 A while back I looked at a game called Excalibur 2097 and I called it kinda generic with very ordinary gameplay, just a run in the mill action platformer that was nothing special. The response to that video was interesting, I found that many people don't really care if it's anything special or unique, some folks are just happy to find out about a new game they hadn't seen or heard before, I mean you can't realistically expect to unearth a Mega Man X type game from out of nowhere, right? And I can definitely respect that. I bring that up because Xardion is another game in that category. It's kinda generic, kinda blah with some real ordinary gameplay here, but hey, many people don't really know about Xardion so here we are. Another game I'd compare Xardion to is Super Valus 4, which I looked at a few months ago, because similar to that Xardion was made early on in the SNES lifespan and it definitely shows. The look, feel, and sound of this game is just sluggish, like they hadn't gotten the gist of how to develop games like this yet. When I play this I can't help but think this would be a lot better if it were just a tiny bit faster, but maybe I'm just spoiled by better games. So while the action may be somewhat lacking, Xardion does have some things going for it that make it stand out a bit from other similar games, most notably being able to change between three allies. They're all mech robots with their own strengths and weaknesses and you can switch between the three at will during the level, which is of course handy to conserve health as you progress. Triton here can fire in more directions, okay, two more directions, and is generally the most powerful of the three. Thing is it's a bigger sprite so it takes more damage. Alcides uses a kind of magic, so to speak, and Panthera, not to be confused with the Thundercat's character, is lower to the ground and you can go after smaller enemies and fit into smaller spaces. As you proceed through the game you eventually get Xardion, who's like Triton but much more powerful and that's cool because then getting to this point in the game feels like a reward. There's also other items here like missiles and bombs and even sub-tanks like in Mega Man to give yourself a little extra life. Another aspect that sets this game apart is that it has a leveling system so you get more powerful weapons, your life bar increases, among other things. This is especially important for the Alcides character since he eventually learns a freeze attack that you can take advantage of. Freeze an enemy, switch characters, and level up whoever you want whenever you want. Yeah, this part of the game is very rudimentary and this isn't exactly Final Fantasy 6, but it's nice that it's here. The only trouble with this system is that while the enemies get tougher later in the game you don't get any more experience from them, so that sucks. There is a story here too, just your basic alien invasion, defeat the intruders, that sort of stuff, but again, since this is such an early SNES release the translation is pretty bad, not that it matters a whole lot. There's nine levels here with a boss at the end of each and they did do a great job making these bosses really weird looking. Some of these designs are pretty inspired. The levels themselves are hit and miss, some look interesting and are structured a little differently while some are utterly generic. The same could be said for the music. Some tracks are okay while others are downright annoying. So yeah, there's a lot of ideas thrown into Xardian. Switching between three playable characters, a leveling system, magic, special items, energy tanks, cool looking bosses, but it all goes back to the sluggish gameplay. Everything here is just slow, from how you move to how you fall to your projectiles to enemies, you gotta be patient with this game. And hey, like I said earlier, a lot of you guys out there don't care that this isn't an instant classic. Sometimes it's just cool to be introduced to a new game that doesn't totally suck, and I get that. And hey, Xardian doesn't totally suck. If you'd like to get it in cartridge form the Super Famicom version is usually only around $10, so I would go that route. That's it for this video, thanks for watching. I'll see you guys in the next one.