Faxanadu (ファザナドゥ), released 11/16/1987, developed and published by Hudson Soft

This is another game in Falcom’s “Dragon Slayer” series. At this point there were four games in the series. The first game had been released for a (now) obscure system (the Epoch Cassette Vision), and the third and fourth games had come out in Famicom ports. The fourth game also was released in English as “Legacy of the Wizard”. Xanadu and Xanadu II (which were considered both the second game in the numbering) had yet to come out for a console.

Originally Faxanadu was supposed to be a port of Xanadu, but by the time it was released it had deviated so far from the original game that it was given the name Fa (from Famicom) + Xanadu and had become its own game. Faxanadu was released in English — I never played it but I remember seeing it in Nintendo Power magazine.

Romancia and Legacy of the Wizard are not really RPGs to me; Romancia is more of just a side-scrolling action game and LotW is perhaps an “adventure” game instead (or whatever genre you want to label it). I think Faxanadu is closer to those games than “real” action RPGs, although the line between an action game and an action RPG is very fuzzy.

Faxanadu does have XP levels, but they have virtually no effect on the game — they don’t increase any stats. When you die, you are returned to the last church where you got a password. Your money is reset to a value that is determined by your XP level. This seems to be the only effect of your level other than the odd fact that winged boots last for shorter times as you level up.

(Incidentally, the original Japanese version has actual churches with a cross outside and a Catholic-style crucifix (with Jesus’ body on it) behind the priest. Both of those were removed and the churches are referred to as “guru houses” instead. This is an example of the type of censorship that Nintendo required in the 80s and 90s.)

The game has a few weapon and armor upgrades, but only 4 of each. There are also a few magics that you can acquire. Some of these are bought at shops, others are found around the maps.

The game is roughly divided into 3 areas, and you access the next area once you finish some task (for instance, to get to the second area you have to restart three fountains). I think this is a game that could be reasonably finished without much help — there are a few tricky parts that have non-obvious solutions but nothing on the level of checking every stone or tree to see if there is a secret.

To fight, you basically just have attack, jump-attack, and using your magic. The number of enemies is fairly limited so once you learn each pattern it’s a bit easier, although the fighting system sometimes seems rather limited.

Probably the most annoying part of the game are the jumps; you often have to do running jumps that require fairly precise timing, and if you fall down you have to repeat the whole area again. This isn’t so unusual for 1980s action games but it can be frustrating.

The storyline is a typical “save the world from the demons” story. What is impressive about it is that the text actually uses a lot of kanji — this is something that you don’t see much of in Famicom games, and even late into the Super Famicom era you see some games that aren’t using as much kanji as this. I’m not sure what it was about this game that encouraged them to do this.

On the whole, this is definitely one of the more playable games of this early Famicom era. I played about half of it; the lack of RPG elements made me not want to play that much more but it’s not a bad game for the time period at all.