Xanadu Scenario Ii
Harald Atta
Xanadu: Scenario 2 is an expansion pack to Xanadu: Dragon Slayer II. Just like the original game, it is not particularly story-driven; once again, the player is thrown into the medieval fantasy world as a lone nameless hero, who must explore the maze-like environments and stay alive in the process.
This add-on scenario features new, more complex maps, new enemies (including bosses), and a trading system which allows purchasing items in one shop and selling them for profit in another. Otherwise, the gameplay system remains identical to that of the predecessor; with side-scrolling exploration, separate top-down battle screens, "bumping" action-based combat, and role-playing system with levelling up, equipment, etc.
For 2019's Alternative to E3 series, we're looking at a bunch of Falcom games! I've loved this RPG developer for a while and have been searching for an excuse to talk more about them, so that's what we're doing this year instead of poring over E3 trailers and news. Be sure to check Day -1 for more information via the table of links above.
Ys and The Legend of Heroes have become Falcom's biggest flagship properties, but the most venerable of the franchises Falcom regularly revisits is Xanadu. Named for the nigh-mythological summer capital of the Mongolian emperor Kublai Klan - who actually gets namechecked in these games, despite being set in a fictional fantasy world - the original Xanadu was released in 1985 for Japanese home computers. As with Dragon Slayer, Falcom's previous game, Xanadu has a side-scrolling perspective while exploring or in towns. However, this switches to a top-down view when encountering enemies - the protagonist sprite doesn't change, but they can now move in four directions as they defeat large numbers of enemies using crowd control and hit-and-run tactics.
Xanadu was enough of a success that Falcom revisited it with an expansion pack the following year. Xanadu Scenario II still required the original Xanadu disks to play, but was so packed with new content - including some non-linear branching paths - that it practically served as a full sequel. Xanadu would be introduced overseas via its off-kilter Hudson-produced NES port, Faxanadu (a portmanteau of Famicom and Xanadu, "Famicom" being the NES's Japanese name), in 1987. After that, Falcom would occasionally resurrect the original spirit of Xanadu into fresh new reincarnations. In 1994 and 1995 they released Legend of Xanadu and Legend of Xanadu II: a two-part graphical reimagining of Xanadu and Xanadu Scenario II that was exclusive to the PC Engine CD-ROM (i.e. the Japanese TurboGrafx-CD), and in 2005 they released Xanadu Next for PC and - for some godforsaken reason - the Nokia N-Gage. The most recent Xanadu entry is the 2015 Vita game Tokyo Xanadu (or more specifically the 2017 Tokyo Xanadu eX+ remaster for PS4 and PC), which moved the franchise to a near-future, Persona-style setting. Given this trend, we'll probably see the next Xanadu game in 2025.
Xanadu's various remakes and reimaginings retain some of the trademark innovations of the 1985 original, as well as new mechanics and features inspired by same. Chiefly, up until Tokyo Xanadu they were single-character dungeon-crawlers with hub towns and action-RPG combat. Players could also choose to prioritize magic or melee strength: there was a separate XP gauge for both that would only increase with magic or weapon usage, respectively. Ahead of its time was the idea of weapon experience: the more you used a weapon, the stronger it became, at least up to a fixed point. When deciding to switch to a new weapon, players often had to suffer a stat drop despite the new weapon being stronger as it meant effectively resetting the weapon XP bar back to zero - however, it wouldn't be long until the new weapon surpassed the old. This also meant that if you hadn't found new gear in a while, what you had equipped could at least continue to keep up with the stronger enemies you were fighting.
I'm fortunate to own versions of both Xanadu Next and Tokyo Xanadu eX+ - both are available digitally via Steam and GOG, and also PS4 in the case of Tokyo Xanadu - so today I'll be playing the former. It's a bit more deferential to the original Xanadu - you can even find tablets that recount the story of it and its scenario pack - though still packed with enough new ideas of its own to be pretty fun. I'm considering playing more of it once E3 is over.
Worth noting here before we start that while the game itself is relatively old, the localization is as recent as 2016. That means the game is packed with handy tutorials and other user-friendliness inserted by the localization team at XSEED (if only they could've extended that same friendliness to its former staff, eh?).
I'm not 100% certain where I want to go for our final E3 alternative, having exhausted all the easily accessible Falcom franchises. Maybe I'll find some fancy older series to brandish in front of you all.
"If you didn't think there wouldn't be block-pushing puzzles in this game, shows what you know. Between these crates and the angled perspective (and the semi-tragic backstory), it's starting to feel a bit Vagrant Story-like."
Falcom-ry is an excellent pass time and is usually worth any RPG fans afternoon :). Never played this when it was released, only tried it when it came out on Steam and thought it was a decent RPG. Not quite crafted with a sprawling level of Ys or character driven game like the "Trails of" gamse but it has a simple sort of charm that gives the game a feel of what early JRPGs would have felt like if turn based combat was never a thing. I will say though, not trying to compare it to a souls game but I really like how the levels seem to spiral around in a way that reminds me of Majula in Dark souls 2. Find yourself near the end of a winding dungeon, smash a few walls down and end up busting through a wall in the middle of town. People should be more worried about me leaving holes here and there for monsters to climb out of.
Looking forward to when you do Tokyo Xanadu, seems like it might be too much like a Persona game but with fewer interesting characters, but I'll reserve my judgement until I play it and wonder why I would play it when I still haven't finished P5.
Escape from Twilight Zone: This was an adventure game that also used a first-person 3D maze, and no, it is not a licensed Twilight Zone product. Like with the PC-88 titles, you can find FM-7 ROMs out there, but probably not in isolation.
Faxanadu, by the way, is a spinoff of Xanadu, developed and published by Hudson Soft for the Famicom in Japan, and published by Nintendo in North America for the NES. So you at least can play a Dragon Slayer II-adjacent game in English with less effort, if you want to.
Brandish: Another action RPG from Falcom, Brandish received an SNES port in North America, but all of its other versions (PC-98, FM Towns, PC Engine CD) were in Japan. It would be remade as Brandish: The Dark Revenant for the Playstation Portable and released in North America in 2015, and you can still download it through the very annoying system Sony has setup if you want a PSP game in 2021.
Popful Mail: Yet another Falcom game that received just one North American release despite being available on a number of platforms, none of which have an English fan translation. Luckily, you can emulate the Sega CD and play Popful Mail in English that way: the Sega CD edition would not release until 1995, but it utilized all the space on those discs by adding in animated cutscenes, large character portraits, and voice acting to the action platformer.
Brandish II: The Planet Buster: The sequel to Brandish ended up on the PC-98 and the Super Famicom, and a fan translation was released for the latter way back in 2009, with the PC-98 translation releasing in 2017. It has not, to this point, been remade like the original was, and since that remake was a budget title that took six years to even get to North America after its Japanese release, we might not see one, either.
Lord Monarch Original: Lord Monarch got bumped to Windows in an updated form in 1996, and then additional versions released the following year First, a simpler version of the game, Pro, based on the Advanced release from years before. If you want to play in English, however, the updated version you want is Lord Monarch Online, which is not online but was freeware distributed that way.
Sorcerian Forever: A Windows release that added additional scenarios to the world of Sorcerian, which, sadly, is not fully translated, as the quest menus and dialogue have not been changed.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Azure: The second and final game in the Crossbell duology that links Trails from the Sky and Trails of Cold Steel into the massive story it all is has the same backstory as Zero. While its PSP release was in Japan alone in 2011, the fan translation arrived in 2021, just in time for the announcement that this, too, would be seeing an official North American release on Windows, PS4, and Switch in 2023.
Tokyo Xanadu: If you were wondering what Xanadu would be like in a more modern setting, well, this answers that question. The original version came out on the Vita, but the enhanced iteration from 2017, Tokyo Xanadu eX+, is also available on the Playstation 4 and Windows, and in both instances, worldwide.
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana: On the Vita in Japan in 2016, and available for North American Vita owners by the next year. It would also get a North American PS4 release in 2017, with Windows and Switch both landing it in 2018. Stadia received it in 2021, and there is an upcoming abridged version releasing for iOS and Android at some point in the future, too.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III: At this point you can clearly see what a small-ish studio with around 60 employees that makes the kind of massive games Nihon Falcom does can do in the modern world, and that is exactly one game per year. The Playstation 4 got the first North American edition of Cold Steel III in 2019, with the Switch and Windows seeing their own worldwide releases in 2020, and Stadia in 2021.
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