Faxanadu

Imagine a world where the once noble Elf and Dwarf have split apart, magic has dried up, and mutated enemies creep along the branches of the giant World Tree. That's how Faxanadu welcomes you, one of the most distinctive action RPG titles of the entire eight-bit NES era. From the very first steps it's clear this isn't an ordinary platformer: it combines side-scrolling movement with the management of money, experience, spells, and equipment so elegantly that the game is still cited as one of the bridges between arcade action and the depth of Japanese role-playing games.

The name itself is a portmanteau of the words Famicom and Xanadu, and the game is an offshoot of the legendary computer series Xanadu by the Japanese studio Nihon Falcom. On the Famicom/NES it was published by Hudson Soft (with Nintendo handling the release for the Western market). The mechanic is built on collecting gold, with which you buy better armor, swords, magic, and keys from merchants, while experience raises your rank (title) and thereby your defense and maximum health. The world is connected by a system of doors and towns, so the sense of exploration here is much stronger than in an ordinary platformer.

For its time, Faxanadu excelled in atmosphere. The gloomy, melancholic music, gray-blue palette, and slowly unveiled story about the destruction of Elfland gave the game a mood that today is denser than in many more cheerfully tuned titles. Combat requires patience and timing of strikes, navigating between the tree's levels emphasizes orientation and backtracking, and defending against stronger opponents forces the player to think about when to invest in new equipment.

Culturally, Faxanadu joined the ranks of titles that showed Western players that Japanese action RPGs didn't have to be just Zelda or Dragon Quest. For many it was their first contact with the Xanadu brand and with Falcom's storytelling style. The game maintained cult status among collectors and NES fans and is still among the titles recommended in the retro community as a hidden gem of the console's library.

Thanks to the clear structure of titles and the gradual improvement of the character, Faxanadu offers a sense of growth you rarely enjoy in platformers. It's a game to be discovered gradually, not blazed through in one breath, and therein lies its longevity.

Why play it: For its unmistakable melancholic atmosphere and clever fusion of platformer and role-playing elements that makes Faxanadu one of the most unique titles in the entire NES library.