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Xain'D SleenA (aka Solar Warrior and Soldier of Light)Disappointing. Very, very disappointing. I bought this game boardset from a catalog purely on the basis that (a) I'd never heard the name, and (b) it wasn't very expensive. I guess you could call this purchase an educational experience. Xain'D SleenA is a side-scrolling shoot'em up from Japan Technos where you play a small - and believe me, I mean SMALL - space-traveling freedom fighter sort of guy bravely battling other small sorts of things; robotic-looking soldiers, insects, flowers, green blobs and more. Tiny sprites, jerky, slow and flickery scrolling, poor control and horrifically grating music and sound effects characterize this not-at-all-unique gameplay experience. The only thing I can say in favor of this game is that the graphics are varied; there are several planets you can battle on, and each has a unique backdrop, foreground tiles and enemy sprites (though certain types of enemies are common to all levels).
The board runs on three MC6809 processors; audio output is provided by two Yamaha YM2203 chips. I think this boardset is probably an ancestor of the Double Dragon hardware, or at least contributed to its engineering a little. The game would be very easy to emulate (given circuit diagrams), because I can't locate a single custom or rare device on it; there's not even a PAL to analyze! Everything is discrete off-the-shelf LS logic, mostly from Goldstar. (In Double Dragon, a lot of this discrete functionality was compressed onto a large Hitachi 687B01; exactly what this chip does, I'm not sure, but I would guess it contains at least the FM and ADPCM audio). Sorry about the big Xain picture; digital cameras don't snap mostly black areas very well. The big Xain picture is the best piece of graphics in the entire game. The text next to it says: "MISSION: XAIN, YOUR RESPON-SIBILITY IS DEFEND OF ALL PLANETS AGAINST THE EMPIRE'S INVASION. GOOD LUCK!"
Xain'D Sleena uses a horizontal low-res monitor, one 8-way joystick with two buttons, and it has a standard JAMMA pinout, which is just as well because you would feel very annoyed, potentially homicidal, if you had to build a wiring harness to play such an uninspiring game. DIP switch settings are as below: DIP Switch Bank 1 * indicates a factory default setting.
DIP Switch Bank 2 * indicates a factory default setting.
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