To be a kid in a third world country, Nintendo doesn't even know we exist, I walk into a games store and find this game....took it home and that day changed little old me to know, games can be larger than life, until today, this game is still the pinnacle of 8bit gaming, and maybe one of the most influential games of my young life.....I still can't accept thr fact that after so much searching , only found 2 games close to it, one was influenced by it and 1 is an image to it and still both weren't even close....the graphics, the mood , the atmosphere, it is still phenomenal, this game is a case study on how atmosphere can make a game....10/10 , easily in my top 5 if not top 3 if not my fave games on nes.
...I may have talked about remembering mantras and not having negative thoughts once or twice out there. Loved the video! Thank you for giving this game its due. I also adored your choice of music for the listening section. The tune that plays when you emerge from the mist and go skyward is awesome, but when you get into that later area for the first time and you hear that sinister-sounding song start up, it always gives me that fun feeling of anticipation of the last act. I'll also have to look up the names of the people you compared the portraits to. I usually call Tool Guy Bill Dauterive and the Key Guy Bill Murray.
@@SNESdrunk If only he'd looked like someone on the Buffalo Bills lol. Great review Snes, I agree with Hun that the music choice for the listening portion was perfect. You two are consistently a couple of my favorite game streamer/reviewers, love the sense of community here too and how supportive you all are of each other and other channels. Thanks for everything you do and I hope you keep doing it anyway you can.
@@SNESdrunk I was amazed to hear you mention her in this review because I literally came across Goriya just a few weeks ago looking up Milon's Secret Castle videos on RUclips. Loved this review, glad to have this game in my NES collection.
An absolute classic, and the music is still killer. My parents bought this game for my brother and I as a "joint present" since our birthdays are two weeks apart. Very fond memories of sitting next to my older brother while he played, and I referred to Nintendo Power. I'm now 42. Thanks for the memories!
My dad would help me map out the interior first-person sections of SNES Jurassic Park when I was a kid...still never beat the game thanks to being a dumb kid. :D
Wow, this has to be one of the best looking NES games I've ever seen. The environments have such a dense, gnarled texture to them, and those enemy designs are top notch, some of them look like lovecraft monsters. Some screens make the game look like an 8 bit demake of Scorn or Hylics. Absolutely gorgeous. I also love how this game is technically in the same series as Trails in the Sky lmao.
@@goranisacson2502Dragon Slayer is the base series that Faxanadu is connected with, which the Legend of Heroes branches off from; and in turn, the Trails series branches from LoH.
Yep, come 2 decades into the future when the "grey/gritty" nature of innumerable Xbox 360/PS3 games is seen more nostalgically, I think I know which games will continue to have more personality.
Best looking? IMO Faxanadu really shows some of the limits of the NES graphically with everything feeling like the same two shades of brown. Back in the day I played this kind of ripoff of Gauntlet (crossed with a Zelda dungeon) called Storm for the C64. It has very poor color on the C64 because it was a game that was ported to many systems and they didn't try too hard on the graphics. I enjoyed the game though, I just know it looks awful. (Sounds epic though, at least the intro music…) Anyway, Faxanadu gave me the same vibes, colorwise. But no, it's not a port, this is what Hudson actually intended it to look like. And like Storm, it plays better than it looks.
I have always loved this game... the graphics have aged remarkably well.. and how freakin cool is it that an NES game changed the sprite for every weapon, shield, and piece or armor? Many new games don't even take the time to do that! How cool was it finally getting the battle suit, battle helmet, and dragon slayer sword, and equipping them.. I felt like the ultimate badass back in the day. Wow... I really do love this game. We need a modern remaster like what they did with Actraiser.. but better.
Fond memories of this game and glad to see it viewed highly. My parents bought me a used NES back in '94 because I was hypnotized by games and thought it would "get it out of my system" (that backfired). This was one of the games we got with it and I loved it but I was awful at it. I remember sitting and watching my mom play through it and the enjoyment I got out of that. The shared experience was great even sharing our frustration trying to figure out the mantras. My mom playing through this with my and my dad playing through Robocop on the Tandy CoCo are some pretty early shared gaming memories that stick with me 30+ years later.
This is my absolute favorite game of all time. Nothing will ever take it's place. A dark, lonely, fantasy adventure through the bizarre World Tree. Put it on, close the blinds, turn off the lights and transport your mind back to 1990... just try not to get too creeped out in mist land.
Faxanadu has such a good look and feel. My mom and I sunk a ton of hours into it. The soundtrack is one of my favourites, and clearly you can see the picture I use to represent myself on here. Definitely deserves more love! Great video!
This was one of the first NES games I had growing up. Faxanadu and Dragon Warrior were my childhood. One thing that isnt mentioned anywhere is that leveling your rank actually punishes you in one regard. Yeah you get more starting gold when you die, and cool hidden fact is your acceleration from walking to a full sprint is shorter depending on the higher the rank you are... but also the higher rank you are the shorter time you have with wing boots being active. Lower ranks is up to 40 seconds, but higher ranks get as little as 10 seconds of wing boot time D:
Faxanadu is a beautiful game, and I say this as someone who didn’t grow up with the anything older than the GameCube. The game takes the rpg platform formula most well known for its usage in Zelda 2 (although the formula actually existed prior to Zelda 2 in other games by Faxanadu’s developer) and perfected it! It’s such an atmospheric game, Faxanadu does a beautiful job at making its world feel lived in and natural, the parts that are meant to be scary are generally scary to me. Some other examples of unique genre NES games that I consider to be utter masterpieces are Moon Crystal (Cinematic platformer with Rush N’ Attack style knife combat), and WURM (utterly beautiful game with many genres that’s hard to define. It’s action platformer, meets shoot em up, meets rpg…?)
Awesome. You're looking into the dragon Slayer series that I only heard so much about recently. I never got this game but I borrowed the follow-up game, Legacy of the Wizard. As for this game, I wouldn't have been so interested had it not been for captain N way back when. I'm glad I discovered this game and I'm happy that you're covering it.
Looking at this game, I love the use of colors used on the player character. They actually pulled off genuine shading, using only four colors, and without just going straight to black.
Video count starting with following intros: SNES drunk: 864 NES drunk: 1 (NEW!!!) Segadrunk: 69 Steamdrunk: 42 Without any kind of Intro: 41 Switchdrunk: 6 Turbodrunk: 4 Previously on SNES drunk IS drunk: 2 SNES drunk IS drunk: 1 Previously on SNES drunk plays StarFox: 1 Previously on SNES drunk plays Final Fight: 1 3 Hours of the SNES drunk Intro: 1 A four minute and 30 second long SNES drunk Intro: 1 Videos completely about Clyde T. Dog (No Intro as well): 3
Back when you maybe got one game a year, my brother and I had a choice to buy this or Hydlide and we choose Hydlide... in a life full of poor choices this one haunts me the most.
This game forces me to recall some of my fondest NES memories.. I picked it up at the swap meet for 10 bucks in 1990. My 9 year old self did not turn this game off until I finished it. Super good times!
My favorite thing about this game was the world tree setting, I really think they did a good job of implementing it given a NES's resources. Especially in the third section where you're up in the "branches" area.
I remember renting this as a kid. As usual I sucked at it and my brother got hard into it. I played it recently and realised how good it actually was. I'm glad you're covering the 8-bit games now, there's so many to chose from.
This is one of the games I have the most nostalgia for since its a "hidden gem". My best friend growing up owned it and we didn't know anyone else who did. He lived down the street so during the summer we'd hang out and play Nintendo every day and spent HOURS on this and barely ever got anywhere, but it was just so cool to us. Just one of my fondest childhood menories because it felt like this secret game only we knew about.
I remember when I was collecting as a kid in the mid 90s coming across this game in a thrift store for like 2 bucks and not know anything about it. Picked it up just because the cover art seemed intriguing. Me and my buddy played this thing like mad and it became one of my favorite NES games pretty quickly. Still have that copy today. If I remember correctly the name is a portmanteau of Famicom Xanadu.
Faxanadu is without a doubt one of the best sort of "hidden gems" on the NES. It's fun, looks and sounds amazing, and for an NES rpg-ish game it's actually very palyable today. The NPCs actually tell you useful hints, and it's never so cryptic that it will hold you back for any longer stretches, even without a guide. Love this game, one of my absolute favorites on the NES. It's also one of the few games on the system that goes for a grittier look, which makes it stand out a lot from the rest of the library. There are only a few other games that does this well, and the only one i can think of straight off of the top of my head is Batman, that also uses a lot of more muted colors in a fantastic way. The only downside is the password, but hey...phones and emulators or virtual console type stuff kind of fixes that, so in a way it's better than ever today :)
Some of the most memorable moments (and music) in gaming for me. God damn those flying boots at the fountain - I had *NO IDEA* what I was doing there as a kid.
This re-review was kinda a pleasant surprise ✌🏼 I used to have this game and possibly still have some passwords written down too 😅 It was a almost infuriating game at times, but I managed to beat it back in the day. What I didn't know is that this release was a small portion of the whole Xanadu franchise from Japan. Those games are more similar to the Ys series, so it's very commendable they decided to follow the Zelda 2 route. Thanks for the video 👍🏼
Wow, this brings back memories. My step-brother had that game and when I was at my father's, I played the shit out of it. Hearing you say it took 3 hours to finish broke my heart...Haha...because at that age, I didnt understand English so I didnt know what I was doing and I remember spending a whole afternoon farming the gold to get the first set of weapon/shield at the first store, where clearly, this early in the game, there was no way you would have that amount of gold without farming. Good fun.
Like the subtle callout to another reviewer while their intro (from this game) played. very cool. I still haven't played this, even though every review makes me want to. maybe this time.
This game has special meaning to me even though I never once owned it. I clearly remember that when I was a kid this game was featured on the Home Shopping Network. My mother saw how badly I wanted it and looked everywhere for her HSN card she hadn't used forever. Never found it and she took me to the store and I got another game. Why it sticks out in my memory, I have no clue, but its there.
Always happy to see Faxanadu get its due. Hudson is the only third-party company that worked with Falcom properties and really "got" them, I feel -- Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys on PC-Engine CD, as another example, is one of the best games in the entire Ys series (and one of the best action RPGs of its time in general), and that was pretty much purely Hudon's doing, as they strayed REALLY far from Falcom's outline for Ys IV and were just like, "Trust us, we know how to make this game awesome." And, like... they did! They really did! If you're interested in playing what might as well be a more modern sequel to Faxanadu specifically, BTW, give Xanadu Next on PC a try. Falcom developed that one themselves and released it back in 2005 to mark the 20th anniversary of the Xanadu franchise, and though it's ostensibly meant as a sequel to mainline Xanadu... like, it's basically a sequel to Faxanadu. If you take Faxanadu and make it a 3D game, you pretty much get Xanadu Next. It has the same gameplay structure and feel, the same mood and atmosphere, the same ambient and incredible style of soundtrack, etc. -- it really, really feels like they were channeling Hudson and honoring the work Hudson did on this classic Xanadu spinoff, and it's an absolutely wonderful game as a result.
Two quick pro tips: 1. Dying makes you revive with an amount of gold determined by your level. If you're tired of gold farming, try dying and coming back. It can make you start with more money and it's much faster. 2. DO NOT PICK UP THE PENDANT! The pendant is supposed to increase your attack power, but due to a bug, it actually decreases it. There are patches and game genie codes to fix this bug if you want to go that route.
...a-a-and here's the pendant comment I was looking for! Displaced Gamers actually talked about this pendant on his channel and explains more about this bug and 'correcting' it. ruclips.net/video/FeemO9yW-hs/видео.html But yeah, in playing the vanilla NES version of the game, the Pendant acts as more of a HARD MODE curse item.
Everytime I watch her video I feel a deep and old sense of failure and loss, because it's the song that plays when your guy dies. I played this so much as a child.
I love this game. Love it. A remake one day would be sweet. I thought the meteor changed some dwarfs either way all a good story. Thanks for the videos Duder.
I played this game before I knew how to read, so I didn't ever make it very far. For the longest time I just knew it as "the naked guy" game (the player character starts off in a loincloth). I had to go back to it eventually because the music haunts me to this day. Great video.
Faxanadu will always hold a special place in my heart. I used to rent games from the local video store and the day my pet hamster died, I was pretty upset, but my parents encouraged me to play the new game I rented, and I got lost in the world of Faxanadu. Thanks for reminding me that this special little game exists out there. I should try and pick up a permanent copy.
I loved this game when I played it as a kid in the 80's. You seem to have hit that nostalgia nerve in the comments below. Your review cracks me up and I agree with so many of the comments below: atmosphere and music could make or break an NES game. They really did it right with Faxanadu. Grinding this game for hours with my friend in his basement are some of my fondest early NES memories. Thanks NESDrunk! You rock!
So many fond memories of this game! I had a sleepover with a bunch of kids in the 90's and ill never forget this older kid pronounced this game "Fax-a-na-da" like fax machine.
One of my favorite NES games. It's filled with all kinds of unique enemies and items, in an interesting world build, and the music is so catchy. I haven't played it in years and yet every once in a while I'll start humming some of the music and get the urge to revisit the game.
Oh man. This brings back memories. I remember renting this game, back in the day where you could rent videos and video games, and played it over the weekend. Still hooked on the game, I remember I got very close to the end of the game and on Monday morning, I was 'too sick to go to school' lol. Ended up playing i that whole day and finishing it. Ahh memories....
Faxanadu was released in the US in August 1989. It along with the Batman soundtrack were what I spent hours with during winter break from school in 1989. Good times!
This is one of my all-time favorites for NES (though we pronounced the first part as in fax machine). There are so many cheap deaths in this game and you are spot on with the momentum and tiny areas. When I was a teenager, I could sometimes have a temper and the one time I broke an NES controller was on this password system and, at the time, losing hours of progress since the last pass I wrote down. I remember being so psyched when I found the bug where I could spend all my gold and just go back to the starting guy and get more. I don't get the Zelda 2 reference, though. Maybe because I played this first, but they don't really seem the same at all to me. Thanks as always for the fantastic vids and nostalgia kick! Bonus: more than one of my friends misread "black onyx" as "black oinks" phonetically. Back in the '80s in the middle of nowhere, the pronunciation of new words was hit-or-miss, especially if the brain re-arranges the letters into a more familiar pattern. I will say that the music from this game lives rent-free in my head more than 35 years later.
This was one of my favorite games as a kid and it really does age well. I ended up finding it at goodwill in the mid 2000s for a few dollars and gave it to a friend that still had an NES and it was still fun. Then a few years ago bought it a 3rd time at a local game store and I still like it now. I think people are catching on now to how good it is, but it was very underrated back in the day, it one of the games you’d always see on sale in stores or for like 5 dollars at the flea market.
Possibly my favorite NES game or at least the most memorable. I remember this from back when my only access to games was a rental, so they all had timers to me.
I've watched so many of your videos. Whether it's just to see your take on a game I love, or find out about games (like this one) that I've never heard of. Love all of it, but nothing in any other video prepared me for the mantra bit in this. I was eating and it caught me so off guard I nearly choked, and then I started laughing at myself for that happening in the first place. Still laughing a good minute or two later now trying to type out this comment. I don't know what about that got to me so deeply, but it's fricking great lmao.
I had never heard of this back in the 1980s. Thank you for reviewing it. It looks great for something from that era. I hope that this gets a port into the Switch store.
A game I have thought of occasionally over the years since 1988 or whatever. I remember it was a real challenge beating the game as a kid. Just last week I finally fired it up again for a playthrough 35 years later! Classic and underrated game.
This is a great game that I loved and beat in the late 80s. I played it again about 4 years ago from beginning to end in about 2 and half hours and enjoyed every second of it. These are great games made in an era where you don't have 1000 other things vying for your attention and all these different options that you can do simultaneously like playing this while talking to friends, watching Netflix or a movie.
I love Faxanadu. It's been one of my favourite nes games since I was a kid. I always loved the music and art design in the game and the setting, even though I didn't really understand the setting when I was a kid. I was never able to complete it when I was young though, I got as far as the Misty area but could never get past it. it wasn't until a few years ago I actually sat down and played through the whole thing. It was just as fun now as it was then, maybe more fun because I could actually finish it.
This was one of those criminally underrated games, back in the day. I never have beaten it, because it really is punishingly hard, but I always felt that 'charm' you mention, too.
Back in the late 80s one of my dad's friends let him borrow this and Crystalis and they both became two of my favourite games of all time, even to this day. I still talk about this game all the time because it's strange how it's not NEARLY as well known as other contemporary titles. While everything you mention in the video is true, probably the thing that sticks out to me the most (besides the incredible music- my alarm is STILL 'Daybreak') is the odd art style. I can't think of a single game that does the art in a similar style as this, from the colour choice to the weird almost 'fuzzy' look of the world. It definitely helps to make the game feel incredibly unique. If you're going to do more NES videos and want a bizarre, cool, and CHALLENGING game I strongly recommend trying Faria; A World of Mystery and Danger. I was never able to beat this until relatively recently.
Good review! I remember a neighbor kid lending this game to me when I was little. It was my first action RPG and I could not get into it. I will have to give it a fair shake now as an adult as it looks pretty good. There are also some solid patches for this game currently. There is one that removes the password system in favor of a traditional save system as well as others that make the default font cleaner and one that fixes a bug for the pendant item.
My grandma wouldnt get my Bayou Billy cause she thought it looked to violent, I picked this instead and boy am I glad I did, what a classic. Thanks Grandma!
Lol, that's some nostalgia nuke right here. I remember seeing Faxanadu in a shop once, sitting between other NES-games, and giggling about the funny name. Sadly, our parents did not have enough money for gaming consoles, and we skipped the NES entirely. But I still remember seeing Faxanadu's box sitting on that shelf and wondering what kind of game would have this kind of weird name.
I always pronounced the "x" when I player the game in the late 80's, rented it several times and made the passwords work a few times , painstakingly writing them in a notebook I had for passwords from multiple games. Good memories.
As soon as you started playing that one song, I went "Oh my gosh thats where hungry goriya gets her theme from". And then you mentioned her 😂. Both of your channels are fantastic!
Did a recent replay myself actually. It's very much a "le hidden gem," and pretty quick for a playthrough once you know what you're doing. Solid combat for what it is, interesting leveling system, and decent level design. Top notch NES game for sure.
Had this as a kid and I remember playing it once and not liking it then a while later, I fired it up with a friend and we ended up completing it together! Good times! 😊
Pretty generous of you to talk about this game and not mention the Pendant bug! But yes, this is a great game and I've played it through a few times over the years. There's a serious difficulty spike around the last few areas, so it's rare that my playthroughs end in victory, but it is entertaining in any case.
Faxanadu is one of the all time overlooked greats on the NES. The art design, colours, music, setting and tone all come together to make one of the most unique experiences out there. There's just nothing else like it. The one thing that ever came close to matching it, IMO, was Dark Souls. Anyone who loves the Souls series owe it to themselves to go back and experience Faxanadu.
![[DRAGON BALL LEGENDS REVEALS ＆ STUFF] LEGENDS FESTIVAL 2024 Special Edition Part 1](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/mV5bGIswTtQ/mqdefault.jpg)
To be a kid in a third world country, Nintendo doesn't even know we exist, I walk into a games store and find this game....took it home and that day changed little old me to know, games can be larger than life, until today, this game is still the pinnacle of 8bit gaming, and maybe one of the most influential games of my young life.....I still can't accept thr fact that after so much searching , only found 2 games close to it, one was influenced by it and 1 is an image to it and still both weren't even close....the graphics, the mood , the atmosphere, it is still phenomenal, this game is a case study on how atmosphere can make a game....10/10 , easily in my top 5 if not top 3 if not my fave games on nes.
Word my friend, live in Uruguay so I know the pain.
Long story short...
@@dennisveneman9469 TLDR ''THIS IS THE BEST GAME EVER''
U b spittin' truth m8. Btw, which two similar games did you find?
Did you try battle of olympus? Very simular
...I may have talked about remembering mantras and not having negative thoughts once or twice out there. Loved the video! Thank you for giving this game its due. I also adored your choice of music for the listening section. The tune that plays when you emerge from the mist and go skyward is awesome, but when you get into that later area for the first time and you hear that sinister-sounding song start up, it always gives me that fun feeling of anticipation of the last act. I'll also have to look up the names of the people you compared the portraits to. I usually call Tool Guy Bill Dauterive and the Key Guy Bill Murray.
Bill Dauterive is spot on, I wish I'd thought of that lol
@@SNESdrunk If only he'd looked like someone on the Buffalo Bills lol.
Great review Snes, I agree with Hun that the music choice for the listening portion was perfect. You two are consistently a couple of my favorite game streamer/reviewers, love the sense of community here too and how supportive you all are of each other and other channels. Thanks for everything you do and I hope you keep doing it anyway you can.
@@SNESdrunk I was amazed to hear you mention her in this review because I literally came across Goriya just a few weeks ago looking up Milon's Secret Castle videos on RUclips. Loved this review, glad to have this game in my NES collection.
My two favorite game reviewers, together at last! 😍
We need a crossover between my two fav classic gaming channels now!
An absolute classic, and the music is still killer. My parents bought this game for my brother and I as a "joint present" since our birthdays are two weeks apart. Very fond memories of sitting next to my older brother while he played, and I referred to Nintendo Power. I'm now 42. Thanks for the memories!
The music when you die is so good
Ah, Nintendo Power. It was so great in the 90s.
My dad would help me map out the interior first-person sections of SNES Jurassic Park when I was a kid...still never beat the game thanks to being a dumb kid. :D
I always need to revisit this game, as often as possible.
Often as possible? What a restless guy!
Fun fact, this game is part of the long running Dragon Slayer series by Falcom, which also includes Legacy of the Wizard.
Someone already beat you to it. This comment is autogenerated the second anyone releases any video mentioning Faxanadu.
No it isn't
@@lumpylumpyloo It is, but not in the way this point is usually presented. It isn't canon to the other games
@@bigduke5902 darn, didn't see that comment when I posted earlier, thought that I could get the jump on things for this video.
Least he didnt mention battle for Olympus.....that game is horrible.
Wish falcom would remake dragon slayer game like they did ys
Wow, this has to be one of the best looking NES games I've ever seen. The environments have such a dense, gnarled texture to them, and those enemy designs are top notch, some of them look like lovecraft monsters. Some screens make the game look like an 8 bit demake of Scorn or Hylics. Absolutely gorgeous.
I also love how this game is technically in the same series as Trails in the Sky lmao.
Oh, is it part of Falcom's "Trails" series? Or rather, the Legend of Heroes series? Didn't know that.
@@goranisacson2502Dragon Slayer is the base series that Faxanadu is connected with, which the Legend of Heroes branches off from; and in turn, the Trails series branches from LoH.
Yep, come 2 decades into the future when the "grey/gritty" nature of innumerable Xbox 360/PS3 games is seen more nostalgically, I think I know which games will continue to have more personality.
Best looking? IMO Faxanadu really shows some of the limits of the NES graphically with everything feeling like the same two shades of brown. Back in the day I played this kind of ripoff of Gauntlet (crossed with a Zelda dungeon) called Storm for the C64. It has very poor color on the C64 because it was a game that was ported to many systems and they didn't try too hard on the graphics. I enjoyed the game though, I just know it looks awful. (Sounds epic though, at least the intro music…)
Anyway, Faxanadu gave me the same vibes, colorwise. But no, it's not a port, this is what Hudson actually intended it to look like. And like Storm, it plays better than it looks.
Hylics looks like a demake of Hylics!
I have always loved this game... the graphics have aged remarkably well.. and how freakin cool is it that an NES game changed the sprite for every weapon, shield, and piece or armor? Many new games don't even take the time to do that! How cool was it finally getting the battle suit, battle helmet, and dragon slayer sword, and equipping them.. I felt like the ultimate badass back in the day. Wow... I really do love this game. We need a modern remaster like what they did with Actraiser.. but better.
Fond memories of this game and glad to see it viewed highly. My parents bought me a used NES back in '94 because I was hypnotized by games and thought it would "get it out of my system" (that backfired). This was one of the games we got with it and I loved it but I was awful at it. I remember sitting and watching my mom play through it and the enjoyment I got out of that. The shared experience was great even sharing our frustration trying to figure out the mantras. My mom playing through this with my and my dad playing through Robocop on the Tandy CoCo are some pretty early shared gaming memories that stick with me 30+ years later.
This is my absolute favorite game of all time. Nothing will ever take it's place. A dark, lonely, fantasy adventure through the bizarre World Tree. Put it on, close the blinds, turn off the lights and transport your mind back to 1990... just try not to get too creeped out in mist land.
Faxanadu has such a good look and feel. My mom and I sunk a ton of hours into it. The soundtrack is one of my favourites, and clearly you can see the picture I use to represent myself on here. Definitely deserves more love! Great video!
Like the HungryGoriya shoutout, she doesn't get enough attention
Literally found her channel and subscribed earlier today, found some Nes games that caught my interest. Digging her vids and vibe.
This was one of the first NES games I had growing up. Faxanadu and Dragon Warrior were my childhood. One thing that isnt mentioned anywhere is that leveling your rank actually punishes you in one regard. Yeah you get more starting gold when you die, and cool hidden fact is your acceleration from walking to a full sprint is shorter depending on the higher the rank you are... but also the higher rank you are the shorter time you have with wing boots being active. Lower ranks is up to 40 seconds, but higher ranks get as little as 10 seconds of wing boot time D:
Faxanadu is a beautiful game, and I say this as someone who didn’t grow up with the anything older than the GameCube. The game takes the rpg platform formula most well known for its usage in Zelda 2 (although the formula actually existed prior to Zelda 2 in other games by Faxanadu’s developer) and perfected it! It’s such an atmospheric game, Faxanadu does a beautiful job at making its world feel lived in and natural, the parts that are meant to be scary are generally scary to me.
Some other examples of unique genre NES games that I consider to be utter masterpieces are Moon Crystal (Cinematic platformer with Rush N’ Attack style knife combat), and WURM (utterly beautiful game with many genres that’s hard to define. It’s action platformer, meets shoot em up, meets rpg…?)
Awesome. You're looking into the dragon Slayer series that I only heard so much about recently. I never got this game but I borrowed the follow-up game, Legacy of the Wizard. As for this game, I wouldn't have been so interested had it not been for captain N way back when. I'm glad I discovered this game and I'm happy that you're covering it.
Looking at this game, I love the use of colors used on the player character. They actually pulled off genuine shading, using only four colors, and without just going straight to black.
Love the Sandman reference. That's a whole nother level of deep nostalgia
Hungry Goriya mentioned.👍
Apparently her tag song that is at the beginning of every episode is from this game? Played at 3:42
She's fantastic.
Video count starting with following intros:
SNES drunk: 864
NES drunk: 1 (NEW!!!)
Segadrunk: 69
Steamdrunk: 42
Without any kind of Intro: 41
Switchdrunk: 6
Turbodrunk: 4
Previously on SNES drunk IS drunk: 2
SNES drunk IS drunk: 1
Previously on SNES drunk plays StarFox: 1
Previously on SNES drunk plays Final Fight: 1
3 Hours of the SNES drunk Intro: 1
A four minute and 30 second long SNES drunk Intro: 1
Videos completely about Clyde T. Dog (No Intro as well): 3
Back when you maybe got one game a year, my brother and I had a choice to buy this or Hydlide and we choose Hydlide... in a life full of poor choices this one haunts me the most.
Ouch, I've done the same over the years buying games and making terrible choices.
@@Steph_7d7 Yep, we picked one of the worst NES games of all time, it was literally unplayable.
The tunes in those games were divine. What a lovely aesthetic.
Oh man I love Faxanadu, bugs and all. Great level design, excellent music, and for the NES a good story.
One of my favourite NES games tbh. What a unique atmosphere.
This game forces me to recall some of my fondest NES memories.. I picked it up at the swap meet for 10 bucks in 1990. My 9 year old self did not turn this game off until I finished it. Super good times!
Ah yes, my first Souls game.
I will die unhappy because we never got a followup to this wonderful game.
My favorite thing about this game was the world tree setting, I really think they did a good job of implementing it given a NES's resources. Especially in the third section where you're up in the "branches" area.
Edgar Winter looks absolutely STOKED to see you when you fly up the tower.
I remember renting this as a kid. As usual I sucked at it and my brother got hard into it.
I played it recently and realised how good it actually was. I'm glad you're covering the 8-bit games now, there's so many to chose from.
This is one of the games I have the most nostalgia for since its a "hidden gem". My best friend growing up owned it and we didn't know anyone else who did. He lived down the street so during the summer we'd hang out and play Nintendo every day and spent HOURS on this and barely ever got anywhere, but it was just so cool to us. Just one of my fondest childhood menories because it felt like this secret game only we knew about.
This game was so ahead of its time, it's ridiculous.
I remember when I was collecting as a kid in the mid 90s coming across this game in a thrift store for like 2 bucks and not know anything about it. Picked it up just because the cover art seemed intriguing. Me and my buddy played this thing like mad and it became one of my favorite NES games pretty quickly. Still have that copy today. If I remember correctly the name is a portmanteau of Famicom Xanadu.
Arguably the best non-mainstream RPG on the system.
I remember my cousin being pumped about this game's lack of a Game Over. It's a welcome feature on the NES library.
Faxanadu is without a doubt one of the best sort of "hidden gems" on the NES. It's fun, looks and sounds amazing, and for an NES rpg-ish game it's actually very palyable today. The NPCs actually tell you useful hints, and it's never so cryptic that it will hold you back for any longer stretches, even without a guide. Love this game, one of my absolute favorites on the NES.
It's also one of the few games on the system that goes for a grittier look, which makes it stand out a lot from the rest of the library. There are only a few other games that does this well, and the only one i can think of straight off of the top of my head is Batman, that also uses a lot of more muted colors in a fantastic way.
The only downside is the password, but hey...phones and emulators or virtual console type stuff kind of fixes that, so in a way it's better than ever today :)
Some of the most memorable moments (and music) in gaming for me. God damn those flying boots at the fountain - I had *NO IDEA* what I was doing there as a kid.
Loved this game, wasn't held back too much by the hardware and had nice music. A hidden gem, no question.
Hungry Goriya and Sandman from ECW mentioned in the same video!?!? SNESdrunk, you never cease to make me smile!
This re-review was kinda a pleasant surprise ✌🏼 I used to have this game and possibly still have some passwords written down too 😅 It was a almost infuriating game at times, but I managed to beat it back in the day. What I didn't know is that this release was a small portion of the whole Xanadu franchise from Japan. Those games are more similar to the Ys series, so it's very commendable they decided to follow the Zelda 2 route. Thanks for the video 👍🏼
Faxanadu got an A- from me. Through July 1990 NES, SMS, TG-16, and Genesis games, it's tied in the 5th spot. What a great game.
Wow, this brings back memories.
My step-brother had that game and when I was at my father's, I played the shit out of it.
Hearing you say it took 3 hours to finish broke my heart...Haha...because at that age, I didnt understand English so I didnt know what I was doing and I remember spending a whole afternoon farming the gold to get the first set of weapon/shield at the first store, where clearly, this early in the game, there was no way you would have that amount of gold without farming.
Good fun.
Like the subtle callout to another reviewer while their intro (from this game) played. very cool.
I still haven't played this, even though every review makes me want to. maybe this time.
This game has special meaning to me even though I never once owned it. I clearly remember that when I was a kid this game was featured on the Home Shopping Network. My mother saw how badly I wanted it and looked everywhere for her HSN card she hadn't used forever. Never found it and she took me to the store and I got another game. Why it sticks out in my memory, I have no clue, but its there.
Woohoo for more revisit videos! And name dropping another awesome RUclipsr. The retro world feels so big! Thanks for the great videos!!!
Come for the SNES. Stay for the Drunk.
Ah yes. Faxanadu. The NES Game with a broken password system. Amazing game to play through. Lots of fun and great music
Always happy to see Faxanadu get its due. Hudson is the only third-party company that worked with Falcom properties and really "got" them, I feel -- Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys on PC-Engine CD, as another example, is one of the best games in the entire Ys series (and one of the best action RPGs of its time in general), and that was pretty much purely Hudon's doing, as they strayed REALLY far from Falcom's outline for Ys IV and were just like, "Trust us, we know how to make this game awesome." And, like... they did! They really did!
If you're interested in playing what might as well be a more modern sequel to Faxanadu specifically, BTW, give Xanadu Next on PC a try. Falcom developed that one themselves and released it back in 2005 to mark the 20th anniversary of the Xanadu franchise, and though it's ostensibly meant as a sequel to mainline Xanadu... like, it's basically a sequel to Faxanadu. If you take Faxanadu and make it a 3D game, you pretty much get Xanadu Next. It has the same gameplay structure and feel, the same mood and atmosphere, the same ambient and incredible style of soundtrack, etc. -- it really, really feels like they were channeling Hudson and honoring the work Hudson did on this classic Xanadu spinoff, and it's an absolutely wonderful game as a result.
Awesome review man! This is the first time I heard and seen this game! Thanks for helping me learn about another nes title!
Two quick pro tips:
1. Dying makes you revive with an amount of gold determined by your level. If you're tired of gold farming, try dying and coming back. It can make you start with more money and it's much faster.
2. DO NOT PICK UP THE PENDANT! The pendant is supposed to increase your attack power, but due to a bug, it actually decreases it. There are patches and game genie codes to fix this bug if you want to go that route.
...a-a-and here's the pendant comment I was looking for!
Displaced Gamers actually talked about this pendant on his channel and explains more about this bug and 'correcting' it.
ruclips.net/video/FeemO9yW-hs/видео.html
But yeah, in playing the vanilla NES version of the game, the Pendant acts as more of a HARD MODE curse item.
I never knew Hungry Goriya's theme was a Faxanadu tune! 😮
Everytime I watch her video I feel a deep and old sense of failure and loss, because it's the song that plays when your guy dies. I played this so much as a child.
This is the first time you did a NES game review. Now I wanna see more NESdrunk vids.
Me too!!
One of my NES favorites. Faxanadu is such a cool and atmospheric adventure for the time. Still fun to play through to this day.
Ah! The Famicom Xanadu (FaXanadu)
great game
Omg I have known about this game for over a decade and never made that connection 😅
Don't feel bad
I've known this game my entire life and never made the connection XD
This was one of my favorites growing up! Glad to see it's still loved today!
I love this game. Love it. A remake one day would be sweet. I thought the meteor changed some dwarfs either way all a good story. Thanks for the videos Duder.
I played this game before I knew how to read, so I didn't ever make it very far. For the longest time I just knew it as "the naked guy" game (the player character starts off in a loincloth). I had to go back to it eventually because the music haunts me to this day.
Great video.
Faxanadu will always hold a special place in my heart. I used to rent games from the local video store and the day my pet hamster died, I was pretty upset, but my parents encouraged me to play the new game I rented, and I got lost in the world of Faxanadu. Thanks for reminding me that this special little game exists out there. I should try and pick up a permanent copy.
My cousin had this game and a NES (I was a Sega kid growing up). I would run to his room to play this whenever we visited, really addicting game.
Nintendo thought so highly of this game they brought it to the US themselves and gave it ample coverage in Nintendo Power.
It's worth noting that this is in the Dragon Slayer series (hence Faxanadu: Famicom Xanadu).
I love how the game has this depressing vibe, especially the fog area.
I loved this game when I played it as a kid in the 80's. You seem to have hit that nostalgia nerve in the comments below. Your review cracks me up and I agree with so many of the comments below: atmosphere and music could make or break an NES game. They really did it right with Faxanadu. Grinding this game for hours with my friend in his basement are some of my fondest early NES memories. Thanks NESDrunk! You rock!
Love your videos. Nice to discover games that don't get talked about much.
Loved your mantra. Very enlightening. I'll be meditating on it later.
Great vid! This is probably my favorite underrated NES title. Will always take the time to watch a new Faxanadu video!
So many fond memories of this game! I had a sleepover with a bunch of kids in the 90's and ill never forget this older kid pronounced this game "Fax-a-na-da" like fax machine.
One of my favorite NES games. It's filled with all kinds of unique enemies and items, in an interesting world build, and the music is so catchy. I haven't played it in years and yet every once in a while I'll start humming some of the music and get the urge to revisit the game.
Oh man. This brings back memories. I remember renting this game, back in the day where you could rent videos and video games, and played it over the weekend. Still hooked on the game, I remember I got very close to the end of the game and on Monday morning, I was 'too sick to go to school' lol. Ended up playing i that whole day and finishing it. Ahh memories....
Grinding to get the magic shield in the beginning taught me that its worth the effort to make the game easier even if only briefly
Faxanadu was released in the US in August 1989. It along with the Batman soundtrack were what I spent hours with during winter break from school in 1989. Good times!
I remember this being a Faolivia Newton-John movie before it was a game.
This is one of my all-time favorites for NES (though we pronounced the first part as in fax machine). There are so many cheap deaths in this game and you are spot on with the momentum and tiny areas. When I was a teenager, I could sometimes have a temper and the one time I broke an NES controller was on this password system and, at the time, losing hours of progress since the last pass I wrote down. I remember being so psyched when I found the bug where I could spend all my gold and just go back to the starting guy and get more. I don't get the Zelda 2 reference, though. Maybe because I played this first, but they don't really seem the same at all to me. Thanks as always for the fantastic vids and nostalgia kick! Bonus: more than one of my friends misread "black onyx" as "black oinks" phonetically. Back in the '80s in the middle of nowhere, the pronunciation of new words was hit-or-miss, especially if the brain re-arranges the letters into a more familiar pattern. I will say that the music from this game lives rent-free in my head more than 35 years later.
This was one of my favorite games as a kid and it really does age well. I ended up finding it at goodwill in the mid 2000s for a few dollars and gave it to a friend that still had an NES and it was still fun. Then a few years ago bought it a 3rd time at a local game store and I still like it now. I think people are catching on now to how good it is, but it was very underrated back in the day, it one of the games you’d always see on sale in stores or for like 5 dollars at the flea market.
Possibly my favorite NES game or at least the most memorable. I remember this from back when my only access to games was a rental, so they all had timers to me.
I remember in Captain N they traveled to this world.
Wait what? What's that?
@@LeoStaley just remember. You asked. LoL
ruclips.net/video/RyoUecpe_wU/видео.htmlsi=QjmBv_myUNLQVhDm
I'm glad you finally gave this game it's fair due. I remember playing this one way back when and loved it.
One of my favorite games since the early 1990s. Love the style of gameplay and the music.
Hungry Goriya shout out!
I've watched so many of your videos. Whether it's just to see your take on a game I love, or find out about games (like this one) that I've never heard of. Love all of it, but nothing in any other video prepared me for the mantra bit in this. I was eating and it caught me so off guard I nearly choked, and then I started laughing at myself for that happening in the first place. Still laughing a good minute or two later now trying to type out this comment. I don't know what about that got to me so deeply, but it's fricking great lmao.
Anyone else see "Faxanadu" and hear Abba's Waterloo in their head?
🎵Fax-anadooo! You are a side-story of Xanadu! 🎵
More like a branding decision, but yeah
I had never heard of this back in the 1980s. Thank you for reviewing it. It looks great for something from that era. I hope that this gets a port into the Switch store.
My first NES game, didn't fully appreciate it until several years later. Great underrated gem on the system.
I was very lucky to grow up with this game, and I'm glad you dig it too. Easily one of the best OSTs on the NES.
A game I have thought of occasionally over the years since 1988 or whatever. I remember it was a real challenge beating the game as a kid. Just last week I finally fired it up again for a playthrough 35 years later! Classic and underrated game.
This is a great game that I loved and beat in the late 80s. I played it again about 4 years ago from beginning to end in about 2 and half hours and enjoyed every second of it. These are great games made in an era where you don't have 1000 other things vying for your attention and all these different options that you can do simultaneously like playing this while talking to friends, watching Netflix or a movie.
Awesome Vid loved The Sandman ref ❤❤
I love Faxanadu. It's been one of my favourite nes games since I was a kid. I always loved the music and art design in the game and the setting, even though I didn't really understand the setting when I was a kid. I was never able to complete it when I was young though, I got as far as the Misty area but could never get past it. it wasn't until a few years ago I actually sat down and played through the whole thing. It was just as fun now as it was then, maybe more fun because I could actually finish it.
This was one of those criminally underrated games, back in the day. I never have beaten it, because it really is punishingly hard, but I always felt that 'charm' you mention, too.
Thumbs up for being one of the only RUclipsrs to pronounce the name correctly
I just ordered this game. So excited to finally play it!
‘Float up to meet Edgar Winter.’ Awesome line.
Back in the late 80s one of my dad's friends let him borrow this and Crystalis and they both became two of my favourite games of all time, even to this day. I still talk about this game all the time because it's strange how it's not NEARLY as well known as other contemporary titles. While everything you mention in the video is true, probably the thing that sticks out to me the most (besides the incredible music- my alarm is STILL 'Daybreak') is the odd art style. I can't think of a single game that does the art in a similar style as this, from the colour choice to the weird almost 'fuzzy' look of the world. It definitely helps to make the game feel incredibly unique.
If you're going to do more NES videos and want a bizarre, cool, and CHALLENGING game I strongly recommend trying Faria; A World of Mystery and Danger. I was never able to beat this until relatively recently.
I remember renting this one, was a neat one! may have to track it down for the collection when I get back around to NES stuff again!
Good review! I remember a neighbor kid lending this game to me when I was little. It was my first action RPG and I could not get into it. I will have to give it a fair shake now as an adult as it looks pretty good.
There are also some solid patches for this game currently. There is one that removes the password system in favor of a traditional save system as well as others that make the default font cleaner and one that fixes a bug for the pendant item.
Patches? We don't need no stinkin patches!
My grandma wouldnt get my Bayou Billy cause she thought it looked to violent, I picked this instead and boy am I glad I did, what a classic. Thanks Grandma!
Lol, that's some nostalgia nuke right here. I remember seeing Faxanadu in a shop once, sitting between other NES-games, and giggling about the funny name. Sadly, our parents did not have enough money for gaming consoles, and we skipped the NES entirely. But I still remember seeing Faxanadu's box sitting on that shelf and wondering what kind of game would have this kind of weird name.
I always pronounced the "x" when I player the game in the late 80's, rented it several times and made the passwords work a few times , painstakingly writing them in a notebook I had for passwords from multiple games. Good memories.
As soon as you started playing that one song, I went "Oh my gosh thats where hungry goriya gets her theme from". And then you mentioned her 😂. Both of your channels are fantastic!
Did a recent replay myself actually. It's very much a "le hidden gem," and pretty quick for a playthrough once you know what you're doing. Solid combat for what it is, interesting leveling system, and decent level design. Top notch NES game for sure.
Had this as a kid and I remember playing it once and not liking it then a while later, I fired it up with a friend and we ended up completing it together! Good times! 😊
Pretty generous of you to talk about this game and not mention the Pendant bug! But yes, this is a great game and I've played it through a few times over the years. There's a serious difficulty spike around the last few areas, so it's rare that my playthroughs end in victory, but it is entertaining in any case.
Faxanadu is one of the all time overlooked greats on the NES. The art design, colours, music, setting and tone all come together to make one of the most unique experiences out there. There's just nothing else like it. The one thing that ever came close to matching it, IMO, was Dark Souls. Anyone who loves the Souls series owe it to themselves to go back and experience Faxanadu.