Xevious (NES)

Xevious
Developer: Namco Publishers: Namco (JP), Bandai (US, EU) Platforms: NES, Famicom Disk System Released in JP: November 8, 1984 (Famicom), May 18, 1990 (FDS) Released in US: September 8, 1988 Released in EU: October 25, 1989 This game has a hidden developer message. This game has hidden developer credits. This game has hidden development-related text. This game has debugging material.

A port of the much-loved arcade game Xevious. Namco handled this port themselves, and by all accounts it did very well indeed!

Debug Mode

At the title screen press and hold A or B on the second controller, then on the same controller press Right (x9), Up (x2), Left (x2), Down (x9). An 8-bit binary number will appear in the top-right corner of the screen. Press Left or Right on the second controller to highlight bits, and press A or B to switch them between 0 or 1. Press Reset to apply effects. Further resets will not disable any cheats.

Here's a table explaining the meaning of each bit, in order from left to right, and numbered from 0 to 7...

Bits	Behavior
bit 0	Invincibility "0" - off "1" - on
bits 1-3	Extra Lives Score Range "000" - 20k first, 60k onward "001" - 20k first, 50k onward "010" - 20k first, 80k onward "011" - 30k first, 80k onward "100" - 30k first, 120k onward "101" - 40k first, 80k onward "110" - 40k first, 100k onward "111" - 50k first, 150k onward
bits 4-5	Starting Lives "00" - 3 lives "01" - 1 lives "10" - 2 lives "11" - 5 lives
bits 6-7	Difficulty Level "00" - normal "01" - easy "10" - hard "11" - very hard

The US version contains the same cheat, but none of the bits have any in-game effects.

Hidden Messages

Reset Check

All versions of the game load the string

Kei Cross

in RAM, to help detect whether the game was hard or soft reset.

Credits

All versions of the game have this credit text at the end of the ROM:

  MAIN: KEI CROSS
 SOUND: UHOHOY OHNOGI
ASSIST: EVEZOO END & HAL UDAGAWA
TESTER: SHIDASHI YAMAMO

Kei Cross is Kazuo Kurosu, whose name can be found in a few other NES games in the ROM text. Uhohoy Ohnogi is Nobuyuki Ohnogi, Namco's lead sound designer at the time. Evezoo End is Masanobu Endo, who designed many games for Namco. Hal Udagawa is Haruhisa Udagawa, another developer whose name appears in the ROM text for NES games. Shidashi Yamano is Koichi Yamamoto. Additionally, there is a video of Masanobu Endo talking about the NES version of Xevious here.

Additionally, the Japanese and US versions contain this copyright string just before the Credits text:

COPYRIGHT 1983 1984 NAMCO LTD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED