X (Game Boy game)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

X
Developer(s)	Argonaut Software Nintendo
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Designer(s)	Dylan Cuthbert Yoshio Sakamoto
Release date(s)	May 29, 1992 (JP)
Genre(s)	Scrolling shooter
Mode(s)	Single player
Platform(s)	Game Boy
Media	Game Boy cartridge

X (エックス, Ekkusu^?), was an early three-dimensional (3-D) game developed and released for Nintendo's Game Boy platform. It was developed by Argonaut Software, famous for developing Star Fox, the first three-dimensional game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES).

[edit] History

The game was originally going to be published by Mindscape, but Nintendo was so impressed by the game (because they didn't believe 3-D graphics were possible on their Game Boy system) that they picked up the project.

The game was originally going to be called Eclipse or Lunar Chase, but Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi renamed the game X.

The Japanese magazine Famitsu listed X as one of the four most influential Game Boy games ever created, as it was the first 3-D game for a portable system - apparently without regard to Faceball 2000 which was released a year eariler before X.

X was a space shooter in the same vein as Argonaut's Star Fox. The text shown reads "Move the + [cross] button [control pad] up and down to control your speed!"

The programmer and designer, Dylan Cuthbert, now runs Q-Games, a small games developer in Kyoto, Japan. The director of the project on the Nintendo side was Yoshio Sakamoto, already famous for inventing Samus and the Metroid series, he then went on to develop WarioWare, Inc. amongst others.

[edit] Trivia

Totaka's Song was found in this game. The method to access it is currently unknown. This makes it the earliest known appearance of it in a Nintendo game.
The background music played during the first tunnel scene a player enters was added to Club Nintendo Japan's Luigi - B-Side Music album.