Xanadu Next Reviews

Ys meets Xanadu is pretty much how you describe Xanadu next. I grew up playing Faxanadu on the NES and never thought that Falcom more or less rebooted the fanchise in a one time stand alone sequel/remake also it's a better Ys game than Ys X Nordics (i'm convinced that's not even a real Ys game) P.S Yes i am aware that xanadu came out before Ys this series more or less had to walk so Ys could run. P.P.S TOKYO XANADU IS THE SPIRITUAL SUCCESSOR TO XANADU!? guess i'm checking that out.

It was literally THE BEST GAMING EXPERIENCE I EVER HAD, I LOVED EVERY SECOND OF IT, STORY WAS PEAK, EVERY SINGLE LOCATION WAS PEAK, EVERY SINGLE BOSS FIGHT WAS PEAK, EVERY SINGLE MUSIC TRACK WAS PEAK. THIS GAME IS PERFECT PLAY IT NOW

Absolute banger of a game! Falcom needs to make more games like this and less like Trails...

I'm nearing the end, but as of right now I love the game. Clover Ruins theme is more than likely gonna be sticking with me long after i'm done; overall the ost has done wonders to the experience.

Simple and fun, scratches that old JRPG itch i've been having lately. Definitely worth the $4.49! Just the right amount of grind, and not long grinds, your efforts are rewarded very quickly. I didn't even realize at first why I was beating enemies faster on a single run, even though I hadn't changed my weapon, because as your proficiency goes up, so does your attack in little stages (my guess is each 20%) its nice and you feel more powerful at intervals and not by .1% like all games nowadays. Only a couple hours in but I shall complete this eventually as it hasn't gotten boring yet XD

Very fun action rpg with minor bugs throughout, mostly affecting visuals and achievements. I greatly enjoyed the exploration aspects here as they flowed naturally overall and shortcuts are plentiful. Character progression kept pace well with only some grinding speed bumps around most bosses the first time you run into them. In my eyes this game is an overlooked but flawed classic and is worth playing for JRPG fans.

I am giving a thumbs up, though the end game feels really weakly designed compared to the rest. I think this game has a really novel set of rpg systems that make it utterly unique I think it genuinely stands on its own merits otherwise, but the general vibe of the game makes it feel like Ys, a small, fairly straightforward action JRPG that's pretty light on story and has a couple interesting gimmicks that make it stand out. The progression is super rewarding and there is a looping system where you can delevel, and relevel for potentially higher and differently stacked stats. I didn't have to interface with this much for a regular playthrough and mostly just kept caught up with weapon and armour minimums and made it through fine, but it's a pretty cool system that's there if you want it. It works well with the guardian system, which is a bunch of little spirit cards that infer you gameplay bonuses (such as extra points per level, which synergizes well with the releveling system) There are a lot of magic and weapon skills available and you can have four at once, each of them have their own mp bars so if you run out of one you can swap them out, though there is no way to do this with time stopped. One interesting thing about the gameplay is you can play this game almost entirely with a mouse. I do find it difficult to maneuver around enemies to hit their backs (something mechanically encouraged with basically all enemies) but I think it's cool it's possible at all. It's a full featured feeling rpg but you can essentially and very effectively play it by poking around on the screen. The characters have good designs and I unlocked at least one steam card that has art from shunya yamashita. I didn't see him in the credits but I love his art so I want to give it bonus points for that. My large criticism of the game is I think the last area is irritating, and not in a difficult way. Most dungeons are fun to explore and even have fairly satisfying puzzles within them, the final tower overstays its welcome, some progression items require scanning for invisible items (there is a tell but it's very weak for a certain stone disk you need) and equipping and unequipping the thing you use to do this with requires opening and closing the menu, instead of just toggling out of the item with a click or something. And you do need to unequip it since it also makes enemies invisible. I think if this was a button prompt to turn on or off this would be forgivable. The final castle is also extremely mazelike and the map is fairly poor, since it doesn't take into account what floor you're on and just kind of shows you all the potential places you can go on all floors. There are a lot of samey rooms, most of which have mobs that aren't actually blocking your way or protecting anything at all, they just exist because they can. There is a lich that delevels you, and also has an instakill curse timer. The first can be pretty bad if you haven't saved in awhile (you really can ignore pretty much every lich though) and the second isn't bad after you know the gimmick behind the instakill curse timer. The thing that drove me nuts is having all that nonsense in the final castle and it having the balls to give me a rating based on a bunch of information that I couldn't possibly be tracking or be aware of my first time through. That kind of feels meanspirited when the final dungeon feels like it has the least actual content or critical thought put into it (there isn't even any optional lore! the weapons you find are worse than the weapon you have when you enter the dungeon! Everything about the final dungeon is worse than any of the dungeons leading up to it.) Overall, most of the game is pretty good, you can probably intuit nearly all the mechanics which seems rare for off-the-beaten-path jrpgs, and it has one bad dungeon well after you've got the buy-in established to complete it anyways. I think it's worth it.

Very old action-rpg which is still pretty enjoyable if you like Ys series.

the best game you've never heard of, with an absolutely stellar vibe and beautiful music. please give this a try if it looks at all interesting to you!

Tips for playing: - Use a controller, but have a mouse next to you for navigating shop menus (its much quicker) -Uncheck "use system mouse cursor" in the config menu or the in game cursor won't move (very odd this is on by default) Great game, great lore, great world. I got through it in about 20 hours which is the perfect length for me. There's no dodge or roll button so combat can feel a bit like constantly running in circles around the enemy to try to get a back attack for more damage. You are locked into combat animations so you will often take unavoidable damage. But overall very fun. You start the game killing bats and slimes & end by killing some inter dimensional demon dragon thing. 2 thumbs up. Falcom should revisit this IP.