
	Platform NES Genre Action Publisher Nintendo Developer Hudson Soft Released 1989
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Faxanadu

Those who have followed role-playing games closely for the last fifteen years or so are probably at least slightly familiar with the Japanese developer Falcom. It’s not often that their games actually see a North American release, but that hasn’t stopped them from gaining a solid reputation on this side of the Pacific. One of their games that actually did manage to make it to our shores, though, was Faxanadu, a sword-swinging action game for the NES.

While many Western gamers may be inclined to think that this was a stand-alone game, it was actually a gaiden titles (side story) based on one of Falcom’s games, Xanadu, which was originally released on the MSX computer in Japan. Interestingly, Faxanadu got its name from combining the words “Famicom” and “Xanadu”.

In the game, players took on the role of a young elf adventurer who has just returned to his homeland, the World Tree, only to discover that an army of dwarves has attacked, and taken over the place, destroying the elves water supply in the process. As one might expect neither the game’s hero, nor his people are at all thrilled about this predicament, so players must set out to defeat these dwarves, and return the flow of water to the World Tree.

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This all played out in a standard side-scrolling action adventure style, with the usually jumping around, slashing monsters, and firing off magic. One thing that did take some getting used to was that the game’s hero couldn’t crouch, making it difficult at first to attack tiny monsters, not to mention being unable to duck certain attacks. Thankfully as players made their way through the game, these things became manageable, though.

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As players traversed the World Tree, they passed through a variety of different landscapes, ranging from misty dungeons, to massive, rooted catacombs. All the while, the visuals were quite impressive, easily clocking in as some of the best that the NES had to offer around the time that Faxanadu was released. Equally impressive was the game’s soundtrack, which was surprisingly peppy as far as music goes. Relative to some of what was happening on-screen, sometimes it even felt a little too energetic.

Looking back, Faxanadu wasn’t too shabby at all. However, returning to it in this day and age, there are certain a number of faults that one could point to such as how the game’s hero dropped like a rock when he stepped off a ledge, or how cheap some of the bosses could be, or the overly repetitive conversations with NPCs.

When it first came out, though, Faxanadu was a surprisingly good game in a similar vein as Metroid and Castlevania. It’s one of the few glimpses that a massive North American audience have had into the universe of games in the Falcom library, though granted this game was largely developed by Hudson Soft with Falcom's blessing. It’s just too bad that the developer’s titles only rarely make it to our shores.

Mr. Nash

(March 8, 2006)