boss down without ever firing a single bullet.
Stylish presentation seals the deal, featuring purposely ‘twangy’ music and a slightly muted colour palette to mimic the Mega Drive, along with appealing SNES-style transparency effects. The menu screen has some thoughtful options that hammer home this has been created by a team with genre expertise, including a screen rotation tool, a single stage practise mode, and the ability to make the hitbox visible. The number of lives and credits can be adjusted from the options menu too, although this alone doesn’t guarantee success. Alternative game modes help extend replay value, even if their descriptions are vague and the means of unlocking them are vaguer still.
If you’ve ever wished eastasiasoft’s shooters had a bigger budget and a longer gestation time, Super XYX sees those wishes granted. I think a lot of players will be surprised by its authenticity to the 16-bit era, right down to its difficulty. It isn’t the most forgiving of games, but at the same time, it’s pleasing to play something that doesn’t pander to an audience seeking cheap thrills. If you’re looking for a shooter to knuckle down on, exploring its modes and aiming for ‘no miss’ runs, this is a decent option. It won’t leave much of a dent in your wallet either.
Team Grybanser Fox’s Super XYX is out 23rd Oct on all formats. Published by eastasiasoft.