Xardion (SNES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
205A playthrough of Asmik's 1992 mech action-adventure game for the Super NES, Xardion.
Xardion is such a strange game, and I think that's what it made it appeal to me way back when I saw it in Nintendo Power. It was always one of those titles that looked a bit odd, a bit exotic, and because of that I didnt even care that it got mediocre reviews. It looked cool, and I wanted to play it.
But it was one of those games that never crossed my path back in the SNES days. Not at the video rental place, nor the mall, nor any place else my parents would take us. It was probably about ten years after the fact that I finally got a hold of it. Was I glad to finally play it? Hells yes. Did I enjoy it? Very much so! Was it any good? Well... uh...
Xardion is a mixture of run-and-gun, exploration, and diet-RPG elements with bits of story and dialogue interspersed throughout, making it feel like an odd mix Cybernator and Super Adventure Island 2. You get your choice of three mechs that you can switch at any time, and they each have their own distinct abilities. That having been said, you're best off sticking with Triton through most of the game and leveling him up exclusively. Alceides and Panther aren't useful for anything but soaking up bullets in most situations, and by only using Triton, you never really have to worry about grinding your mech's level. If you're trying to balance them all, the game will take forever to go through.
Once you've gone through the first several stages and you've lost (and immediately replaced) a team member in a hilariously morbid scene, you learn that you need to revisit several of the stages to find upgrades that you'll need in the final battle. I've read a lot of people complaining about how much this part artificially draws the game out, but I never really though it was a problem. I spend maybe five minutes killing stuff before I was good to go, though I was admittedly under-leveled for that final boss rush.
The story is pretty cool, and unintentionally funny because of its translation. It makes sense and is usually grammatically correct, but it's extremely awkward and stilted in that goofy and charming way that robs it completely of any gravitas the story might have carried.
The graphics and sound are a bit if a mixed bag. Some of the backgrounds and sprites are really nicely done, and show off some real pixel-art skill. I love the way the mechs look with the hulking feeling of their animation, and some of the boss designs are completely awesome, but the graphics tend to be distractingly inconsistent between areas, both in design and quality. The animation is a bit in the rough side, well - just look at how choppy that parallax cloud scrolling gets at the beginning. The soundtrack is about the same as the graphics - a lot of the tunes are great, but the instrumentation is twangy and cheap sounding. The sound effects are great though - most of them aren't generic stock sounds, and they sound unusually "solid" for an early SNES game.
But then there's the gameplay. Sigh. You know those games that you really love despite how badly flawed they are? This is one of those for me. It draws me in, and I enjoy it everytime, but the controls are super clunky. The jump physics are really awkward (you drop like a stone the instant you let go of the button) and nothing really has any sense of momentum. It feels strangely mechanical - if you've ever played Musya, they feel exactly the same. Makes sense, since they were both developed by the same studio.
What really amazes me is the people involved here, though. I think every review out there goes on about this, but still - they worked with Gainax (!), a Gundam/Policenauts mech designer, and one of the guys that created Wizardry. All of those influences give the game a thoroughly unique identity, and I think that's what I love about it.
It's just a shame that the game itself is a bit of a kludgy mess. How do you pool such ridiculous levels of talent and end up with a product like Xardion?
Like I said, I really like the game. The game play is mediocre at best, but it has enough "magic" woven through it that it somehow transcends the sum of its parts. Whether or not you agree will probably depend on your proclivity (or lack thereof) for quirky, spirited games that bear more than a few flaws.
_
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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