bases and outer space. Each area also features a boss that must be defeated in order to progress, including the Andor Genesis mothership from the original Xevious. The final stage features a fight with GAMP, the supercomputer leader of the Xevious forces. Much like the first game, large Sol towers can be found by bombing pre-determined spots on the ground, alongside Rally-X Special Flags that award an extra life when collected. Many references to other Namco games are featured in the game as easter eggs, including a Pooka from the Dig Dug series and a cheat code that replaces both players' Solvalou with Heihachi and Paul from Tekken, featuring their own ending sequences. Development With the advent of 3D arcade hardware in the late 1980s and 1990s, Namco became a leader in polygonal video games with titles like Tekken, Ridge Racer, and Alpine Racer. Their System 11 arcade hardware, while technologically inferior to other arcade systems, was a hit with arcade owners for its cheap price, which made it easily affordable for smaller arcade chains. After a brief downturn in the early half of the decade, the shoot'em up genre was beginning to see a revival with games like RayStorm, G-Darius, and Radiant Silvergun, and were very profitable. Wanting to cash in on this sudden revival, Namco decided to create a 3D sequel to Xevious for the System 11 board, featuring mechanics popular with other shooters to draw in newer players. Xevious was massively-successful for Namco; the Family Computer version sold over one million copies and became a platinum seller, which gave Namco hope that it would perform well in the market. The increasing market for arcade game remakes also made the company feel the game would be commercially successful. Xevious 3D/G was one of the first games produced for the System 11 board, following Tekken and Soul Edge, and was billed as its first shooting game. It had a heavy emphasis on its soundtrack, with most of it composed jointly by Shinji Hosoe and Ayako Saso. Being her final work for Namco before joining Arika, Saso incorporated a techno-style score similar to her previous work X-Day, and wanted to retain the classic Xevious sound design in the music instead of composing something radically different. She also wanted to convey the concepts of various guest artists that had contributed music for earlier games in the series. Nobuyoshi Sano and Hiroto