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Faxanadu (NES) Game Review

Posted in • Gaming by future | Last updated 04 January 2001 at 01:15 pm

Ahh… early Nintendo games… before the idea of “saving” was invented. There’s no way to save your game in most of these game, so you’re left with the decision of setting aside 4 hours to beat a game, or pausing for a really long time. After 30 minutes of Faxanadu, I went with choice C-turn the game off. So this review may not be very informative… deal with it.

Faxanadu promises “Danger and Daggers, Mantras and Monsters.” ^TM How eloquent. The ad staff obviously had tripe for brains if they thought this was gonna get any little kid interested in shelling out their parents hard earned cash. What are mantras you ask? They’re little sayings that spiritualists and Buddhist monks recite to give themselves super-power (ala Buddha Fireball). The mantra of the character in this game (I don’t know his name, so let’s call him Irwin) is “Don’t Give Up.” Guess coming up with a title like Faxanadu drained the Nintendo staff of all their creativity. Blah.

So… the game. It’s not too outstanding. You return home after a long journey and find that dwarfs have left your town a mess (like they do). These diabolical demented dwarfs are going to rule the entire kingdom of Faxanadu by stealing the water supply. You are the kingdom’s last hope. And guess what, not one single person is willing to help you. You can’t get anything without shelling out lots of money for it. The butcher won’t even give you energy saving food when you’re dying. Ungrateful pecker-heads, let the dwarfs have their water! Well, I tried fighting monsters unarmed, and I died. Makes sense. I was going to quit right there, but the game informed me not to “Give Up”. Okay, so I tried this again after buying a dagger (see Faxanadu delivered it’s promise, there are indeed daggers in the game) and karate lessons. Karate lessons are useless, btw, when you pay for them all that happens is you lose money… no cool screenshots of fighting ninjas and balancing bricks on your head (as Karate people do of course).

Where was I? Oh that’s right, wasting away my life by reviewing a shitty video game. So I stabbed “monsters” like Jumping Eyeballs and Spiky Poo or whatever. And that’s it. I think there are only 2 areas to explore in the game, Town and Mountains. Maybe there’s a secret well or wings to fly up the mountain with, but I didn’t find them, so there probably aren’t any. What a piece of shit game. Definitely not worth $30 or however much Nintendo games used to run. Avoid this game at all costs. I tried to flush Faxanadu down the toilet, but it clogged the drain and I have to call a plumber. Thank you very much Mr. Nintendo, see if I ever review one of your cruddy games ever again. (he will, don’t worry -ed.)

-Future

What Other Staff Members Think:
Tobita - Destroy all monster, that is the mission of reverent Tobita! Game promise of monster unfulfilling. Two monster not ALL monster! I fight Ken the Box. Honorable opponent. Jumping Eyeball dishonorable! Yeah!!!

Warhol - I dunno, I found the game really quite drab. Brown is definitely not the color of the age. I’d say a nice flaxen color, or ruby red would be exquisite. Oh and large men with bald heads don’t do it for me. I’d have to give this cur a 4 out of 10.

Other Faxanadu Resources:
Faxanadu Forum (for dorks and Finnish bastards)
The Faxanadu Manuel
A Much More Professional Looking Review

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Reader comments:

Great game. I loved it. I played it ten years ago.I wish that I could download it to my computer.

well… there is a magical thing called an emulator that you can use to emulate a nintendo. if you find the rom file (a game dumped from the original rom cartridge) on the web, irc or a filesharing service, you can play the game. i’d advise against it going through that trouble for this game though, as it sucks balls.

Someone else hates Faxanadu! Wahoo! “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” And since 2 whole people agree that Faxanadu is an affront to god, that means the rest of you are wrong! Logic prevails!

I dunno, I actually kinda liked the game. I always at least appreciated it for A. having a unique color scheme (at least they tried something different) and B. a unique styled soundtrack (as it was synthesized brass instruments, yet again, at least they tried something different). Course I’m all for attempts at originality and I give credit where deserved for things like that. But as far as the game itself went, I really liked it, I’ve beated it a number of times actually. I’d say it’s one of my favorites really.

I remember playing Faxanadu a long time ago but I never got anywhere on the game. I always thought it was really hard and don’t remember anything about it hardly. I remembered it had the wierdest sounds and I went to vgmusic.com to see if i could find music for it. I got curious about it again recently. I don’t know where it is and wished i hadn’t of lost it so i can see what it was like again. Not much for me to say, I dont remember anything from it hardly.

This game has a password continue feature. Back in the day, it was more expensive for the manufacturer (and ultimately, the end consumer) to make games with battery saves. This is a great game once your character gets some decent equipment and abilities.

Dude… there is a save game (the continue option on the main screen)... and the “mantra” that you assume is just some silly bullshit that says “don’t give up” is actually referring to the mantra that the gurus give you when you visit them in towns… it is a random string of characters that, when entered after selecting continue, restores your current situation.

Maybe if you took about 10 minutes instead of 3 to review the game, you’d have figured it out. I kinow I figured it out back in 1988 when I was 10 years old, what does that say about you?

Actually, my room mate and I cleaned my NES and played this game today…sigh, nostalgia. I gotta vouch for it: very strange and unique, but simple. I loved it (when I was 10) because it offered just enough challenge for me, seemed creative, and opened up my interest into RPG style games.

Using passwords (mantras) can be a pain in the ass though. They’re really long and encompass several different characters. But it is somewhat safer than saving it to the cartridge like other games. Some games (i.e. Zelda or Final Fantasy) would randomly lose all saved data.

Anyway, it gets my vote.

Hah, are you kidding? Despite the initial repetitive gameplay (attempting to gain death and the magic sheild early on) this game was definitely the best i’ve played on the NES (aside from perhaps FF1), the only game that I like remotely better would probably be Nethack (PC)... fighting through this was a treat, good enough for me to remake it in flash (ooohhh)

that and the martial arts and magic lessons DO do something (tard)

I think Faxanadu was one of the best games Nintendo ever put out. Maybe if the reviewer did spend more time playing the game to make a good, intelligent review then the game would have made more sense.

The game had a password save option. A bit more involved than today’s saving situations, nevertheless that guy had a point, if a 10 year old could figure it out, and you couldn’t, and you’re a writer and or editor of what looks like a pretty decent web page, then you have issues. Also, don’t ever fucking tell the reader to “deal with it” when you write a half assed review about a game you didn’t even finish, that is fucking ignorant and pretentious. Shows poor taste. Deal with the fact that you’d get your teeth kicked in if you told me that without being hidden behind a computer safely and anonymous. Little punk. DEAL WITH IT.

This game was frigging horrible

Hello Everyone,

Personally I think this was one of the best games released on the NES. I used to play this for hours when i was younger. I finished it plenty of times. But what is most memorable about this game is the background music, absolutley fantastic. Infact alot of music in NES games back in the early 90’s has better music than todays games.

cya

p.s whats wrong with the big bald tool shop guy? he’s a legend!!

I have magical memories about this game. It was the game that turned me on to adventure games/RPGs in the first place. The opening title screen with the soaring music and mental colours is one of the most cherished memories I have from my childhood. The game was hard, and I never finished it, but I could play it for hours and hours and never get bored. I used to imagine grand, epic scenarios for my character to make up for the lack of on-screen plot. Basically, games were better when you were a kid, because your imagination was on overload. I wish I was a kid again. Nothing is better than being a kid and having a video game.

a classic, a unique classic. yes it does take more than five minutes to get into an rpg, maybe it was too far beyond your level of understanding. ah well, you’re the one missing out not me.

Lol, it was pretty funny how this a** hole decided to write a review after playing through only the first town. He didn’t even play through the first dungeon! I dont want to give any spoilers, but the mountains is maybe, only 1/5’th of the areas you can explore in this game. I loved this game, it’s up there on my list. There are only a few games I like better. So before you criticize a game, play for more than 10 minutes, you stupid s***.

Faxandu is a great game! In fact it is sitting in my NES right now! Granted I have never beaten the game….(sigh) I think though that one should play a game long enough to know what to review rather than give up and say a game was crap because they can’t beat it. I mean if everybody could beat every game they ever played… where would be the fun? Sure some can beat every game they play but just because you are not one doesn’t mean you can call a game crap when you don’t beat it.

can anyone point the game emulator that Sodmonster spoke about.

Faxanadu , fue uno de los mejores juegos con los que me diverti, recuerdo que habia nacido mi primer hijo en el año 89 y me pase toda la noche jugando hasta que lo termine, no recuerdo como mate al ultimo monstruo pero llego el agua nuevamente a la fuente.

it’s the most memorable games on the Nintendo that i can always come back to and stand in awe at the most made out of 8bits I’ve ever seen, and I’ve played too many 8bit games. it’s a classic and to disregard it as rubbish shows a lack of taste, but that is your opinion on the game and your free to it. awe . . . sweet nostalgia . . .

I played Faxanadu for hours on end when this was this game was first released. The sound track was what caught my intention, along with the storyline. One of the first RPG’s to actually catch my attention with in all areas such as Bosses, scenery and sound. Faxanadu will always have a nostalgic feeling with me. I haven’t played this game in at least 6 years, but when I read the review, I was compelled to respond. All in all simply my favorite RPG on NES. Sure the graphics are outdated due to today’s standards but for the time they were superb.

I found the game really quite drab. Brown is definitely not the color of the age. I’d say a nice flaxen color, or ruby red would be exquisite.