A Forgotten JRPG Classic: The Legend of Xanadu [SHOREVIEWKEN!]

[@MadPanicGaming]

Thanks for watching, everyone! This video was originally published on the Happy Console Gamer channel as part of a collaboration with Johnny Millennium and Jimmy Hapa. That video can be found here kzbin.info/www/bejne/aHeVYXlqmd1roZI

[@HappyConsoleGamer]

Thanks for doing this segment Jim it was awesome!

[@MadPanicGaming]

@@HappyConsoleGamer It was my pleasure, thanks for exposing me to a larger audience!

[@Konuvis]

I'll be sure to check it out there too.

[@NightWolve75]

Great video! ❤️👍

[@Konuvis]

@@NightWolve75 Hey Ys Utopia *wave*

[@creekandseminole]

There's something so charming about Falcom games. Also I just love 80's and 90's manga/anime art style.

[@MadPanicGaming]

I agree 100%, 80's and 90's Falcom games had awesome artwork and music, great characters, and solid gameplay.

[@Horos_de_Vega]

Yes but it is interesting the note the change of art style with time. The early to mid-80s Japanese RPG (including Falcom’s ones) used an art style very similar to the western fantasy artstyle. It is only from the 2nd part of the 80s that this cover box and in-game style had evolved towards a manga style. I actually am more of a fan of the early cover box ;)

[@jmssun]

That transparent menu, and exquisite pixel art, and incredible parallax was an impressive show case of then Falcom technology

[@AlfredoAVA]

LOVE this game, and it's sequel is fantastic too! I've been a fan of this game for nearly a decade, but I was only able to finally complete it last year, and that's only because someone finally wrote a full walkthrough of it. There's TONS of backtracking and fetch-questing, and not being able to understand Japanese makes it even more difficult to progress through. The sequel is MUCH more straightforward and easier to complete, even without understanding Japanese. A very passionate fan translation was actually started too, and was to even include voice acting, but it unfortunately hasn't gotten any updates in years. Still keeping my fingers crossed, because more gamers in the English-speaking world deserve to be able to play these gems. Great video! :)

[@AlfredoAVA]

@robertodefelice Not from what I've seen so far, unfortunately.

[@CyberLabStudio]

...and where would we find this full walkthrough if I may ask?

[@danmakuman]

Still waiting for an english patch for both Xanadu games and also Tengai Makyou 2.

[@pcbjunkie1]

Us westerners missed out on these Falcom Dragon Slayer games and their lore. We did end up getting Faxanadu finally and Legacy of the Wizard which was localized for the western market. I didn't know these games were related until much, much later in life.

[@jmssun]

So nice to see people talk about this game! Some of the best music ever

[@chocolocojames213]

The 2D side scrolling part looks fun. I also really like the cover arts 😊😊😊

[@MadPanicGaming]

Yeah, like I said, I'd be happy if the entire game consisted of the side scrolling gameplay, it's really good, but the Ys style gameplay is still fun.

[@Taranchule]

I did quick research dive on the Dragonslayer series earlier this year, and by crikey does it turn into a rabbithole quickly. Not only is '84's Dragonslayer the progenitor of the JRPG as we know, the series is STILL GOING TO THIS DAY! ...sorta. It keeps branching in weird and wonderful ways. Dragonslayer's sixth instalment in '89 had the undertitle The Legend of the Heroes, which became it's own series going forward until it branched AGAIN with 2004's Trails in the Sky which became the modern Trails/Kiseki series. By my count the entire series has 28(!!!) instalments, with this year's Kuro no Kiseki 2 being the most recent.

[@MadPanicGaming]

Yeah, it's nuts. Without the success of early Falcom games, we might never have gotten Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, or any of the other great JRPGs that followed. Also, if it wasn't for the Ultima series, there might not have been any interest in RPGs in general.

[@Taranchule]

@@MadPanicGaming and Wizardry. Wizardry was MASSIVE in Japan from what I understand.

[@Tony_Cardoza]

Yep, Wizardry and Ultima are the games that inspired the jrpg genre. Ultima is the reason we have the world map's we do in jrpg's, with the character walking on the worldmap, with stylized, miniaturized versions representing towns, forests, dungeons, and caves on the map.

[@Choops6969]

nice video! im gonna share this with all my xanadudes!

[@MadPanicGaming]

Thank you!

[@TGMShoNuff]

Mark Bussler vibes here and I'm down for it. Miss reviews like this on KZbin.

[@Konuvis]

I've been wanting to play this game and it's sequel ever since I discovered the awesomeness of sound team JDK ages ago. I even bought the JP version just to have it but haven't played it yet since it's in Japanese.

[@carlosaugustodinizgarcia3526]

Awesome video! The graphics look amazing for a PC Engine game ,some parts looked better than Tales of Phantasia and Star Ocean (at least the Ys III like segments and the artwork). Wasn't Lord Monarch (recently fan translated for the Genesis ) Dragon Slayer VII?

[@ryuhoshu3303]

This game looks awesome!!!! Have to give it a try

[@MadPanicGaming]

Go for it! A little trial and error if you can't read Japanese, but the game is really fun regardless.

[@msk33]

One of my favorite game on the system. Much much better than part 2. Astonishing soundtrack !!!

[@armandogavilan1815]

great great, wanted to know a bit and you gave a lot!

[@MadPanicGaming]

Much appreciated. Thanks for watching!

[@Treychik]

I only be came aware of Xanadu due to the amazing game (Xanadu Next) on n-gage phone :) loved the heck out of it, then if finally came to PC - got it on steam right away! really great game

[@MadPanicGaming]

I never knew there was a Xanadu game on the N-Gage lol, never even played one.

[@Treychik]

@@MadPanicGaming it is somewhat identical to the PC (steam) version of Xanadu, just smaller and with worse graphics :) still great game! Had so much fun playing it.

[@venomtang]

Another killer vid and reviewken

[@MadPanicGaming]

Thank you!

[@bigolebadassbob]

Here's an interesting tidbit: Ys V was originally slated as a PCE title, but Falcom's PCE team was fully committed to the development of The Legend of Xanadu II and didn't want to free up their resources for other projects, so the SNES team was singled out to handle Ys V.

[@watchthisbarrelroll]

First. Thanks for uploading. Always cool to watch new videos from ya

[@MadPanicGaming]

My pleasure, thanks for watching!

[@kinchapan9700]

2:44 Did Iron Maiden compose the soundtrack?

[@MadPanicGaming]

Lol, I wish. A lot of RPGs could benefit from some Iron Maiden.

[@kinchapan9700]

@@MadPanicGaming Not just Iron Maiden, pretty much every metal band from the 80s would have made the cut, my personal favorites would be Dio and Manowar.

[@MadPanicGaming]

@@kinchapan9700 There was a game on the Xbox 360, can't remember the title now, but it had Blind Guardian on the soundtrack, one of my favorite bands.

[@AvalancheReviews]

fuck this is adorable!

[@MadPanicGaming]

You ain't so bad yourself.

[@EnigmaHood]

I wonder if there's a way to use google translate on your phone to translate each screen one by one...

[@MadPanicGaming]

I suppose you could do that as your playing the game in real time, but I have to imagine that would get annoying fast.

[@EnigmaHood]

@@MadPanicGaming Yeah, but I guess it depends on the game. I wonder if there's an app that you can use to take a screenshot, and translate it instantly.

[@zyxyuv1650]

Bruh you should have searched for it instead of assuming the dumbest possible scenario of phones and screenshots must be the only solution humans could come up with. RetroArch has had real-time language translation for like 4 years now. It can translate the text onscreen and replace it.

[@EnigmaHood]

@@zyxyuv1650 Calm down, no need to be rude. But that's actually a great feature, I'll look into it, I'd finally be able to play Princess Crown

[@EvaFull]

This is one of my last imports I bought from Vinnk. Just waiting for a few days of little pain to really dig into it.

[@MadPanicGaming]

Enjoy. It's a great game.

[@kidrobot.]

i think they finally released this game on the switch eshop

[@billcook4768]

Insert Olivia Newton John music here.

[@MadPanicGaming]

That was the first thing that came to my mind when I first came across this game.

[@gundanout11]

@@MadPanicGaming Too bad that Legend of Xanadu was never release in the US on the TurboGrafx-16.

[@Yuuretsu]

It's a shame neither this game nor the sequel have ever been ported to anything else over time. That said, even with a decent amount of skill in Japanese I found this game had some issues that let it down. There's a much bigger focus on talking to npc's to get the story moving. So much so that even in the first chapter it feels like combat is a bit of an afterthought. This is compounded by a day-might cycle which prevents you from talking to most npc's that you need. I'm definitely gonna try picking it up again this year though because the audiovisual presentation is outstanding and you can tell Falcom really went all out here.

[@DennisTamayo]

No relation to the 1980 musical film with Olivia Newton-John.

[@CapChronic]

What's the deal with super detailed bosses in old rpg's anyway? Wells your character looks like a weeble.

[@MadPanicGaming]

Makes the boss look more menacing and intimidating compared to your character.