I have a new guilty pleasure. This game is surprisingly short by ARPG standards but that is much appreciated. The world feels lived in, with such a homely hub town. Once I sat down to play it each time I couldn't stop playing it. The soundtrack and effects are frozen in that Y2K vibes that hits a nerve with me. It reminds me a lot of older Korean MMOs from the time and flash games, where you just mindlessly grind and fight adorable monsters. I have to give it up to this game just for the fact it made me map out each map to figure out what the fuck was going on.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

I remember reading parts of this poem when I first played Kentucky Route Zero. There was a section in the game simply called “Xanadu” where this poem was referenced and it was one of the most intriguing and weird levels in the already very weird game. A couple of years later, the very same poem was referenced again in season 4 of the Fargo TV show of all places. Though only the first line of the poem was read aloud here (and though it felt somewhat out of place), I immediately recognized the words.

And I remembered.

I remembered that, a couple of years prior I had played a game that had the word “Xanadu” in its title. I remembered that it was part of a series of games that were kind of a big deal in the JRPG genre. The Xanadu game series is a relatively small collection of RPGs that were conceived as a sub-series of “Dragon Slayer”, Nihon Falcom’s groundbreaking and genre-defining franchise. Before the Trails-series, there was Dragon Slayer, going back as far as the 1980s and thus, being one of the very first JRPGs in general. Xanadu spawned as a sequel to the main series in 1985 with “Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu” and became a beast of its own shortly after. Since then, there have been a number of releases in this spin-off series, the most popular of which is probably “Faxanadu” for the NES.

Let me preface this review by saying that I played none of these games. I’m familiar with various games developed by Falcom like Trails and Ys. However, as most Dragon Slayer and Xanadu games very released quite some time before I was born, I never managed to catch up on them so far. For some reason though, I did play Xanadu Next. I cannot explain how this game caught my attention. When you go to the game’s store pages on Steam or GOG, you will find a pretty generic trailer and some screenshots that look like they were taken from a mobile game with super blocky graphics, outdated and washed-out textures and clunky controls. And you wouldn’t be too far off from the truth with that assessment. You see, Xanadu Next has a strange history. Originally released for the Nokia N-Gage in 2005, the game was ported to PC the same year with some major adjustments. Yes, you read correctly, this game originally came out on the N-Gage, Nokia’s weird phone/handheld gaming device from the early 2000s which was probably one of the most bizarre pieces of gaming hardware that ever saw the light of day. The version I played was the 2016 re-release available on modern platforms. This review is a collection of thoughts I have on the game after playing it many years ago for the first time and replaying it just recently.

So, for whatever reason, I picked up Xanadu Next for a couple of bucks when it was on sale quite some time ago and just felt like giving it a shot. It was one of these games that I approached with low to zero expectations. I knew it was a dungeon crawler with Zelda-like puzzle design and exploration, featuring an ARPG combat system. So, on one of these lazy Saturday mornings, I started playing. Right after the intro I felt that the game was special in some way. The intro itself felt strangely subtle, melancholic and simply beautiful. It was mysterious and intriguing and made me want to know more about the characters and places shown in the cinematic. But it wasn’t only the intro video that hooked me. Right from the start, the story of Xanadu Next is presented in the form of a report written by one of the characters relevant to the events that happen in the course of the game. In a way, this approach reminded me of the beginning of Final Fantasy Tactics, one of my favorite games of all time in which Arazlam Durai depicts the events of the game that were recorded in the Durai papers. And the similarities to FFT don’t stop there. The setup of the story presents a similar conflict as in Square’s masterpiece. I’m not going to spoil anything here but there is a level of political intrigue and scheming that strongly reminded me of the more politically motivated plots of the Ivalice games. I really liked how the different aspects of the story of Xanadu Next were presented. You hear about the more high-level political stuff from the locals of the town that functions as the Hub-area of the game. You walk into stores, talk to people and every now and again, they will tell you what’s going on in the capital, and how these events may impact the local people and the area of Lyndale – the princedom in which this quaint little town is situated. I also really liked how the big-scale political events are mirrored in the personal story of the protagonist and the events that are depicted in the game. Again, I’m not going to give away too much here but I definitely had the feeling that the writers knew what they were doing in the story-department.

Once you leave the town, you’re directly thrown into the action. Xanadu Next plays like a traditional Action RPG that reminded me of the older Diablo titles in some ways. You have a top-down view with an angled, rotatable camera and hack-and-slash your way through hordes of enemies in the hopes of finding gold and loot. Controlling the main character can be done in two ways – via controller or mouse. I have to say that no matter which input device you choose, controls never feel great. If you play via mouse controls, you’ll be pretty slow in most situations. Sometimes, when enemies group up on you, you’ll have a hard time getting around and avoiding them. They’ll probably surround you and there’s nothing you can do. On top of that, you’ll be clicking a lot, and I mean a lot. For every attack, you click, same goes for special attacks, spells and so on. That can get old very fast. Using a controller for movement and combat generally feels better, more fluid and easier to control. However, there’s another aspect to consider which is menu navigation. You’ll spend some time in menus and doing so with a mouse works great but poorly with a controller. What worked best for me was using the mouse for movement and combat, using left click for attack, right click for special abilities/spells and the mouse wheel for rotating the camera. It wasn’t perfect but it worked. Overall, I would say that camera and controls are flawed but work fine for the most part. There are sections of the game where the camera is fixed and sometimes that is a real pain. Enemies hiding behind pillars attacking you while you can’t do anything about it because you can’t see anything is super frustrating. Thankfully, these situations are far and few between and don’t take away from the overall experience.

So, how does Xanadu Next keep you motivated to play besides rewarding you with loot and gold? Well, for me it was all about exploration. There’s always stuff to find like new equipment, special key items or so-called guardian cards that give special bonuses and which can be leveled up as well. The game has a Metroidvania-like approach to exploration. You will constantly find places where you cannot proceed unless you have the right item. So, you better start taking notes of things to check out later because the game won’t mark these places on your map. The map, that is displayed in the left corner of the screen, shows you a very basic outline of the current level which can guide you to new places you haven’t been before. However, it has no markings and becomes completely useless in multi-level dungeons (looking at you Castle Strangerock) since it only has a flat 2D design. Exploration is still very fun and rewarding but be aware that you will probably have to backtrack every now and again. There are maps online that can help you with that and especially in the later sections of the game, I was not ashamed to use them.

In addition to exploration, one of the core motivators for me was how the game handles skills and equipment. As in many JRPGs like Final Fantasy IX, Xanadu Next binds abilities to weapons, that you find and buy throughout the game. By using those for a time and raising your proficiency level, you learn the skill innately and can use it with any other weapon henceforth. I love this system. It pushed me to experiment with different weapons and skill. I’m usually one who sticks to one strategy or set of equipment if it works. Often times, that leads to me missing out on some good gear, that would make a game easier or more fun for me. In this game however, I was constantly swapping out weapons, checking new abilities and trying out different combinations. One little anecdote here: It took me about 8 hours to realize that “passive skills” had to be dragged into the skill bar on the top of the HUD just like active skills. Naively, I thought any passive skill learned would be applied automatically at all times. But, when I learned “One-handed”, a skill that lets you one-hand any two-handed weapon, my character kept using both hands. That’s when I knew I hadn’t used any of my passive skills at all up until this point :D Another thing that kind of bugged me was that, for using special items (e.g. rings that can poison the enemy), you have to drag them into the item bar which only has 4 slots. The thing is, there are some key items that you only need in special situations like activating a portal or breaking a wall. I found it somewhat annoying to always having to swap items as you need to use them quite often. So yeah, menu navigation and item selection aren’t the smoothest or self-explanatory at all or maybe I’m just a doofus :D

Since we’re talking about things that “bugged” me, let’s briefly address the issue of bugs. There were a few and although there wasn’t any major game-breaking stuff, I did have to restart the game every now and again to get rid of them. Basically, there were 3 distinct bugs that kept happening:
1. Text keeps hanging in the air – This happened only a few times when leaving the weapons shop for instance and the dialogue text would simply not go away.
2. Character spinning like crazy :D – This was funny as hell. Some kid in the town kept rotating like it was on drugs. Also, in one of the later dramatic cutscenes, one of the main characters did the same thing which had me burst out laughing :D
3. My favorite one – Sometimes the game would start displaying collision boxes as wireframes over certain objects. I even had that happen in a boss battle which let me predict some of their attacks.

So, I hope I could illustrate why I like Xanadu Next so much. It’s definitely a janky game which has its flaws like outdated and blocky graphics, janky camera and clunky controls, bugs, tedious menu navigation and a map that could use some additional features. On top of that, the game requires you to do some grinding every now and again which can become quite tiresome. But Xanadu Next just oozes charm. I just loved exploring this world and finding pieces of lore in the form of stone tablets and memoirs. I loved how the protagonist’s sister would then translate these tablets and reward you with little lunch packages she made for you. I loved the town’s people like the dancers in front of the shop or the guy in the weapons store commenting the events of the game. I loved the fact that I always felt like I was unravelling a mystery that lay dormant for hundreds of years. Some characters quite literally slept for centuries after being cast into stone and I loved how, one by one they were awakened and offered more bits of lore and backstory. All in all, this is one of the few, if not the only game, that kind of remind me of Vagrant Story. It just has a very similar vibe when it comes to story progression, exploration, skill progression and so on. It even has similar box puzzles and they are just as annoying as they were in Vagrant Story :D I haven’t talked much about the music but, as you can expect from a Falcolm game, it is absolutely stellar. If you’re looking for a special kind of dungeon crawler full of mystery, wonder and subtle storytelling and can keep up with the jankiness of it all, Xanadu Next is for you. It’s a hidden gem if I’ve ever seen one.

Wow what can I say. Surprised this game isn't talked about more as when I finished this game it instantly struck me how important this game is. What we have here is a N-Gage game revamped and put onto PC. I want you to sit back and understand how crazy that sounds that a N-Gage game got revived and to boot is simply an amazing experience. Sadly some bugs and audio issues do hold this game back from being a 4 1/2 stars BUT that doesn't really mean much this game is simply amazing for its time.

This is a Falcom game so you should know what you are getting into when starting this game. You get an amazing OST with a very good cast of characters and world with a good story to be the cherry on top. This game plays a bit more slower in terms of combat compared to other RPGs in the genre but that doesn't hold it back at all as I still found the combat to be very fun as you can build your character in many ways which I always enjoy.

I truly believe this is a game every Falcom fan or just RPG fan should play through once. If you have a PC Please purchase this game on steam and experience the greatness of Xanadu next!!

Probably one of the most overlooked Falcom games out there.

Xanadu Next is a top down action RPG with an emphasis on exploration-driven level design and stat progression. Although the combat feels a bit awkward at times and the mechanical depth isn't all that high, it is carried by great "metroidvania" style level design and feels like a nice middle ground between games like Ys which are the epitome of watching numbers go up as you hit things with the same few swords and games like Diablo where the metagame dominates over moment-to-moment gameplay. Replays are encouraged through a performance grading system at the end of the game.

Xanadu Next may have dated graphics, but the atmosphere and lore is pretty top notch. I also like how the game mechanically-incentivises you to get invested in the lore by giving you exp and healing items for reading text entries you find while exploring, which is something I rarely encounter in games. The soundtrack is different from most of Falcom Sound Team's usual fare but it's different in the best possible way, and Xanadu Next's soundtrack is probably my favourite Falcom OST in a non-ys game.

Another thing that was pleasantly surprising while playing is that the boss fights actually kinda slap. The bosses basically feel like ark-engine Ys game boss fights and that style of design still very much works in this kind of slower paced exploration-driven ARPG. They aren't as good as the bosses in Oath in Felghana or Origin but I would personally say they are better than Ark of Napishtim's janky bosses.

The only big problem I have with Xanadu Next is the key system. You might expect the keys you rarely come across or buy from the town shop to unlock optional chests as is usually the case in dungeon crawlers, but nope. Keys are used to unlock any kind of locked door in any dungeon, and are consumed upon use. This is a problem because there are a LOT of these locked doors, and having to go back to town to get more keys whenever you run out kills the pacing of the game, especially in the early game before you find a warp item.

I also had some weird technical issues, which got worse the further I got through the game. NPC models started to glitch all over the place and the framerate sometimes tanked while playing (even though this is a game from 2005), even causing a crash to desktop at one point. The only way to fix these issues was to restart my computer entirely. Odd.

One of the best games I've played, personally reminded me of Dark Souls. Not because of the combat or the difficulty, but because of the atmosphere and the way Xanadu Next delivers its story (it's via items you actively have to seek out while exploring). Thankfully, it remains still very good.

Special mention to the final dungeon which is one of the best I've played. 10/10, would get lost in again

FOR STEAM DECK USERS: Make sure to set one of your trackpads to a mouse. This will make menuing MUCH easier, while still keeping the combat somewhat comfortable to use.

Short and sweet dungeon crawler. The dungeons are a lot of fun to explore, the combat is straightforward yet satisfying, and progression (though not very involved) feels great, and there's lots of weapons and skills (magic especially) to fuck around with. The music manages to both complement the atmosphere of the game, and still be a joy to listen to. Much like the game itself, the story is also pretty simple, but still very engaging nonetheless. Speaking of interesting, I also appreciate the presentation of lore and backstory; unraveling the mysteries of Xanadu through tablets and memoirs was pretty intriguing.

Xanadu Next is a wonderful game, and I'm holding out for a proper sequel someday; Tokyo Xanadu looks like garbage. We need less Persona, and more Vagrant Story.

A JRPG that gets almost everything right. It's very light on story but the setting is a decent enough backdrop for the action RPG combat, clever 'Guardian' system that lets you prioritise aspects of your character build, weapon abilities and spells that you can permenantly learn and then apply to anything in your arsenal and - crucially - an occasional grind that feels relaxing rather than repetitive.

The combat is very basic but the little wrinkle in that you can dodge enemy attacks and do more damage from the rear, combined with some properly satisfying impact sound and visual effects feels good to use and fun to master.

There's a sprinkle of Ys, a touch of a dungeon crawler and a drop of Zelda in the mix here - a strong concoction and well worth ten hours of your time.

This game's only flaw is the idiotic key system. Someone realized it was dumb too because they have the bone carvings to make keys on the fly, but you'll still run out. It feels bad to make a deep run into a newly discovered dungeon and properly manage your health only to be thwarted by an unlocked door. You'll never buy enough!

Anyway Xanadu Next is a chill masterpiece. Music, art, and action is sublime. The story is not amazing but its doled out in a way that makes it better than it is. If your script isn't high literature, then at least make it important to the world and characters you've drawn up. It's like wrestling, the best actors can make me buy into even the dumbest plot.

I'm surprised at how much this game has stuck with me over time. I expected I'd enjoy it, but it well exceeded my expectations. I still think about the characters/story and listen to the OST on occasion.
There are some flaws though- most of the bosses weren't that great, the gamepad controls are kinda bad, and there can be some jank at times. However, this didn't hardly hamper my enjoyment of the game.
The combat is pretty straightforward but great nonetheless. Positioning is key, and you need to ration out your spells/skills and potions in order to get through long stretches of dungeon successfully. The dungeon crawling is the real meat & potatoes here. The puzzles and level design within them is practically master-class, and the aesthetic and atmosphere take it even further to make it something truly special. A real hidden gem if you ask me.

Booted up the game and presented a cutscene and opening segment to set the tone for the entire game. Mystery, a feeling of the golden age has passed and the future is unknown. A tale that far exceeds you and do not deserve to see the full picture.

I was having a lot of fun for the 1st half, had a mystery building while having a good side plot happening at the same time between the protag and the knight meeting at the beginning. I like the potency mechanic, the enemies are unique and found myself overwhelmed when fighting a group of enemies. When I saw the stats and get to choose where my points go into, I was excited as I’m a megaten fan, I love things like this as it gives the game replayability.
What carried this game the most has to be the map design, each area is memorable in the way you have to navigate and keep notes to come back to certain segments. The transition of area to area felt natural and rewarding to opening gates, the puzzles, and secret areas light my inner light bulb nearly each time.

Then at the 2nd half, the budget of the game really started to show as like the “newer” enemies are reskins with no new added mechanics to them except maybe a status element change. I learnt that building your stats mean nothing and are forced to conform, by putting your stats all-rounder as it’s needed to meet a certain threshold to equip this armor, weapon and so on. Then it’s easy found out that magic found is far and few except the upgrades in the shop of course. The spells/skills are found or gotten are underwhelming to say the least. The skills that are in the game are so basic the enjoyment to come out of them drains quickly. However, I did find a lot of enjoyment putting status elements onto the blade! Bonking monsters on the head with an electric blade feels great every time when you hit them from the back and the sfx comes along with it.

I feel the skill mechantics could be more fun if there was more to play around with and yes, I would go out and grind a weapon’s potency for skills or bonk enemies for drops, I still feel a content drought in the skill mechanization. The same goes for the guardians, they don’t add enough to the table. Enough to switch some around like what your intent is. Trying to grind a weapon’s potency? Add the guardian to help the grind. Going into a boss fight? Maybe should add tue guardian that gives you more skill points so you can use more spells. However, the guardians impact wasn’t enough to make builds around the guardians.

Skeleton keys mean little to nothing, the price for them is so low and finding bones to sell is incredibly easy to find as you can just cut grass to get them. It feels like there’s 0 purpose for them to be here as it just became something to drop some coins into that makes little impact in gameplay except extending the game’s time by 30 minutes if that.

With all that I listened above, it felt like a slug to get through and the game was over layered to look bigger than it really wanted to be. The game felt bloated and so I am wasting my time continuing. I made it to the final dungeon and it’s been 2 months since I touched the game, I have no plans to go back either.

I feel disappointed than frustration, there’s a lot to the game I enjoyed and mechanics I feel can be excellent, but they fall flat to implement it and make the experience feel fresh throughout. When for once I thought falcom was gonna get a W, it choked ;(

its age definitely shows with some dated features, the most obvious example being the questionable key system, but I personally didn't mind it. my pain point was frequently opening the inventory to swap accessories or skills depending on the situation, it was the one thing that got bothersome over time. another trivial concern was how I was playing on a controller and having to use a joystick for cursor movement got old fast. neither of these are much of a problem when it takes only 14 hours to complete as tracked in-game, including about one hour of grinding weapon proficiencies.

more importantly, I found the setbacks to be forgettable boss fights and a combat system that I just couldn't be bothered with fully engaging in anymore. the inventory and equipment management has its own charm to it, but after a certain point I got tired of running behind everything to capitalize on crits and just facetanked with potions half the time. it's a shame because it's cleverly designed, I just lost interest in it over the course of my playthrough.

none of that should understate its successes however. the soundtrack and ambience really set the tone, giving the game a strong sense of atmosphere, although it can get repetitive when you frequent an area for too long... especially that shrill flute in the Harlech Village theme. progression in general feels pretty good in terms of both leveling and the story. the plot is presented well, I found myself actually getting emotional at the ending which doubles as a testament to the game's overall charm. dungeons are intelligently designed and backtracking never feels like a slog, in part thanks to the shortcuts. puzzles are implemented well too; they make you think without taking too long to solve, they feel rewarding, and they're never too frequent.

with all things considered, this easily overlooked game really does deserve its flowers. I played Ys Origin way back in 2017 and loved it, yet I only just found out about Xanadu Next even existing. I'm pleasantly surprised everything came together in the way that it did, it's truly a hidden gem.

"How meaningless can pursuing a role be?"
This is what Xanadu Next was about for me.
If destiny is fated, we have no other option but to wait for our time to play the role given to us. This is the dilemma faced by our characters in this game.
However, it is not a matter of changing our destiny or breaking away from fate. In fact, it shows how important it is to accept that time is an essential part of our lives. Waiting can be the only option, and some things only need time to work themselves out.
Pleasing aesthetics, excellent gameplay, and a nice story.

I had never heard of this game before, until recently, and I'm pretty surprised given how much I enjoyed it! Xanadu Next is a top down isometric dungeon crawler that can be played in it's entirety with just your mouse (this is huge.) I'm a big fan of any game that can be played one handed with the mouse, so I can slump over like a corpse in my chair while I play.

The combat is nothing to write home about, its your standard stuff. Left click near an enemy to attack, right click from a distance to cast magic. There is a fun 'back stab' mechanic where you deal more damage if you attack an enemy from behind, even bosses! This encourages you to think more about your positioning around enemies attacks and/or how to kite them around so you can whale on their backside.

Something else I enjoyed about the game was the key economy. Every dungeon interior you explore is going to require many many keys to make your way through. You can buy keys from the shop keeper, however every time you purchase one they go up in price. Another way to acquire keys is by crafting them from bones which will rarely drop when defeating monsters. While crafting keys can help when your in a pinch knee deep into a dungeon. You can sell your bones to the shop keep to dramatically lower the price of keys he sells. The game explains this mechanic at the very start of the game. Unfortunately, like a gamer, I skipped the tutorial. Not knowing this mechanic, I was buying keys at upwards of 200 coins at one point (not good!) This felt super frustrating at the time. Then randomly an NPC I talked to explained the key economy to me and I realized I was playing the game wrong for 4 hours. This doesn't affect my rating of the game at all since this was my own fault, I just thought it was funny to share. The key economy system is fun though.

Something that's fairly common with all video games ever, Xanadu Next begins to lose steam around the half way point and drags real hard. Near the beginning of the game you have to do a fair amount of grinding to keep up with the level of enemies. Foolishly I thought the amount of grinding would stay consistent throughout the entire game. I was wrong! A LOT of grinding is necessary if you intend to keep up with some of the late game boss encounters. This would be a bigger issue if it weren't for the fact that the game is so easy to pick up and play. If I've got a spare few minutes I can easily open the game and grind for a little bit, save, and pick it back up later. If it wasn't for this fact I probably would have dropped the game 3/4s of the way through.

XP is earned at an incredibly slow pace and sometimes it feels so disheartening to see that level bar move so. SO slow. If you defeat an enemy around the same level as you you earn around 20-ish XP, and if you're using the fully leveled Guardian of Flugel (which grants more XP) you'll typically get an average of 25 XP per monster kill. Some of the late game level ups requires thousands of XP. It can feel rough. Luckily the game will offer up some rooms that feel specifically designed to farm XP. Doesn't make it fun, but it makes it less frustrating.

I didn't care much for the story and opted to skip most of it. There is a lot to sink your teeth into here if you're feeling so inclined... If not, it's still a fun game you can turn your brain off to and watch those funny numbers go up.