Xanadu Next

About Xanadu Next

Nihon Falcom released Xanadu Next on June 24, 2005 for PC and Nokia's N-Gage. This title serves as a spiritual successor to the cult classic Faxanadu and sits late in their Dragon Slayer lineage. You play a knight who dies early only to return with magic powers and a new mission. Your goal is finding the legendary Dragon Slayer sword to stay alive while investigating a phantom castle that appears on Harlech Island whenever mist covers Lake Orwell. The game blends action combat with deep exploration in an RPG package that runs on Windows or runs handheld on N-Gage hardware.

Gameplay

You control your knight character through side-scrolling levels filled with enemies and traps. Combat relies on real-time hack-and-slash mechanics where you swing weapons and dodge attacks without traditional turn-based menus. You explore vast maps to find hidden passages and items that extend your health or restore mana. The game features both single player campaigns and multiplayer modes for local play. Sessions involve grinding through corridors, fighting waves of monsters, and solving environmental puzzles to progress. Controls feel responsive on PC but require adjustment on the N-Gage due to smaller buttons. You manage equipment between fights and chase down rare loot to unlock specific achievements.

What Players Think

Critics gave this title solid marks with a Metacritic score of 78 and an IGDB rating of 83.5 from twelve users. PlayPile data shows the community treats this as a challenging experience since only 16% of players have unlocked all fifteen achievements on average. The rarest trophy is "Kublai Khan" which just 0.80% of the player base has earned. Reviewers often praise the tight combat feel but note the difficulty spike in later areas. Average playtime hovers around twenty hours for a standard run, though completionists spend much longer hunting down every collectible. The mood remains positive despite the steep learning curve required to master the boss fights.

PlayPile's Take

Xanadu Next is worth buying if you enjoy old-school action RPGs with challenging combat and no hand-holding. The price on PC remains reasonable for a single-player campaign that runs fast on modern hardware. You should try it to hunt down those elusive achievements like "Kublai Khan" since few people ever finish the game completely. Falcom delivers tight mechanics here but expect to die frequently while learning enemy patterns. Do not pick this up if you want a casual story or easy mode options. Finish your run and unlock the hardest trophy to prove you actually mastered the system.

Storyline

"Whenever mist hangs over the waters of Lake Orwell on Harlech Island, sailors catch sight of a phantom castle just out of reach. As they draw near, it fades into the fog like a mirage, leaving only questions for all who have borne witness to this "Castle Strangerock." An up-and-coming scholar named Charlotte L. Wells has had her interest piqued by this local legend and desperately wishes to study it in person—but of course, Harlech Island is no place for an unescorted young lady. To aid her in her investigation, therefore, she enlists the help of an old childhood friend and fallen knight who agrees to accompany her on this adventure. Arriving in Harlech and catching sight of Castle Strangerock almost immediately, Char dives into researching the mystery head-on, leaving her companion to explore the surrounding environs on his own in search of any artifacts that might help trace the origins of this ephemeral stronghold. Sadly, this almost immediately leads to his death at the hands of a mysterious swordsman seemingly displaced in time...but death is to be only the beginning of his adventure."