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endings
10-26-14 10:06 PM
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Vanelan
10-27-14 10:11 PM
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Like Zelda II -but stranger

 
Game's Ratings
Overall
Graphics
Sound
Addictiveness
Depth
Story
Difficulty
Average User Score
8
7
6
5
7
7
6
endings's Score
7
7
6
5
7
7
6

10-26-14 10:06 PM
endings is Offline
| ID: 1097443 | 1257 Words

endings
Level: 58


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Faxanadu. What is that? Its a side-scrolling, action-rpg. You visit towns, equip weapons, armor and magic spells, and venture out to save the kingdom. Its often fondly remembered for taking Zelda II's gameplay, fighting with swords in real time, sections of jumping and using magic - and it works well here. I'd even say it works better here than it did in Zelda II.

Story: 7
The story is rather unique. You are an unnamed traveler coming home, and the city you grew up in is at the base of the World Tree, a massive arboreal that has even more cities in its trunk and branches. It is dark times though. The tree is dying. The magic springs which nourish the tree have stopped.  The tree is home to both elves (your race- despite the lack of pointy ears), and dwarves - whom sadly you never really get to meet. There was an age old hatred between the two races, so they live far apart - but the elves blame them for whats going on. Turns out the dwarves are in fact at fault, but also have suffered, becoming twisted, horrible monsters. Your quest is to restore the water to the tree, and stop the evil menace that has befallen the dwarves and engineered this whole plot.
This story of evil being punished by their own doing, the world tree, it all smacks of a traditional fairy tales. I found the material quite enjoyable, if not exactly greatly written. The lack of meeting an actual dwarf and hearing their side disappointed me. Any dwarf you meet is just some horror to destroy. Boring.


Graphics: 7
While the score is high, I found plenty of faults. I'll discuss those first. 

The color palette is interesting, at best. The colors are often flat and earthy. This of course is probably because of the source of your adventure, being inside a living tree. But there is a LOT of one color at a time on the screen. Your character is often mostly one color. The backgrounds look flat,  although there is some shading and depth to them. I know the NES could not put a lot of colors on the screen at one time, but this feels like it was underused. This looked fine in NES times, but nowadays, the game is just not pretty. The ample brown roots and branches make way to grey walls, and only the villages and towns add bright splashes of color.

When you walk up to a shopkeeper or important person, a picture of them appears, often have a dusky reddish-pink hue that is not shown on the character sprites, making them look sunburned. They also blink constantly, its off putting. 

The script text is slow for me (i read fast), and was annoying. I also laughed at store owners asking me if I had "X golds?" not just gold.


I might just be weird.. but I'll put this here. The bread. The enemy types can drop money, and some drop bread, which can heal you. However, this is a pretty bad drawing of bread. it looks like a worm?


On the plus side, the player's look changes based on his equipped gear. That's right, if you get a 3 prong sword, it will show in his hands all the time now.

The monster sprites are very unique, and some quite disgusting. Giant faces with ape arms attached to them, a fly-headed enemy, these things reflect the twisted nature of of the story. There is a wide number of enemies and I was impressed they kept coming up with them.

The part with the fog (late in the game) looked really good. I wish more of the game made use of technical graphic features.

The graphics do have some great detail. In the key maker's shop for instance, you can see the keys hanging on hooks in the background. His character sprite is holding a cigarette and his portrait art also shows this. While its uncommon to see a smoking character in NES games, the fact they included that into his model was pretty good.  The king rubs his belly, I just want to put that in here. It kind of hilarious.


Sound: 6
I was not a fan of the music in this game. I struggled with finding what I didn't like about it, it just has a lot of flute/recorder sounds to it. If I had to choose tracks I like the most, I'd go with the tune from the shop keepers, and late in the game with the mist music. One sounds rather whimsical, and the other foreboding.  I know many people who enjoy the music to this game, and its not badly composed, nor 3-second loop cheese. I just have to surmise I dislike this only on personal taste. I cannot rate it lower than 6, it wouldn't be fair.


Addictiveness: 6
It tells its Brothers Grimm-type story but theres no real surprises here. This game is one you have to find places to save (churches) and come back to, but the passwords include lowercase and upper characters. I'm not going to take points off that, we are in the age of save states, but if you decide to use it, watch out.. Faxanadu takes some investment (though much less than traditional rpgs). You beat it, you may not come back to it. The choice to include real time fighting instead of windows and turn based fighting is a good choice and keeps you moving in this game.

Depth: 6
The journey is not especially long. I would argue other NES games like this (Zelda II, Battle of Olympus) are longer. However being an rpg, it does have levels, ranks, and the juggling of armor and other selections to add depth. The fact you see your progress physically on your characters selected gear is nice. Just a screenshot can tell you how far someone is in the game. There is fair amount of towns and items to buy, although the prices skyrocket fairly quickly. You do have to contend with the keys, and that can make things a bit frustrating, as you need to buy certain keys to move ahead, but the game doesn't tell you which ones you'll need - and they take up inventory. Having shoes that make you fly was neat, I wish there was a lot more of that.

Difficulty: 6
I don't think this is a particularly hard game, and as mentioned above, its not really long, so you could be done in just a few hours.. if you knew were to go. The place is a bit a maze, and with all the jumping - this game has way more platforming than you might think! You have to grab ladders above you and move sideways on them to get to an exit at the top of the screen, you have to fall down holes and sometimes its all a bit much. I found the jumping tedious after awhile. The combat is not so bad, despite your hero's inability to duck!! He can rapidly take hits though, with no real invulnerability frames, so watch out. As long as you can afford the gear upgrades, this is not a hard game if you know where to go.

Overall: 7
Faxanadu is perfect for the Zelda II lovers out there. The story is steeped in traditional fairy tale settings, and the combat is simple and enjoyable. I recommend it to any who like jumping and stabbing things!
Faxanadu. What is that? Its a side-scrolling, action-rpg. You visit towns, equip weapons, armor and magic spells, and venture out to save the kingdom. Its often fondly remembered for taking Zelda II's gameplay, fighting with swords in real time, sections of jumping and using magic - and it works well here. I'd even say it works better here than it did in Zelda II.

Story: 7
The story is rather unique. You are an unnamed traveler coming home, and the city you grew up in is at the base of the World Tree, a massive arboreal that has even more cities in its trunk and branches. It is dark times though. The tree is dying. The magic springs which nourish the tree have stopped.  The tree is home to both elves (your race- despite the lack of pointy ears), and dwarves - whom sadly you never really get to meet. There was an age old hatred between the two races, so they live far apart - but the elves blame them for whats going on. Turns out the dwarves are in fact at fault, but also have suffered, becoming twisted, horrible monsters. Your quest is to restore the water to the tree, and stop the evil menace that has befallen the dwarves and engineered this whole plot.
This story of evil being punished by their own doing, the world tree, it all smacks of a traditional fairy tales. I found the material quite enjoyable, if not exactly greatly written. The lack of meeting an actual dwarf and hearing their side disappointed me. Any dwarf you meet is just some horror to destroy. Boring.


Graphics: 7
While the score is high, I found plenty of faults. I'll discuss those first. 

The color palette is interesting, at best. The colors are often flat and earthy. This of course is probably because of the source of your adventure, being inside a living tree. But there is a LOT of one color at a time on the screen. Your character is often mostly one color. The backgrounds look flat,  although there is some shading and depth to them. I know the NES could not put a lot of colors on the screen at one time, but this feels like it was underused. This looked fine in NES times, but nowadays, the game is just not pretty. The ample brown roots and branches make way to grey walls, and only the villages and towns add bright splashes of color.

When you walk up to a shopkeeper or important person, a picture of them appears, often have a dusky reddish-pink hue that is not shown on the character sprites, making them look sunburned. They also blink constantly, its off putting. 

The script text is slow for me (i read fast), and was annoying. I also laughed at store owners asking me if I had "X golds?" not just gold.


I might just be weird.. but I'll put this here. The bread. The enemy types can drop money, and some drop bread, which can heal you. However, this is a pretty bad drawing of bread. it looks like a worm?


On the plus side, the player's look changes based on his equipped gear. That's right, if you get a 3 prong sword, it will show in his hands all the time now.

The monster sprites are very unique, and some quite disgusting. Giant faces with ape arms attached to them, a fly-headed enemy, these things reflect the twisted nature of of the story. There is a wide number of enemies and I was impressed they kept coming up with them.

The part with the fog (late in the game) looked really good. I wish more of the game made use of technical graphic features.

The graphics do have some great detail. In the key maker's shop for instance, you can see the keys hanging on hooks in the background. His character sprite is holding a cigarette and his portrait art also shows this. While its uncommon to see a smoking character in NES games, the fact they included that into his model was pretty good.  The king rubs his belly, I just want to put that in here. It kind of hilarious.


Sound: 6
I was not a fan of the music in this game. I struggled with finding what I didn't like about it, it just has a lot of flute/recorder sounds to it. If I had to choose tracks I like the most, I'd go with the tune from the shop keepers, and late in the game with the mist music. One sounds rather whimsical, and the other foreboding.  I know many people who enjoy the music to this game, and its not badly composed, nor 3-second loop cheese. I just have to surmise I dislike this only on personal taste. I cannot rate it lower than 6, it wouldn't be fair.


Addictiveness: 6
It tells its Brothers Grimm-type story but theres no real surprises here. This game is one you have to find places to save (churches) and come back to, but the passwords include lowercase and upper characters. I'm not going to take points off that, we are in the age of save states, but if you decide to use it, watch out.. Faxanadu takes some investment (though much less than traditional rpgs). You beat it, you may not come back to it. The choice to include real time fighting instead of windows and turn based fighting is a good choice and keeps you moving in this game.

Depth: 6
The journey is not especially long. I would argue other NES games like this (Zelda II, Battle of Olympus) are longer. However being an rpg, it does have levels, ranks, and the juggling of armor and other selections to add depth. The fact you see your progress physically on your characters selected gear is nice. Just a screenshot can tell you how far someone is in the game. There is fair amount of towns and items to buy, although the prices skyrocket fairly quickly. You do have to contend with the keys, and that can make things a bit frustrating, as you need to buy certain keys to move ahead, but the game doesn't tell you which ones you'll need - and they take up inventory. Having shoes that make you fly was neat, I wish there was a lot more of that.

Difficulty: 6
I don't think this is a particularly hard game, and as mentioned above, its not really long, so you could be done in just a few hours.. if you knew were to go. The place is a bit a maze, and with all the jumping - this game has way more platforming than you might think! You have to grab ladders above you and move sideways on them to get to an exit at the top of the screen, you have to fall down holes and sometimes its all a bit much. I found the jumping tedious after awhile. The combat is not so bad, despite your hero's inability to duck!! He can rapidly take hits though, with no real invulnerability frames, so watch out. As long as you can afford the gear upgrades, this is not a hard game if you know where to go.

Overall: 7
Faxanadu is perfect for the Zelda II lovers out there. The story is steeped in traditional fairy tale settings, and the combat is simple and enjoyable. I recommend it to any who like jumping and stabbing things!
Trusted Member
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Registered: 04-30-13
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10-27-14 10:11 PM
Vanelan is Offline
| ID: 1097869 | 14 Words

Vanelan
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CP: 55408.0
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Likes: 0  Dislikes: 0
Excellent review.
Glad to see someone else who enjoys this lesser known game.
Excellent review.
Glad to see someone else who enjoys this lesser known game.
Vizzed Elite
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Affected by 'Laziness Syndrome'

Registered: 05-05-13
Location: New Yawk
Last Post: 1944 days
Last Active: 1943 days

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