Xanadu (1985)

Preliminary: The music, the graphics. wow! I like how the starting character building isn't as boring thanks to the amazing graphics

but will I finally have the patience to play through an in-depth RPG? I haven't since the PLATO era... not even for the early Ultimas... We shall see

Look: 8/10 They, uh, def were going for a certain look with most the people in the training grounds

I mean cmon. Looking at me like that

Sound: 7/10 Great jingles, tho they did get repeated too much in the end. They helped contribute to the great Feel tho.

Play: 6/10 Ironically this solves some of the NPC-blocks-your-way-due-to-bad-pathfinding-etc better than Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy etc that come after (you can press up and go around them lol). Thank goodness for those sorta platformer elements :-p I'm not a big fan of the need-gold-to-reenter-the-temple element nor the execution of the Karma idea. Just let me grind like in the PLATO days!! Everyone trying to be like the overly convoluted Ultima games! :-p I do wish the Battle process was better (tho it's certainly better than Hydlide's combat system!). And it did feel good to finish off my first screen of Bats. And then, I kept running into a bat... again and again. Like do they just keep spawning? How am I suppose to enter this Food shop? It's pretty easy to defeat them once I'm on the Battle screen but I must be doing something wrong. Any playthrough of the game I'm watching and the Inn/Food isn't swarmed with Bats ha, tomorrow I def will be continuing this because I can't deny I really really like this so far even if it's both daunting and clumsy, and I will see if quickly entering the Food shop spares me the endless loop of Bats heh (tho again, I was loving the grind :-p ) (the repetitive, clumsy gameplay is what wound up dragging this down to being passed on, sadly, but I do like the fundamental gameplay and its potential... tho by the way, the Bats did eventually stop being there haha.)

Feel: 8/10 These are some seriously Zelda-type secrets! Turn around at a certain point and you can stumble upon a shop, otherwise it doesn't appear?! How did you even program that back then? I'm really really liking this game so far but worried about how the Karma system might affect my enjoyment. You don't know which enemies the Temple wants you to kill till you kill one? Lame. Just let me grind and explorrrrre. We shall see tho. Looks like this one's gonna be quite the commitment like with Hydlide. The Look, the Sound, and what-I-wish-the-Play-stuck-to all contribute to an overall great Feel--if only the actual gameplay wound up being as great.

Attachment: 7/10 Welp, I really wanted to enjoy this but on day 2 of playing, I really got to explore more of what the game really would be. I was exploring Level 1 and tried the first Tower. The navigation of endlessly similar areas of Level 1 got literally nauseating after a bit, and the rewards like the cool way the Fire Elemental protects one of the Towers and the fact there are random shops all around this dungeon didn't quite save the feeling of tedium that was already becoming overwhelming. There is an odd quality to this that makes me want to love it, maybe it's the Look or the (eventually repetitive) Sound or the classic Feel, but it wasn't enough to get me to push through... especially knowing there was still so much of this repetition to look forward to heh. I stopped, uh, here with a couple Lamps, Red Potions, and that's about it. Oh, lots of Food tho :-p

Doubt I will return to this, but the good Look and Feel, and the fact I still have an urge to see if things change up more in deeper levels (tho the longplays show me otherwise heh), says a lot. Moving on tho!

Completion: Level 1 Playtime: ~45 mins

Oh cool. Neat discovery today... on the off chance anyone ever comes digging through here, this is one of the games available on the Falcom Classics comp. I didn't realize (that just like Dragon Slayer I) this one actually IS in english (because the intro movie is not) but it looks fully playable, perhaps only a guide required.

I also notice that many/most of the Saturn releases in the GB database which are show up available as a "Saturn Platform" through such compilations, haven't had their compilations actually enteredinto the database as releases. So, if you are looking for something and can't seem to find it, that is one possible reason why. It quite possibly could be on a compiliation such as this with a different name.