Qix (NES) Playthrough
Ойындар
A playthrough of Taito's 1991 puzzle game for the NES, Qix.
Since the game has no ending, in this video, I play until I get a game over on level fifteen.
Qix was an early post-Space Invaders arcade hit for Taito back in 1981, and the NES version was part of a wave of home conversions that showed up in the late eighties and early nineties.
Each of Qix's stages take place on a single-screen playfield. You control a tiny red ship that draws lines, or "stix," and by drawing rectangles to section off areas, you can claim them for yourself. It feels a bit like someone took Logo for the Apple II and crossbred it with an Etch-a-Sketch.
There are several hazards to get in your way, though. The floating mass of colorful lines, "Qix," bounces around the screen, and it'll kill you if it makes contact with an unfinished Stix. (Remember how Windows 3.1 had a fractal screensaver? Doesn't Qix look just like it?) "Sparx" are the pink things that run around the edge of the playfield and will kill you if they make contact with your ship, and if you hesitate for a moment while drawing a Stix, the Stix becomes a lit fuse that'll give chase.
The rules are simple and things start slow, but you aren't given long to find your bearings. The pace becomes frantic after the first few stages, and without razor-sharp focus you'll find yourself quickly overwhelmed by the non-stop stream of enemies that come at you from every conceivable angle.
The arcade game was well before my time. I'm not very familiar with it so I can't fairly judge how faithful the NES adaptation remains to the original, but I can say that it feels very much like an early 80s arcade game. I imagine its unrelenting difficulty level and focus on chasing high scores made it an appealing prospect for NES owners who enjoyed the arcade game a decade earlier, but I found it dull and frustrating. The presentation is spartan and abstract, the controls are twitchy when you're trying to carefully carve out small paths around the enemies, and I never found the gameplay particularly exciting or satisfying. I much preferred Volfied, Qix's sci-fi themed follow-up ( • Ultimate Qix (Genesis)... ), and the SNES's anime-infused take on its gameplay, Cacoma Knight in Bizyland ( • Cacoma Knight in Bizyl... ).
Perhaps it's unfair to compare Qix and Volfied given the years between them, but I had already been spoiled by Volfied when I first tried Qix, and I found it impossible to look at the original without that frame of reference.
Qix was already very much a retro experience when the NES version came out in 1991, and I didn't find the gameplay to be compelling enough to make up for my distinct lack of nostalgia for its era. I loved Dig Dug, Pac-Man, Joust, and the like, but Qix never struck that same chord with me. It's not a bad game, but it's not my kind of game.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Пікірлер: 27
Silly rabbit, Qix is for -kids- people that have fond memories of playing arcade games in smoky bars and bowling alleys in the early 80s.
@jprogman
Жыл бұрын
And then there's Gals Panic: Qix with chicks. Almost every Kaneko game followed the Qix formula.
@rjcupid
Жыл бұрын
You’re so right, I miss playing arcade games like Qix in old-school arcades and bowling alleys through a cloud of smoke and darkness in the late 80’s and 90’s. The bright lights shining in the dark, the sounds, playing with/against other people, putting quarters right beneath the screen to be “next”, etc. I miss those days - gritty, imperfect, sometimes sketchy but was always fun as hell. There was an an arcade near me where every Saturday they had a special: $4 for 1.5 hours of unlimited credit gaming. We would line up outside, wait until the doors opened, rush inside and be in gaming heaven for that 90 minutes. It passed by so quickly. That was in the mid 90’s - around 94-97. The place was called Pinocchio’s. Anyways, that’s my arcade story for anyone who’s interested :). Thanks for this play through; great Qix skillz.
@NintendoComplete
Жыл бұрын
@Jonathan S There was also Miss Nude World 96 that had digitized photos of women, Freddy Kruger, and Pinhead set to unlicensed loops of 90s dance music.
@NintendoComplete
Жыл бұрын
@@rjcupid Wow, that would've been amazing back then, a flat rate for as much as you can play :) I remember how grungy arcades used to feel, like how your sneakers would stick to the floor and how so many games' control panels had cigarette burns on them lol. Thanks!
@rjcupid
Жыл бұрын
@@NintendoComplete Ya, it was a set time period on Saturdays (e.g. 10-11:30 am) for $4. It was pretty smart because it made a huge crowd show up. It was only once a week. Nowadays you can’t get anything for that price. It was a more family oriented arcade in a strip mall in a good neighborhood, but I’ve been to a ton back in the day that definitely weren’t! You’re right, a lot of machines even had those black slotted cigarette holders. Different times for sure.
Nice game. I used to play its softcore counterpart (Gals' panic) as a kid.
I wish the Qix made noise, like in the Gameboy version. ... Still a good game regardless.
@d_valroth
Жыл бұрын
It makes noise in the Atari 800 port as well. Odd that the NES version is silent.
Heavily underrated game. Also... Great gameplay! You know the AI well.
@NintendoComplete
Жыл бұрын
Thanks! It took a fair bit of practice to figure out how to last longer than five minutes.
The title screen song would have fit in perfectly in Road Rash on Genesis.
Probably the only instance of the D-pad being referred to as the "CROSS KEY" that I have ever seen. Qix is great fun, but I prefer Cacoma Night in Bizyland's anime art style.
Excellent arcade game for sure. Precursor to Tetris...I think
Man this has some awesome music.
Never heard of this one! Very cool
The Gameboy version featured Mario and Friends, also Mexican Mario reused in Super Mario Odyssey 😅
@NintendoComplete
Жыл бұрын
I remember that! Sombrero Mario was pretty cool.
I play the game boy version it's excellent and I will play the nes version next. 😀👍🎮
hey quick question for you. if a game loops endlessly...like say, terra cresta...or tiger heli...do you ever really consider them defeated or completed. how do you judge it...
@NintendoComplete
Жыл бұрын
I generally count it as being done once I've seen everything the game has to offer.
@cratedivizion
Жыл бұрын
@@NintendoComplete right on. makes sense. irks the hell out of me when there's no congratulations end screen lol.
@NintendoComplete
Жыл бұрын
@@cratedivizion Me too. Even if it just says The End, I like some sort of validation for my effort lol