1980's, Game of the Decade

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Jumpin said:

There was a game from 1987 I should have voted for instead, called Faxanadu (often mispronounced as Facks-Ana-Du, it’s actually Fa-Zana-Du since it is named for Famicom and Xanadu). But I forgot it wasn’t a game from 1990 or 1991, because I associate it with the mid-late NES period when I was a little older and the games were getting more complex. But no, this one first came out way back in 1987.

In 1985, Nihon Falcom released Xanadu, and they licensed the IP to Hudson Soft to develop a spin-off called Faxanadu. It is a side scrolling action game much like Castlevania, but one I like better. Rather than progressing horizontally, as is the cast in most of these games, the world main progression was upward in a location called “The World Tree” which was a land under invasion from the metal-minded dwarves from the opposing mountain. For a modern reference, it’s the same kind of world as Xenoblade Chronicles where you work your way up a biological Bionis type world, cross over on a branch (a branch of the tree in Faxanadu, a Sword in Xenoblade) and then make your way to the more mechanical and stone dwarf mountain that is a bit like Mechonis. I suspect Faxanadu was an inspiration for the world of Xenoblade Chronicles since Tetsuya Takahashi (creator of Xenogears, Xenosaga, and Xenoblade) was no doubt familiar with the game, as it came out near the time he broke into the video game industry, and the company he first worked for was none other than Nihon Falcom.

Also the game contains some of my favourite music from the NES.

Faxanadu is one my favourite NES games. It had quite similar box art on NES to Zeldas and no doubt it was kind marketed to Zelda fans as a next step. It had it's PAL release in 1990 and NA release in 1989, so no doubt people associate it with 1990¨s. It's at least on par with The Adventure of Link and Simon's Quest - in terms of sophistication it's better than those two, but actionwise falls short. Storywise it loans a lot from Norse mythology. The music is pretty awesome in the game, though.