Staff Blog: Nintendo BaD System - Faxanadu

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Nintendo BaD System - Faxanadu

On 02/20/2019 at 10:18 PM by Matt Snee

Faxanadu is a case where I watched my younger brother play a game, something that happened more frequently as he grew up, and what I do now every year when he visits at Christmas. I never got into this game, but I liked watching him play it. He beat the damn thing at some point.

For some reason, I'm just enamored with sidescrolling action RPG's. I like Zelda 2, I like Battle of Olympus, and Faxanadu. There's a lot of indie games these days like that but surprisingly I haven't played a lot of them. But if I developed games, I would definitely make a game like this.

There was no battery pack in this game, so to save your progress you had to enter in a long ass password called "Your Mantra." "Remember your Mantra," the priest says when he gives it to you.

Even though I never played it, I have deep sentiment for this game. It just seems magical to me.

Comments

Super Step Contributing Writer

02/20/2019 at 10:29 PM

Interesting shot of a roller rink from the 70s ... Oh FAxanadu...

Joaquim Mira Media Manager

02/20/2019 at 10:36 PM

It's effing awesome!

KnightDriver

02/20/2019 at 10:45 PM

I remember seeing this on lists of games I was looking up. It always made the list but I never got a copy.

Cary Woodham

02/21/2019 at 08:47 AM

Faxanadu is an interesting game. It was made by Falcom, who did the Ys series. Another popular series they did was Xanadu. Since Faxanadu was on the Famicom (NES in Japan), they put a Fa in front of Xanadu and that's how it got its name. Although Faxanadu doesn't have much to do with the original Xanadu series. Oddly enough, I never really got into Faxanadu, but another NES Falcom game I did get into was Legacy of the Wizard, which strangely enough, has something to do with Faxanadu. You see, Xanadu had lots of spinoffs. Faxanadu was one. Dragon Slayer was another Xanadu spinoff, and Legacy of the Wizard is known as Dragon Slayer IV in Japan. So both games are kind of related. The cool thing about Legacy of the Wizard is Yuzo Koshiro did the soundtrack. Class dismissed.