NES Action Adventure Jrpg 1988

Faxanadu

Reviewed by Marcus Webb & Elena Castillo · Updated June 2025

Hudson Soft's 1987 action-RPG set in the world of Xanadu — Faxanadu (Famicom Xanadu) is a side-scrolling action-RPG hybrid where a warrior returns to the World Tree to find it under attack by Dwarves and must ascend through towns and dungeons seeking the elven king's wisdom. Platform action, experience-based leveling, magic words for save passwords, and a quest that takes 10+ hours.

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💡 Faxanadu — Key Facts

→ Faxanadu was developed by Hudson Soft and published by Nintendo
→ Released in 1988 on NES
→ Genre: Action, Adventure, Jrpg
→ We rate it 8.3/10 — highly recommended
→ Hudson Soft's 1987 action-RPG set in the world of Xanadu — Faxanadu (Famicom Xanadu) is a side-scrolling action-RPG hybrid where a warrior returns to the World Tree to find it under attack by Dwarves and must ascend through towns and dungeons seeking the elven king's wisdom. Platform action, experience-based leveling, magic words for save passwords, and a quest that takes 10+ hours.

Overview

The warrior has been away. Returning to the World Tree’s base, he finds the town wrong — the springs dried, the Dwarves attacking, the elves in retreat. The king is somewhere high in the World Tree. The path upward is through everything that’s gone wrong.

Faxanadu is an ascending journey. The World Tree goes up.

Action-RPG Before the Genre Had a Name

Faxanadu combines platform movement with RPG stat progression. The warrior moves, jumps, swings his sword, and throws magic against enemies in real time. Experience from those enemies improves his statistics. Equipment purchased in towns changes what the warrior can do.

This hybrid was less common on NES than the pure genres on either side. Zelda had action without character statistics; Dragon Warrior had statistics without action. Faxanadu put them together in a form that made the World Tree feel like a world rather than a sequence of separate systems.

The World Tree

The ascent structure means the game’s world is vertical. Towns are stacked — the lowest town at the base, higher civilizations accessible further up. The Dwarves’ invasion has affected different heights differently. Regions explored higher up are the price of progress lower down.

The World Tree as a setting is unusual among NES RPGs. Most fantasy RPG worlds spread horizontally across continents. Faxanadu’s world goes up.

The Magic Words

Saving requires a priest. The priest gives a word. The word restores progress when given back to any priest.

The magic word system represents an attempt at humane password design — memorable terms instead of scrambled character strings. Players who grew up with Faxanadu remember specific words. The words become associated with the progress they encoded.

Our Review

8.3

Excellent / 10

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Gameplay

★★★★★

🎨

Graphics

★★★★★

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Audio

★★★★★

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Replay

★★★★★

Gameplay

Faxanadu is a side-scrolling action-RPG where the player character — a warrior returning home — must ascend the World Tree and its surrounding environments fighting enemies with a sword (close range) and magic spells. Experience points from defeated enemies level up the character, increasing HP and other stats. Gold purchases equipment in towns: swords, shields, armor, boots, and magic rings. Magic words serve as save passwords — memorable short words given by priests at key locations. Towns and shops provide equipment vendors and life recovery priests. Platforming movement navigates multi-screen environments from the base of the World Tree upward through towns, dungeons, and eventually the tree's upper regions.

Graphics

Faxanadu's NES visuals create a fantasy world with a distinct art direction — the World Tree as an enormous environment, the human towns lower down and elven regions higher up. Enemy designs range from standard RPG creatures to the invading Dwarves. The color palette distinguishes different world regions.

Audio

The Faxanadu soundtrack by Kouji Murata is considered one of the finest NES game scores — the main town theme, the exploration music, and the various dungeon compositions create an atmospheric fantasy audio experience. The music is frequently cited as underappreciated.

Replayability

A full playthrough of Faxanadu's 10+ hour adventure reveals the complete quest. New players who didn't experience it in the late 1980s often discover it as an underappreciated NES RPG through retrospective coverage.

Historical Significance

Faxanadu (1987 Famicom, 1988 NES) is a spin-off of Nihon Falcom's Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu for PC, adapted for Famicom by Hudson Soft. The game blends action-RPG and platformer elements in a way that few NES games matched — predating the action-RPG hybrid definition that later games made mainstream. Faxanadu is consistently cited in retrospective lists of underappreciated NES games. The World Tree setting and the game's fantasy world were distinctive among NES RPG settings dominated by generic medieval European aesthetics.

✅ Pros

+ Action-RPG hybrid blending platform movement with stat progression
+ Distinctive World Tree ascending-structure exploration
+ Acclaimed NES soundtrack by Kouji Murata
+ Password system using memorable magic words
+ Underappreciated NES gem with devoted fanbase

❌ Cons

- Navigation can be confusing without external reference
- Magic word password system requires careful transcription
- Some equipment progression gating requires backtracking
- 1988 NES RPG conventions including slow character speed

Also Known As

Faxanadu NESファザナドゥ

Faxanadu FAQ

What is Faxanadu's connection to Dragon Slayer and Xanadu?

Faxanadu is a Famicom adaptation of Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu, a 1985 PC role-playing game by Nihon Falcom. Falcom's Xanadu (Dragon Slayer II) was a side-scrolling action-RPG hybrid — innovative for its platform fusion of action and stat-based progression. Hudson Soft developed a Famicom version of the Xanadu concept, creating Faxanadu (a contraction of 'Famicom Xanadu') as a new adventure in the Xanadu world rather than a direct port. The World Tree setting, the ascending exploration structure, and the action-RPG hybrid mechanics derive from Falcom's original design, adapted for the Famicom's capabilities and the Western NES market. Nintendo published the NES version in the West.

What are the magic words in Faxanadu?

Faxanadu uses a unique password system called 'magic words.' At specific priests found in towns throughout the World Tree, the player can receive a magic word — a short, memorable term (often a real word) that encodes the character's current progress. Unlike random-character NES passwords, magic words were designed to be more memorable than typical alphanumeric strings. Returning to a priest and entering the magic word restores the game state. The magic word system was appreciated for providing more humane password management than scrambled character strings, though players still had to record the words carefully. Some magic words are recognized as culturally specific references; others are arbitrary.

What makes Faxanadu's soundtrack notable?

Faxanadu's soundtrack, composed by Kouji Murata, is consistently cited in retrospective discussions as one of the NES library's finest and most underappreciated scores. The main town theme creates a distinctive melancholic-adventurous mood that players associate with the game's World Tree setting. Dungeon and area-specific themes create tonal variety appropriate to different sections of the ascending world. The music's quality was recognized by players who owned the game in the late 1980s and has been rediscovered by retro gaming communities who encounter it through emulation or retrospective coverage. The soundtrack has been independently arranged and covered by musicians who discovered it through the game's growing reputation.

Is Faxanadu available on modern platforms?

Faxanadu is available through Nintendo Switch Online's NES library for subscribers. The game appeared on Wii Virtual Console. Original NES cartridges are available through retro game stores at moderate collector prices. The game has never received a remake or remaster. Nihon Falcom's Dragon Slayer series — the source franchise — has continued in Japan with various entries; the Xanadu-specific sub-franchise has had Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes developments that diverged from Xanadu's action-RPG formula. Faxanadu remains a distinct Western NES artifact of the Xanadu concept.