Anyone played this thing? Xanadu Next, from Falcom

[aweigh]

I dunno looks kinda entertaining in a Diablo-lite kind of way.

 

[Kruno]

I enjoyed the game. Very fun. The game is similar to Ys Book 2, but with overhead 3D combat.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

We have a thread on this man.

 

[newtmonkey]

It's a fun game, not really much like Diablo at all (dungeons are not random, and you have direct control over the character). I had trouble with the Steam version, where the frame rate was really jerky. You've got some little girl companion that talks on and on and on, and I found it pretty dull.

 

[CyberWhale]

The series sprang from the same roots (Dragon Slayer) as The Legend of Heroes games did.
Coincidentally, I found out about that this morning while I was casually searching the webz.

 

[Great Deceiver]

It's pretty good, but there was unfixable frame stuttering for me (not frame lag, just frame pacing issues, I think it's related to OpenGL and a lack of proper vsync flag implementation) so I stopped playing as unfortunately I'm really sensitive to these issues and they bug the fuck out of me.

I remember trying alternate wrappers and shit, nothing helped.

 

[jungl]

its a short game but fun. Very similiar to the dreamcast record of lodoss war game https://youtu.be/4Wh4-HNhmks

Lot better then the fiasco trails games.

 

[Siveon]

We have a thread on this man.

It's hard using the search funciton.

 

[mck]

how about a crossover game called Xanadu Gex

 

[aweigh]

is this shit related to that tokyo xanadu shit

 

[Siveon]

is this shit related to that tokyo xanadu shit

Same series, both by Falcom. Not much similarities in the way of story gameplay, etc. Xanadu is an old Action RPG series, like, before PC-98 times.

 

[Ysaye]

Whilst I found Xanadu Next a nice but slightly short game (I enjoyed the crawling in some of the earlier dungeons, but then they got more simplified) I seem to recall it does unfortunately require a mouse to play which may be a deal breaker for some; It was reminiscent of Diablo in a way but without the random loot.

For those that care about these things, I found it to be a lot less anime-y than most other Falcom games. If that sort of thing doesn't worry you, I find Ys Ark of Napishtim (from around the same period of 2003-2006) better from an exploration perspective and a reward for grinding.

Whilst definitely different game mechanics and worlds, there are some consistent elements between this and Tokyo Xanadu; I am pretty sure that one of the main tracks in Next is the basis for the Witch boss in Tokyo Xanadu, and there are archetypes that seem to roll across both; eg. the role of the Seal Knight and his spoiler friend in Tokyo is similar to the general role of Dvorak in Next.

 

[Great Deceiver]

It's pretty good, but there was unfixable frame stuttering for me (not frame lag, just frame pacing issues, I think it's related to OpenGL and a lack of proper vsync flag implementation) so I stopped playing as unfortunately I'm really sensitive to these issues and they bug the fuck out of me.

I remember trying alternate wrappers and shit, nothing helped.

Necroing this because I recently found a wrapper that actually does get rid of most of the frame stutter.

https://github.com/ThirteenAG/d3d8-wrapper/releases

Just put the 2 files into the game directory and edit the .ini to flag "Direct3D8DisableMaximizedWindowedModeShim = 0" to "1"

I'm enjoying the game quite a bit. The music is excellent, as per Falcom's standard.

Edit: finished it after around 20 hours. It was very good the whole way through, great music, good exploration, combat was a little weak and the game was overall a little too easy (it gets harder later on), but overall a very enjoyable game. I didn't get every guardian and didn't get to see the secret dungeon, maybe I'll do those things at some later point.

It's definitely refreshing to play a game like this and not be flooded with hundreds of useless item drops. Upgrades feel significant (especially because of the learnable skills, sometimes you spend some time using an inferior weapon just to unlock some cool ability) and the town shop stays relevant during the whole game, getting new stocks of weapons and armor as you progress.

It's also a nice change of pace from Ys, less action focused with more exploration. Some of the later dungeon designs are quite intricate.

Falcom rules.