Look how gorgeous that packaging is. There was real pride in their releases back then. The industry became much bigger, a lot more money, yet things look cheaper
This was the norm up until somewhere in the 16-bit era. RPGs especially came with maps, printed databases of all items, thick manuals with often colored artwork, and all sorts of cool stuff. The drive home with your new game was just as fun as when you turned it on xD
I really liked Tokyo Xanadu and had hoped they wouldn't wait this long for a sequel, but at least I can be glad they they didn't forget. Now if only Brandish could get a new refresh all would be right with the world.
PC-88 Paradise is as close to be a new Gamecenter CX as we'll ever get. Different tone of course, but that is what I always liken it to when telling friends about it.
Yuzo got on the legendary side ever since Sega's Streets of Rage, and when he was composing the music for Project x Zone 2, he wanted Axel Stone in the game and it did!
Falcom has been one of my favorite companies for a bit now and love seeing their early stuff that I know would be a bit too difficult for me to play let alone complete. Thanks for the continued hard work and for bringing me a taste of nostalgia for a childhood I didn't realize was happening on the other side of the globe.
It's great that you are making videos for the rest of ancient Falcom games. It's funny how similar to original and in the meantrime upgraded the Scenario II is. Many options to cheese this game out are also very funny. Also i knew already that Koshiro started his musician career in Falcom, but i didn't know that this was his first true work in game industry.
The box art and design are reason enough to want to play on the PC88... I truly love your channel. I've been limited mobility for a while now and I enjoy your videos immensely. Thank you for creating such great content.
The Dragon Slayer series is really such a big tree of franchises. Nowadays, the most popular is probably the Trails series, which is part of the The legend of Heroes series, which is part of the Dragon Slayer series, which Xanadu is also part of. It's not quite as branched out as Atlus' Megaten games, but still. Thankfully though, the series themselves aren't all that closely related to each other.
I'm sure you know this, but only the first two Legend of Heroes games are actually considered part of the Dragonslayer series. LoH is considered no longer part of Dragonslayer from LoH III on.
Oh hey, Brandish mentioned. Looking forward to that review as much to my (not actual) shame, its the only famous, classic falcom I played thanks to the SNES version.
Really looking forward to Tokyo Xanadu 2. Been anticipating that one for years, praying that Falcom could find time between Kiseki entries to toss us another Xanadu title at some point... And I never forgot what Rem said :) I'm thrilled that my faith will soon be rewarded.
I've always said I don't really want another Tokyo Xanadu - I'd rather they work on Trails or Ys instead... but now with the quality of the Trails series recently... I feel like another Tokyo Xanadu would really hit the spot about now. So yes, I am also looking forward to the game! Can't believe it's been almost 10 years since Tokyo Xanadu was originally released.
@@BasementBrothers I don't really play a lot of modern Falcom, are the modern Trails games a step down or something? I know previously in comments we've kinda agreed Ys seems to be not as good as it once was.
I think for a lot of people "Trails" peaked at Trails of Cold Steel. And then with Trails Through Daybreak they tried, but the characters are just less memorable... the gameplay more modern and less RGP-like... and it just doesn't click with me as much but I'm sure it does with other people. Van Arkride is still my main man, though, even though as a whole I may not like his game as much as the previous ones. I'll still reserve my copy of the next game.
@@BasementBrothers I've actually never played any of the Trails games myself. I own the original two Legend of Heroes games on PC-E CD (in Japanese, which I was trying to learn at the time but never got proficient with). What I do know is they're a bit of a cult classic. On a personal level I fell out of love with RPGs around the PS1 era so by the time I was hearing about them, I wasn't interested.
@@BasementBrothersTotally felt it peaked on Cold Steel IV. The god ending was conclusive and satisfying. The should've give the series a rest for at least 4 years before continuing with Kuro no Kiseki. On the other hand, there's no guarantee the series will go on after prez Kondo steps down as the company's president (Trails seems to be his passion project). I myself don't feel like playing Falcom games post Ys IX because Takahiro Unisuga won't be making music for their games anymore...
Maybe Falcom's next Xanadu game should put an end to their ten year gap. Because The Legend of Heroes and Ys series can't just be their only flagship. The Dragon Slayer/Xanadu series need to make a comeback.
This channel is so awesome. I knew most of these games existed from research since I've become a big fan of Falcom through the Trails series, but had no idea of their history and the broader Falcon story that you weave into each episode. Also learning about these older Japanese PCs I similarly had only heard of. Thank you so much for what you do! Also the fact they just put bible verses in the game to have some English is one of the funniest things I've heard in a while.
The cardboard strip missing at the top gets torn when people pull the game out of the box. They hold it there with their thumbs and it wears it down and eventually falls off or gets torn like yours.
I didn't know that a new Xanadu every ten years was a thing. It's like when they had annual Lupin III TV Specials for almost 25 years consecutively. Very cool! :O
Yo, an expansion to Xanadu and... surprisingly more forgiving after a while too, it seems. Huh! I know a lot of PC game expansions and sequels from the 90s were notably difficult than the originals. Like, to the point where you had to be an expert of the original to stand a chance. Fallout 2, X-Com 2... heck, you couldn't even play Wizardry 2 without having cleared the original. Of course, playing blind for Xanadu 2 isn't ideal either. Still, this is really cool to see. I liked seeing the original Xanadu in action back when. Not having only the omnipresent BGM was one good addition, but this was Yuzo's first debut too? Too cool. The workaround for using Scenario II is interesting, to say the least. Let alone secrets regarding the original disk too. And jeez, I thought the spikes in La-Mulana's remake and its sequel were bad. These ones are similarly rough.
I don't remember Fallout 2 being particularly hard compared to the original, or most 90's CRPG sequels to be honest. The 80's were a lot less forgiving in general with games like Bard's tale, Wizardry, etc.
Funny how you say the final boss is anticlimactic in this compared to the first scenario, as I had the complete opposite experience. I just finished this game today. In scenario 1, the King Dragon was a joke for me. In this scenario, I got decimated, he had the ability to kill me in one hit (from direct contact, not just the fire breath). I had to figure out a way to manipulate his movements, attacking when he flames while still trying to escape to the other side before he started moving again, hoping he would only at most knick me, instead of taking my entire health supply in one fell swoop. I had to loop around him at least 8 times before finally whittling his health down to 0. (Although, I wasn't at max level at all, lvl 12 for for Fighter and 11 for Wizard. My defense was around 250,000). I couldn't believe I'd have so much trouble with him, but it at least was decently rewarding to slay him.
Well, that was one of the appeals of Xanadu at the time: you could defeat the game however you wanted... overpowering your character, or just making him strong enough to eke by. Thanks for watching.
Well, at least with old games we were never forced to download and install a 30GB update before we could play the game. :) Nowadays I feel like I have to turn on my PS5 on the morning of the day when I'm planning to have a gaming session in order to make sure it gets system and software updates and is ready to play later. Heheh, well anyway thanks for watching!
So going by the title screen, I assume in this game you play as Locke the Superman during his sword-and-sorcery days. One of the boss monsters was called "Boiardo..." which just makes me think of Chef Boyardee. So during this review my vision often played tricks on me and I would see the brick patterns and think there was something written in them. This was always my imagination, of course. And the message I swear I saw each time was "you are here." I'm not sure what to make of that. That one bit of a commercial that said "You remember what Rem said, don't you?" made me think "I sure do... 'This one goes out to the one I love'....." But okay, enough semi-joking observations, I've been wondering, with all the disk-switching, how do the Project Egg versions even work? It sounds like this game might not be playable without a keyboard or the ability to switch disks. So, any chance you're gonna cover the Madou Monogatari series eventually? Although part of me also wants to see a wildcard where you cover some RPG I've never heard of (which is kinda what most of this channel is so far, and I love it).
I was wondering about this! I’d always thought it was some sort of 3rd party expansion from a hacked together level editor - from the sort of people who like Kaizo Mario hacks. The game starts you off at “you’d better know the mechanics of this already” 6:15
Now you know better! Sorcerian is the Falcom game that has a bunch of fan made scenarios... though of course it also had official scenario packs sold by Falcom as well.
It's the subject of slight amusement to me that the Latin alphabet has the same "hey, this looks cool" factor going for it in Japan that the Kana and Kanji have among a contingent in the 'states.
Isn't the King Dragon supposed to be named Galsis? That's what the English version of Xanadu Next calls him. Also, if it were spelled Garsis, then I feel like the katakana for his name in the manual should have been "ガーシス" instead of "ガルシス." Granted, I'm not the one who lives in Japan, so I could be totally wrong on that, lol.
I didn't know he was "Galsis" in English Xanadu Next. I think I got the spelling "Garsis" from one of the Japanese music CDs. Either "ガーシス" or "ガルシス" could be "Garsis" in katakana... or "Galsis" or "Garcis" or whatever.
never got around to the original xanadu perhaps I'll check it out after finishing Ys (which I still have to get back to) but hopefully someday they can find a way to port scenario 2? I wonder if this was ever the first 'expansion pack' to a PC game?!
To be honest, there are many other much better Falcom games to play before the original Xanadu that you might want to check out after Ys. There were actually PC game expansion packs in the West as early as 1981! (Too bad. "The first ever gaming expansion pack" would have made a good thumbnail. :( rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/gaming-history-quiz-what-was-the-first-expansion-pack-free-dlc-paid-dlc-ever-released.79593/
15:41 - ...that Karma system is just punishing for its own sake. If the player could always tell at a glance which enemies are karma enemies and have at least some consistent way to avoid them (or at least reset your karma level) then MAYBE you could let that slide - but as it is now? Yeesh. FromSoft games ain't got nothing on the older stuff.
I think they probably will release it on Switch eventually. EGG already has it on PC in Japan, and like the first Xanadu the game is basically all in English (apart from the "please change disk" message after the training grounds).
Yeah... but because of the title saying 'not on Switch yet' I've gotten curious as to what you think of these games on that system too. Just in general. Like does it make sense to play some of them without a keyboard? I play Xanadu on my Switch Lite, it's stupid fun for about a half hour or so and then I get stuck and have to reset after a few sessions.
I want to. I have been actively searching for it, but so far have not been able to snag the game for a price I am willing to pay. It doesn't go on sale very often.
@@BasementBrothers Hey, not related to the video or my previous question, but small point about another Dragon Slayer game I'm curious about: The US manual for Legacy of the Wizard (Dragon Slayer IV) says the evil dragon of that game is named Keela. Since your Japanese is better than mine... does the Dragon have a name in the Japanese version of Dragon Slayer IV too? Or is this name something Brodurbund made up?
the eternal problem with game soundtracks: being a portion of the game experience is not the same task as being a single cohesive listening experience.
Yeah. I think Silpheed is a timeless classic to so many people... but in Japan so is Xanadu Scenario II. For me anyway, I gotta give it to that early Falcom sound that Scenario II has, but that's just my bias.
Impossible, unless you are a proramming wiz and have managed to crack the game's code. Coincidentally though, someone did make a "power up program" for the original PC-88 Xanadu that allows you to change some of the variables.
Hmm. Good feedback. I -literally- said it 6 times in this video. Maybe that is a bit much. At least all six times I was -literally- using the word correctly though. I hate it when people -literally- misuse that word.
