This is the "hidden gem" that means the most to me. My best friend growing up owned it and we were obsessed with it (until SMB3 came out) we didn't know anyone else who'd played it, so it felt like this cool thing only we seemed to have experienced. Brings back great memories of the summer of '89 and hanging out every day playing Nintendo in his living room.
I remember really loving it but only getting about 80% of the way through. I've tried to play it again as an adult but keep bouncing off of it. I need to try it the way I did as a kid, with Nintendo Power sitting right next to me, and see if that makes the difference.
As a gardener, I would think you an ant, as they do indeed dine on honeydew, the nasty little aphid’s sticky excrement, for which they are kept as livestock… … but I know that’s not what you meant😅. Ants are really not into watching fine vintage gaming videos after all!
@@winterwraith1934 The reference is to Samuel Coleridge's "Kubla Khan: A fragment of a dream", and/or the 1977 Rush song Xanadu adapting said Coleridge. Now you are a (being) of culture as well.
1:55 That page there. The right one. Because of that page, my notebooks for the rest of elementary school were filled with doodles of swords and axes in all manner of shapes and sizes. Thanks for the memories, Jeremy!
This might well be my favorite NES game. I'll never forget the weekends I spent with my dad playing this together when I was super young. It took us a good while, because we didn't have anything other than the manual, but I remember being awestruck by the art in the manual and the world created in the game itself. So none of my usual clever or sarcastic remarks this time! I just love this game, and I still go back every few years to play it again!
The game that taught me how great music can be in a game. From the moment I heard the first tune it stuck with me always. This is one of the few nes games I made sure I kept all these years.
It’s by June Chikuma who did most of the Bombermans. Tragically overlooked composer. In Faxanadu the Mantra tune is one of the most beautiful compositions in music. Also overworld Track 2 has unique moving feel. It’s unbelievable the video didn’t mention any music or the [should-be-more] famous composer.
Jun Chikuma really did a great job on this soundtrack. The Mist section in particular is really sophisticated: it's bitonal. I've spent some spare time off and on transcribing the Faxanadu music because of how awesome it is. It's up there with Koji Kondo's or Nobuo Uematsu's stuff.
@@jorymil yes Jun Chikuma and also Hirokazu Tanaka are under-discussed but their work is on the god tier with Kondo and Uematsu. In fact their work is better and more consistent than Uematsu (who in my opinion only did one and a half great scores). Faxanadu track 5 (in my NSF file) “Buy and Sell”(?) and track 11 (in my NSF file) “Stopwatch”(?) have the spirit fingerprints of Chikuma Bomberman music.
@@Chadius shop theme (“Buy and sell” or track 5 in my NSF file though these are sometimes differently labelled) has spirit fingerprints of composer Jun Chikuma who did most of the Bomberman games. I recommend listening to those if you don’t already know them.
A man of culture, who titles his video about a game after the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem it is very distantly named after; even if most of the audience won't get it...
I thought about going REALLY referential here by getting high on opium and leaving the video unfinished but it turns out all the local opium dens closed down centuries ago
The soundtrack by Jun Chikuma (of Bomberman soundtrack fame). The video didn’t say a word about it! The Mantra music is one of the most beautiful chiptune compositions. Also the overworld tune (Track 2 in my file) is uniquely excellent.
I never had a nes as a kid (i am from the uk) but years ago i was going through all the nes games on my psp and Faxanado stood out a really enjoyable experience. Never did finish it tho i should go back to it sometime.
The NES's later years had so many good 3rd-party games: River City Ransom, Battletoads, Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior(s), Kirby's Adventure, Lagrange Point, The Tower of Radia, Destiny of an Emperor, etc. Nintendo themselves had StarTropics, but I can't think of too many good Nintendo-developed games after Super Mario 3.
I missed out on Faxanadu until the emulation era and on the one hand I wish I'd played it when I had an NES, but on the other I'm glad I didn't have to deal with the password system. The game feels and looks light-years ahead of anything else for Famicom in 1987 and still ahead of the pack for NES in 1989, and I kind of wish there was a remake in the modern era.
Infernax, while clearly wearing its Castlevania inspirations on its sleeve, is more akin to a Faxanadu-vania than a Metroidvania, just saying. I highly recommend checking it out if you haven’t already.
The password system was more of a hope than an expectation. My friends and I ended up sharing our passwords in the hopes that one of them would work right.
Jeremy, your insight and review style is second to none. This is an nes game that I do have completed and permanently retired. It was a game that I had only played a few years ago since I didn't have an opportunity to play it when it was released in the 80's. The video game stores in my area didn't really have the best access to video game rentals at the time. I absolutely love this game and was quite surprised with how tight the platforming action based game play was and I often found that you really had to take your time with a title like this. The hit detection may be slightly wonky but it's a game that you can't really rush in order to get it beaten. You need to take your time with it and enjoy every little thing the game has to offer. I think if I had played the game when I was younger it would of easily frustrated me but in the age of the internet - it's certainly much more accommodating with regards to taking pictures of the password screen if you needed to turn the game off and I did like the fact that the was incredibly accommodating if you did die unlike a lot of other nes games. Having maps are incredibly useful especially when it comes to the final few segments of the game. Definitely one of my top 25 games of all time for the nes. On a slightly funnier note, we got to see this video game world a few times in the cartoon Captain N: The Game Master.
I love this game so much. It’s firm in its place in my NES Pantheon. A friend of mine had it when I was a kid, so my only exposure to it was in brief periods of playing it at his house. It was hard to make any progress, and the password system was a nightmare, but I could tell that there was really something incredible just below the surface, if I could just mattock my way far enough into it. I should mention that, along with increasing how many golds you have when you come back to life, your experience title has one other function, which is to _decrease_ the duration of useful items such as wing boots. I never understood why they did that.
This game was my jam back in the day. Dont know about anybody else but the color palette in this game reminds me of Thanksgiving. I get a craving for turkey, gravy and stuffing 🤤
I always thought thin fonts like this were a telltale sign of fan translations, and yet! Here we are in 1989 with a thin font on a Japanese game published by Nintendo. This is a lovely game I never really ran into before, and I feel like I would have been far richer for it if I had.
This thin font is actually not present in the first U.S. release of the game, which used a more stylized font instead. That sounds cool, but if you played it, you’d understand why they swapped it out. Some of the characters were notoriously hard to tell apart (“Nello. I sell tools.”), which was a disaster for a game that relies on a password system.
I loved this game as a kid and is one of the games I still pick up and play today. I remember my dad and I both playing it, getting stuck due to either needing the Martock near the beginning or the wing boots later. We also didn't realize that the higher your rank, the less time the wing boots had and that the pendant was bugged to cut your attack power in half, so that made beating it a LOT more difficult. But the sheer exploration and fun were worth it.
I love how these retrospectives convey how influencial Nintendo 's titles were for the industry in general, making some producers to replicate or improve upon the Marios and the Zeldas. Still Faxanadu was different (and difficult) enough that it was an overall unique experience, and satisfying one to complete. Thanks for the video ✌🏼
I still have my childhood copy of this game. I will play it through at least once a year and when I recently finally got a MISTer, this was obviously the first thing I tested on it.
Being unfamiliar with this game it was surprising to see it be both so bold and ambitious, but also that it was so earlier than I thought such games would be around... and then you're hit with the fact it was even earlier than that, because in Japan they were boldly Metroidvania-ing until SMB3 made everyone pick a side, either action or RPG, no crosses. Educational.
Also my favorite hidden game from my childhood! Remember your mantra… 🤦🏼♂️♥️ Thank you Jeremy for the great video! I have a couple of your books and I like your channel, but it has been awhile since I watched a video. This one is great! Very peaceful but also totally engaging! Keep up the good work and thank you again.
I've never played this game but I've heard about how good it is - coming out among these releases it really is a breath of fresh air. And what an exceptional look! I'll need to give it a shot.
Faxanadu really does feel lightyears ahead with QOL features compared with its contemporaries. I enjoy Zelda 2 significantly more than most, but I still have Vietnam style flashbacks to trudging through death mountain for the millionth time
I've been looking forward to this episode. I found a copy of Faxanadu at a flea market last year and was really happy to finally have it in my collection.
It's funny to me that in an era where so many game titles and even licenses were swapped for the western release, Faxanadu kept the same title that would only make sense to Japanese gamers.
I loved Faxanadu when I was a kid. It's still one of my favourite nes games. I definitely remember hitting myself with the mattock softlock at least once. It took me forever find the hidden sky spring. I remember always getting to that point and never knowing what to do next. One day I just ended up flying around and stumbled upon it. I was so excited when I found it. I never did end end up beating the misty area until years later when I replayed the game when I was older. But even when I was younger and didn't really know what to do or where to go i'd just play through those early areas exploring everything and going through the dungeons and just trying to figure everything out.
How am I completely unfamiliar with this game? This looks incredible. *covers face in fear as he looks up price* Ten bucks?! Get outta my dreams, get into my console.
I think that this game was designed to be off-putting to the young. I got it in a yard sale lot in the mid 90s as a kiddo. Bland cartridge art, somewhat grating music, grotesque dark art. Being a bit slow to begin didn't help. It's a good game underneath though.
When we talk Faxanadu we are talking about such fascinating lineage and heritage; on the lineage side it derived from Dragon Slayer 2: Xanadu, which itself borrowed / stole from Ultima, linking it all the way back to one of the two great RPG series. But then in terms of children it is hard to not see the resemblance in Fromsoft Souls series, and it is known as a direct and literal inspiration for the very popular Hollow Knight and it's reverse tree setting. Impressive for some random nes game that happened to pass by.
This is the game I recommend to people when they can’t get into Zelda 2. I always liked the warm, earthy color palette (although as DeepWeeb points out, it looks a lot better on a fancy old Sony CRT.)
Aw man, this is such a great game for the time. Big part of my upbringing right here and I still revisit it once every few years! I appreciate the From Software comparison in the video. I never really linked the two but it totally makes sense.
That Nintendo Power preview made me nuts to find this game back in the day. I eventually found a copy and had a lot of fun with it despite the flaws (up yours, Battle Helmet!). Btw, your title does more than grant gold after death - it also increases your walking speed allowing you to reach full speed faster so you can do longer jumps. It also affects the winged boots...with higher ranks reducing the amount of time you are granted for some odd reason.
Faxanadu on the NES & the Prince soundtrack to Batman on cassette were my winter break of 1989! I received both for Christmas that year and it was awesome! I spent over a week holed up in my bedroom playing the former while listening to the latter on repeat. The two are so closely linked in my memories that when I played through Faxanadu during the pandemic via emulation, the game just didn't feel right until I also started playing the Batman soundtrack.
Always owned this one since back in the day and while not my usual thing I enjoyed it and finished it at least once. Later in the 90s as we got online I typed the entire manual for this one up in a text file for others to use as a resource even using ascii to render the two page world tree for fun.
One of the many games I'd watch my older uncles play as a kid. Fond memories. 32 years ago roughly :P Since I was anywhere between 3-5 years old I recon. Reminds me that I need to play Xanadu..
yeah I learned later about the 'famicom xanadu' thing so that's how I've been pronouncing it. I remember renting it and it was kind of a fun one! hoping to track down a copy for the collection here soon, would love to revisit it see if I can finish it for good.
Never played this one, but with emulation today, it's definitely worth trying as a Falcom fan. Despite some of the difficulty in Xanadu, that game also feels really revolutionary for its time and holds up pretty well. Since Falcom likes to do a Xanadu game of some type for every 10th anniversary of the original, I kinda hope they do their own take on Faxanadu instead of another Tokyo Xanadu next year.
Faxanadu was my most surprising game in my NES rabbithole dive during college. This (and Phantasy Star 4) didn't felt retro at all (aside from archaic saves). Brilliantly written, Jeremy!
Yes I feel the same I’ve been emulating for years on my pc I’d love to have it on my switch without jail breaking it and voiding warranty. But Nintendo instead bring us a bunch of games no one cares about or wants on nso
Alas, if it's from a third party developer odds are they hold the games off to re-release them on their own. Not sure Nintendo has the power to do anything about it.
@@LostHorizons0 If you have an RCM capable Switch it is LONG past warranty, my friend. I did mine about a year ago so I could mess with homebrew and it was quite easy, and on reviewing some of it recently to correct some configuration it is even easier now. Retroarch works great though I've not tried anything past Playstation 1 era. And then I got a Steam Deck so now the Switch mostly collects dust, especially with EmuDeck on it. Oh well...
Faxanadu was one of the best NES games. I actually had two copies of this at one time. It's hard to believe that this comes before Legacy of the Wizard as Faxanadu seems more advanced in nearly every way.
We rented it back in the day after its release and while we certainly enjoyed it, it was a little too advanced for my brother and I. Years and years later I picked up a loose copy at a flea market and played through it to the end. Fantastic game. There is Blood Ceremony song that for some reason always reminds me of Faxanadu.
Always hold out hope Falcom revisits this series and do a modern game -- Faxanadu is one of those gems I replay every few months cuz it's just that damn fun.
Faxanadu left a big impression on me! The enemy design is very original and slightly disturbing, and the soundtrack is among my all time favourites. The world around the tree is so immersive. I’ve given myself the alias “That Guy from Faxanadu” on several game forums as a homage of the nameless hero.
When I was a kid and this game was making the local swap rounds (we'd trade cartridges with each other to try different games), I asked how to say the name of the game. None of us noticed that it was "FA" + "Xanadu", even though I was aware of a song and a movie by the name Xanadu. Also, "FA" wouldn't have made much sense to us because not many of us had heard of the "Famicom." So, we all thought Faxanadu was pronounced ,faks - uh - 'NAH - duh. Which, honestly, I prefer.
I love all the 2d action RPGs from the NES era - Faxanadu, CV2, Zelda 2, Battle of Olympus. Not sure which is my favorite, Faxanadu or Zelda 2. Also, I always read the shading on the sprite's face as having a beard, which I appreciated, as you so rarely get to play as a truely ragged and bedraggled hero, especially in Japanese games.
As usual, a fantastic review. As someone I consider of high intelligence, I do have to call you out on one part of the review. Your quote of "The modest penalty for failure, means that you just need to keep trying and eventually you will succeed." To which I quote another intellect of our time, Homer Simpson. ~ "Trying leads to failure." 😜
I barely played it because i was away at a friend the one weekend my brother rented and finished it . I remember coming home on Sunday late afternoon and he was about to finish it., The unique look and feel of the game always stuck with me though and my brother always talked about it as one of the system's gems even if he never replayed it ever. I should have probably rented it to play it myself. Then again my brother was more into the Metroid-type games than I was (even if I'M the one who played Rambo through)
This is the "hidden gem" that means the most to me. My best friend growing up owned it and we were obsessed with it (until SMB3 came out) we didn't know anyone else who'd played it, so it felt like this cool thing only we seemed to have experienced. Brings back great memories of the summer of '89 and hanging out every day playing Nintendo in his living room.
I remember really loving it but only getting about 80% of the way through. I've tried to play it again as an adult but keep bouncing off of it. I need to try it the way I did as a kid, with Nintendo Power sitting right next to me, and see if that makes the difference.
I never played it as a kid. I only played it for the first time about 10 years ago as an adult. I love it. Wish I had played it as a kid too.
For I have dined on honeydew, and watched a video of paradise.
Given how dreamlike playing this game can feel, doubly appropriate.
A+ for catching the reference
Hell yeah
As a gardener, I would think you an ant, as they do indeed dine on honeydew, the nasty little aphid’s sticky excrement, for which they are kept as livestock…
… but I know that’s not what you meant😅. Ants are really not into watching fine vintage gaming videos after all!
@@winterwraith1934 The reference is to Samuel Coleridge's "Kubla Khan: A fragment of a dream", and/or the 1977 Rush song Xanadu adapting said Coleridge. Now you are a (being) of culture as well.
1:55 That page there. The right one. Because of that page, my notebooks for the rest of elementary school were filled with doodles of swords and axes in all manner of shapes and sizes. Thanks for the memories, Jeremy!
Faxanadu was such a fantastic experience right down to the beautifully illustrated full color manual.
This might well be my favorite NES game. I'll never forget the weekends I spent with my dad playing this together when I was super young. It took us a good while, because we didn't have anything other than the manual, but I remember being awestruck by the art in the manual and the world created in the game itself. So none of my usual clever or sarcastic remarks this time! I just love this game, and I still go back every few years to play it again!
The game that taught me how great music can be in a game. From the moment I heard the first tune it stuck with me always. This is one of the few nes games I made sure I kept all these years.
It’s by June Chikuma who did most of the Bombermans. Tragically overlooked composer. In Faxanadu the Mantra tune is one of the most beautiful compositions in music. Also overworld Track 2 has unique moving feel. It’s unbelievable the video didn’t mention any music or the [should-be-more] famous composer.
I found sheet music for the "Mist" areas and I just learned how to do the shop theme on piano. Such classics!
Jun Chikuma really did a great job on this soundtrack. The Mist section in particular is really sophisticated: it's bitonal. I've spent some spare time off and on transcribing the Faxanadu music because of how awesome it is. It's up there with Koji Kondo's or Nobuo Uematsu's stuff.
@@jorymil yes Jun Chikuma and also Hirokazu Tanaka are under-discussed but their work is on the god tier with Kondo and Uematsu. In fact their work is better and more consistent than Uematsu (who in my opinion only did one and a half great scores). Faxanadu track 5 (in my NSF file) “Buy and Sell”(?) and track 11 (in my NSF file) “Stopwatch”(?) have the spirit fingerprints of Chikuma Bomberman music.
@@Chadius shop theme (“Buy and sell” or track 5 in my NSF file though these are sometimes differently labelled) has spirit fingerprints of composer Jun Chikuma who did most of the Bomberman games. I recommend listening to those if you don’t already know them.
A man of culture, who titles his video about a game after the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem it is very distantly named after; even if most of the audience won't get it...
I thought about going REALLY referential here by getting high on opium and leaving the video unfinished but it turns out all the local opium dens closed down centuries ago
@@JeremyParishImagine living in a town devoid of lazily-bustling opium dens. You live far from the River.
@@JeremyParish you're just not looking hard enough
Simply knowing and using a reference is a revealing way to talk about being “cultured.”
The soundtrack by Jun Chikuma (of Bomberman soundtrack fame). The video didn’t say a word about it! The Mantra music is one of the most beautiful chiptune compositions. Also the overworld tune (Track 2 in my file) is uniquely excellent.
+1
Preach!
Never clicked on a video faster!
Now I just have to wait for your video the second best ARPG on the NES: Crystalis!
I never had a nes as a kid (i am from the uk) but years ago i was going through all the nes games on my psp and Faxanado stood out a really enjoyable experience.
Never did finish it tho i should go back to it sometime.
Highly recommend going back to it! I just beat it a couple months ago and it’s so damn good. One of the best of its type imo.
Faxanadu, Crystalis and Battle of Olympus are the holy trinity of non Nintendo developed games on the NES love all of them.
The NES's later years had so many good 3rd-party games: River City Ransom, Battletoads, Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior(s), Kirby's Adventure, Lagrange Point, The Tower of Radia, Destiny of an Emperor, etc. Nintendo themselves had StarTropics, but I can't think of too many good Nintendo-developed games after Super Mario 3.
Hudson Soft is so undervalued
Konami swallowing them up sure doesn't help matters
Nice seeing you here btw
It has been 0 days since a Faxanadu reference
But this is the right frame of reference; I swear 8 people played the immortal Tower of Druaga.
Adaptation of Xanadu, he says, and yet I didn't see a single pair of roller skates!
And no Olivia Newton-Jon. What a shame...
I missed out on Faxanadu until the emulation era and on the one hand I wish I'd played it when I had an NES, but on the other I'm glad I didn't have to deal with the password system. The game feels and looks light-years ahead of anything else for Famicom in 1987 and still ahead of the pack for NES in 1989, and I kind of wish there was a remake in the modern era.
Faxanadu and Shadowgate music are ingrained in my psyche.
Infernax, while clearly wearing its Castlevania inspirations on its sleeve, is more akin to a Faxanadu-vania than a Metroidvania, just saying. I highly recommend checking it out if you haven’t already.
The password system was more of a hope than an expectation. My friends and I ended up sharing our passwords in the hopes that one of them would work right.
I freaking love this game. Dark and gritty.
I pronounced this "Fax - An - Doo" as a kid. What a great game.
Everyone did. Anyone I know that knew this game called it that...
@@frankrusso8179 Well I called it Fax-Ann-uh-doo, but yeah. I din't realize it was Fa-Xanadu until decades later.
It's still fax for me. If they wanted it otherwise they would have said so in the manual.
Faxanadu.... definitely worth the wait. Nintendo definitely chose good games to publish in August 1989 even if they were out of date.
Jeremy, your insight and review style is second to none. This is an nes game that I do have completed and permanently retired. It was a game that I had only played a few years ago since I didn't have an opportunity to play it when it was released in the 80's. The video game stores in my area didn't really have the best access to video game rentals at the time.
I absolutely love this game and was quite surprised with how tight the platforming action based game play was and I often found that you really had to take your time with a title like this. The hit detection may be slightly wonky but it's a game that you can't really rush in order to get it beaten. You need to take your time with it and enjoy every little thing the game has to offer. I think if I had played the game when I was younger it would of easily frustrated me but in the age of the internet - it's certainly much more accommodating with regards to taking pictures of the password screen if you needed to turn the game off and I did like the fact that the was incredibly accommodating if you did die unlike a lot of other nes games. Having maps are incredibly useful especially when it comes to the final few segments of the game.
Definitely one of my top 25 games of all time for the nes. On a slightly funnier note, we got to see this video game world a few times in the cartoon Captain N: The Game Master.
I've been waiting for... five years? for this video. Thank you, Jeremy, for teaching me about my childhood.
Alternate title for this episode: Welcome to the Pleasure-Game
I love this game so much. It’s firm in its place in my NES Pantheon. A friend of mine had it when I was a kid, so my only exposure to it was in brief periods of playing it at his house. It was hard to make any progress, and the password system was a nightmare, but I could tell that there was really something incredible just below the surface, if I could just mattock my way far enough into it.
I should mention that, along with increasing how many golds you have when you come back to life, your experience title has one other function, which is to _decrease_ the duration of useful items such as wing boots. I never understood why they did that.
This game was my jam back in the day. Dont know about anybody else but the color palette in this game reminds me of Thanksgiving. I get a craving for turkey, gravy and stuffing 🤤
"Faxanadu" is pronounced the same as "turducken"
I always thought thin fonts like this were a telltale sign of fan translations, and yet! Here we are in 1989 with a thin font on a Japanese game published by Nintendo.
This is a lovely game I never really ran into before, and I feel like I would have been far richer for it if I had.
This thin font is actually not present in the first U.S. release of the game, which used a more stylized font instead. That sounds cool, but if you played it, you’d understand why they swapped it out. Some of the characters were notoriously hard to tell apart (“Nello. I sell tools.”), which was a disaster for a game that relies on a password system.
I love how this game defines “dwarf” as “nine-foot tall gargoyle.”
The meteor mutated them! It’s in the text!
I loved this game as a kid and is one of the games I still pick up and play today. I remember my dad and I both playing it, getting stuck due to either needing the Martock near the beginning or the wing boots later.
We also didn't realize that the higher your rank, the less time the wing boots had and that the pendant was bugged to cut your attack power in half, so that made beating it a LOT more difficult.
But the sheer exploration and fun were worth it.
hands down one of my all time favorites on the NES. i didn't realize it was related to Legacy of the Wizard, another of my favorites, for years
I love how these retrospectives convey how influencial Nintendo 's titles were for the industry in general, making some producers to replicate or improve upon the Marios and the Zeldas. Still Faxanadu was different (and difficult) enough that it was an overall unique experience, and satisfying one to complete. Thanks for the video ✌🏼
About “influential Nintendo’s titles”… this game was developed by Hudson. Nintendo merely published it.
This game filled me with dread when I was a child. And I loved it.
The music for this title was phenomenal.
Oh hey, Faxanadu, what a neat ga--TIMOTHY DALTON JAMES BOND MY BELOVED
I still have my childhood copy of this game. I will play it through at least once a year and when I recently finally got a MISTer, this was obviously the first thing I tested on it.
Famicom-Xanadu?
Being unfamiliar with this game it was surprising to see it be both so bold and ambitious, but also that it was so earlier than I thought such games would be around... and then you're hit with the fact it was even earlier than that, because in Japan they were boldly Metroidvania-ing until SMB3 made everyone pick a side, either action or RPG, no crosses. Educational.
Faxanadu is such a uniquely fantastic game, it really deserved a following like Zelda's. Also an snes port of Sorcerian. Sneserian.
My second time through this, you so perfectly sum up everything about Faxanadu. Thank you.
Also my favorite hidden game from my childhood! Remember your mantra… 🤦🏼♂️♥️
Thank you Jeremy for the great video! I have a couple of your books and I like your channel, but it has been awhile since I watched a video. This one is great! Very peaceful but also totally engaging! Keep up the good work and thank you again.
I've never played this game but I've heard about how good it is - coming out among these releases it really is a breath of fresh air. And what an exceptional look! I'll need to give it a shot.
This is another of those Falcom series I need to get into after adoring Ys and the Trails games. Faxanadu is probably a good place to start as any...
Faxanadu really does feel lightyears ahead with QOL features compared with its contemporaries. I enjoy Zelda 2 significantly more than most, but I still have Vietnam style flashbacks to trudging through death mountain for the millionth time
One of my all time favorite games as a kid.
I don't even remember how I came to own this game, but own it I did. The beepy boopy shop music is stuck in my head for all eternity.
Oh, snap! Mr. Parrish actually released the video we’ve all been clamoring for. You’re the absolute best, my dude! 😊
wow that might be the best looking NES game I've seen. Amazing color palette
One of my all time favourites. The remember your mantra tune lives rent free in my head. Great vid, Jeremy.
I've been looking forward to this episode.
I found a copy of Faxanadu at a flea market last year and was really happy to finally have it in my collection.
It's funny to me that in an era where so many game titles and even licenses were swapped for the western release, Faxanadu kept the same title that would only make sense to Japanese gamers.
This was one of my favorite games of the era. A joy to play.
I had this on in the background and was wondering why it suddenly transitioned into a HungryGoriya video when I heard the password theme
Hungry Goriya really loves Faxanadu!
The soundtrack really takes this adventure to the next level.
I loved Faxanadu when I was a kid. It's still one of my favourite nes games. I definitely remember hitting myself with the mattock softlock at least once. It took me forever find the hidden sky spring. I remember always getting to that point and never knowing what to do next. One day I just ended up flying around and stumbled upon it. I was so excited when I found it. I never did end end up beating the misty area until years later when I replayed the game when I was older. But even when I was younger and didn't really know what to do or where to go i'd just play through those early areas exploring everything and going through the dungeons and just trying to figure everything out.
"Faxanadu or Faxanadu not- there is no try."
How am I completely unfamiliar with this game? This looks incredible. *covers face in fear as he looks up price* Ten bucks?! Get outta my dreams, get into my console.
Never played it? I definitely recommend giving it a go if you’re a fan of Castlevania and Zelda 2. I give it a solid B+.
I think that this game was designed to be off-putting to the young. I got it in a yard sale lot in the mid 90s as a kiddo.
Bland cartridge art, somewhat grating music, grotesque dark art. Being a bit slow to begin didn't help. It's a good game underneath though.
@@Blur2040 It did seem to be targeted at an older target market.
Get into my car!
No way. The music is only grating in area. The rest are bops.
When we talk Faxanadu we are talking about such fascinating lineage and heritage; on the lineage side it derived from Dragon Slayer 2: Xanadu, which itself borrowed / stole from Ultima, linking it all the way back to one of the two great RPG series. But then in terms of children it is hard to not see the resemblance in Fromsoft Souls series, and it is known as a direct and literal inspiration for the very popular Hollow Knight and it's reverse tree setting. Impressive for some random nes game that happened to pass by.
This is the game I recommend to people when they can’t get into Zelda 2. I always liked the warm, earthy color palette (although as DeepWeeb points out, it looks a lot better on a fancy old Sony CRT.)
I can´t believe I never played Faxanadu back in the day
Aw man, this is such a great game for the time. Big part of my upbringing right here and I still revisit it once every few years! I appreciate the From Software comparison in the video. I never really linked the two but it totally makes sense.
Surely, it should have been called NExanadu in the West?
Where have you been?! 😢
Exactly
@@svenvaltik5657 I've been sick behind the scenes :(
@@Larry I'm so sorry to hear that! Sending love and best wishes!!! Your channel is such a huge inspiration!!!
@@Larry Sorry to hear that, dude. Hope you get better soon. We love your content.
I have great memories of this game. It is one of the best early "metroidvania" games. With that said, maybe they should be called metroanadus :)
My favorite nes game of all time!
This game has an unnecessarily amazing soundtrack.
That Nintendo Power preview made me nuts to find this game back in the day. I eventually found a copy and had a lot of fun with it despite the flaws (up yours, Battle Helmet!). Btw, your title does more than grant gold after death - it also increases your walking speed allowing you to reach full speed faster so you can do longer jumps. It also affects the winged boots...with higher ranks reducing the amount of time you are granted for some odd reason.
I did not know this!
Thank you for the info!👍🤩
I never noticed that.🤔
the only nes rpg I physically own! I think I have my old mantra in a notepad somewhere too.
Faxanadu on the NES & the Prince soundtrack to Batman on cassette were my winter break of 1989! I received both for Christmas that year and it was awesome! I spent over a week holed up in my bedroom playing the former while listening to the latter on repeat.
The two are so closely linked in my memories that when I played through Faxanadu during the pandemic via emulation, the game just didn't feel right until I also started playing the Batman soundtrack.
So happy you finally got to a childhood staple of mine
Always owned this one since back in the day and while not my usual thing I enjoyed it and finished it at least once. Later in the 90s as we got online I typed the entire manual for this one up in a text file for others to use as a resource even using ascii to render the two page world tree for fun.
I quite literally looked up to see if you did a video on Faxanadu after watching your The Battle of Olympus video yesterday.
I always think this was an underrated game and i was never able to beat it back in the day!
One of the many games I'd watch my older uncles play as a kid.
Fond memories. 32 years ago roughly :P Since I was anywhere between 3-5 years old I recon.
Reminds me that I need to play Xanadu..
yeah I learned later about the 'famicom xanadu' thing so that's how I've been pronouncing it. I remember renting it and it was kind of a fun one! hoping to track down a copy for the collection here soon, would love to revisit it see if I can finish it for good.
The first game I ever bought with my own money! Still have it.
one of the few games I own Complete In Box. Been looking forward to this for a time.
Never played this one, but with emulation today, it's definitely worth trying as a Falcom fan. Despite some of the difficulty in Xanadu, that game also feels really revolutionary for its time and holds up pretty well. Since Falcom likes to do a Xanadu game of some type for every 10th anniversary of the original, I kinda hope they do their own take on Faxanadu instead of another Tokyo Xanadu next year.
Damn this game was so hard as a kid when it came out, it is pretty great though
Faxanadu was my most surprising game in my NES rabbithole dive during college. This (and Phantasy Star 4) didn't felt retro at all (aside from archaic saves).
Brilliantly written, Jeremy!
Love this game. Thanks for the videos Duder.
One of the weirdest games I had as a kid. So glad I was lucky enough to get it
Bring this to the NSO
I would if I could
Yes I feel the same I’ve been emulating for years on my pc I’d love to have it on my switch without jail breaking it and voiding warranty. But Nintendo instead bring us a bunch of games no one cares about or wants on nso
Alas, if it's from a third party developer odds are they hold the games off to re-release them on their own. Not sure Nintendo has the power to do anything about it.
@@LostHorizons0 If you have an RCM capable Switch it is LONG past warranty, my friend. I did mine about a year ago so I could mess with homebrew and it was quite easy, and on reviewing some of it recently to correct some configuration it is even easier now. Retroarch works great though I've not tried anything past Playstation 1 era.
And then I got a Steam Deck so now the Switch mostly collects dust, especially with EmuDeck on it. Oh well...
Faxanadu was one of the best NES games. I actually had two copies of this at one time. It's hard to believe that this comes before Legacy of the Wizard as Faxanadu seems more advanced in nearly every way.
And it was referenced in Captain N.
We rented it back in the day after its release and while we certainly enjoyed it, it was a little too advanced for my brother and I. Years and years later I picked up a loose copy at a flea market and played through it to the end. Fantastic game.
There is Blood Ceremony song that for some reason always reminds me of Faxanadu.
I know this is a special one for you JP
I love your channel Jeremy ❤
How the hell did I not know about this game back then? Somehow overlooked it. Looks really good.
A Rush reference AND a Licence to Kill eyecatch? We eating good this week.
Woot woot the video finally dropped!! Excellent analysis as always
I still put slashes though my zeroes and serifs on my ones, and I largely credit Faxanadu (and Metroid before it) for this.
Watching while Milton is about to hit Florida! Thanks for the comfort food Jeremy!
Hopefully from a safe distance away.
Always hold out hope Falcom revisits this series and do a modern game -- Faxanadu is one of those gems I replay every few months cuz it's just that damn fun.
Faxanadu left a big impression on me! The enemy design is very original and slightly disturbing, and the soundtrack is among my all time favourites. The world around the tree is so immersive.
I’ve given myself the alias “That Guy from Faxanadu” on several game forums as a homage of the nameless hero.
When I was a kid and this game was making the local swap rounds (we'd trade cartridges with each other to try different games), I asked how to say the name of the game. None of us noticed that it was "FA" + "Xanadu", even though I was aware of a song and a movie by the name Xanadu. Also, "FA" wouldn't have made much sense to us because not many of us had heard of the "Famicom." So, we all thought Faxanadu was pronounced ,faks - uh - 'NAH - duh. Which, honestly, I prefer.
I have an original Jeremy Parish Doodle of this games opening screen in Gamespite Vol 1! Childhood favorite game. 😁
Looks like a really cool game. I would have loved it.
Loved this gem on the NES. Although a licensed spinoff, Faxanadu got my radar on Falcom, which of course resulted in playing Ys.
I never played this game, all I remember was that Captain N went to Faxanadu in one episode...
My brother and I used to watch that show too.👍🤪
Don't have negative thoughts, remember your mantra.
I love all the 2d action RPGs from the NES era - Faxanadu, CV2, Zelda 2, Battle of Olympus. Not sure which is my favorite, Faxanadu or Zelda 2. Also, I always read the shading on the sprite's face as having a beard, which I appreciated, as you so rarely get to play as a truely ragged and bedraggled hero, especially in Japanese games.
As usual, a fantastic review. As someone I consider of high intelligence, I do have to call you out on one part of the review.
Your quote of "The modest penalty for failure, means that you just need to keep trying and eventually you will succeed."
To which I quote another intellect of our time, Homer Simpson. ~ "Trying leads to failure." 😜
Brilliant! So coherent
I barely played it because i was away at a friend the one weekend my brother rented and finished it . I remember coming home on Sunday late afternoon and he was about to finish it., The unique look and feel of the game always stuck with me though and my brother always talked about it as one of the system's gems even if he never replayed it ever. I should have probably rented it to play it myself. Then again my brother was more into the Metroid-type games than I was (even if I'M the one who played Rambo through)