Steam sale deep cut alert: this ARPG originally developed for Nokia N-Gage is brilliant on Deck
Xanadu Next is a Diablo-esque JRPG originally developed by Nihon Falcom for Nokia N-Gage. Those bullet points were enough for me to grab it when Steam’s algorithm surfaced it for me last week as part of the ongoing Autumn sale. I wasn’t expecting it to be good, but I was definitely curious.
Some background: Xanadu Next is actually a belated spin-off to the PC-88 game Xanadu: Dragon Slayer 2, which was released in 1985 and is sometimes credited as one of the first action RPGs. It took until 2005 for Nihon Falcom to follow it up with Xanadu Next, and when it did it was a Japan only affair.
A PC version did release a few months after the N-Gage version, but again, only in Japan. That PC version reportedly played much, much better than the N-Gage version, as I’m sure you can imagine, but the fact that the game’s overarching design was conceived to work across both platforms is what piqued my interest. As did the fact that, when I googled Xanadu Next, I found many people claiming the PC version—which is the version available on Steam—is right up there with the best of Nihon Falcom’s games (which is to say, up there with instalments of Ys, Trails and The Legend of Heroes).
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Now that I’ve spent around six hours playing the 2016 English re-release, I can kinda understand why: this isometric slash ‘n’ grind isn’t brilliant, but it has a lot of cosy charm and a fun metroidvania structure. Like Diablo, there’s a central village where the knight protagonist can rest, upgrade and do trade, but outside this safe area the world unfurls via (very light) puzzle-solving, rudimentary but satisfying circle ‘n’ slash combat, and the unlocking of doors with keys bought in town which become gradually more expensive.
Yep, it’s a grind. But it’s a peaceful, even meditative grind, and the pleasure of pressing further and further outwards into the labyrinthine and reassuringly blocky world is ample incentive to do so. Discovering new ways the world is interconnected is also a pleasure, and while Dark Souls hardly invented game worlds that cleverly overlap and intersect, I have had a few moments with Xanadu Next that gave me the same thrill of recognition. It’s also richly atmospheric in a way that blends cheerful JRPG first village trappings with something mistier and more melancholy.
Xanadu Next is currently 70% off for the Steam Autumn sale. It has a few quirks. This being a rare PC-only JRPG, it doesn’t have thorough controller support. There is a decent community controller profile but you’ll still probably need to use the mouse at times to equip items. I’d also definitely recommend loading the separate config executable and setting up graphics before heading into the game: it won’t automatically adjust to your display. The Steam page says it’s unsupported by Steam Deck but ignore it: boot the config first, use a community controller profile, and you’ll be good to go.
It has made me want to go back to some other Nihon Falcom games, of which I’ve only played a couple of Ys instalments. Turns out heaps of them are on sale at the moment.
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