Xanadu Next (PC)
Mar. 19th, 2018 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroThe last of a disbanded order of knights accompanies his childhood friend to explore the ruins of Xanadu, and learn the secrets of the vanishing Castle Strangerock and the Dragonslayer sword hidden within. When a near-fatal wound makes the search personal, it turns out that destiny has big ideas for this humble knight.
This is an Ys game with the serial numbers filed off, and given that it's made by the same publisher, I'm not terribly clear on why the bothered to do that. Your protagonist is a silent former-knight, now sword-for-hire, who is accompanying his best friend to investigate a mysterious ghostly castle that supposedly holds a legendary magical sword. This is further complicated when he gets sliced to ribbons by a mysterious swordsman and narrowly escapes death by having a guardian spirit bound into him; but that's a temporary measure and only the aforementioned legendary sword can restore him permanently.
This ties a bunch of the plot together with the game’s systems reasonably well: Because of the circumstances of his resurrection, you can switch around which guardian is holding your soul together in order to get various benefits. As you explore the ruins, you find tablets and memoirs that Char will translate for you and provide rewards when she does so. Each of the game’s weapons has a skill attached that you can permanently learn by using it for a while, and like the Ys games, you acquire treasures that unlock new areas by allowing you to push blocks, break walls, swim, etc.
The emphasis on going back to town to buy keys is weird and also irritating—especially since the price of keys is tied to the number of randomly-dropped bones you sell to the storekeeper. Early on, this means you’re choked for cash and can’t upgrade your gear without grinding, because all your money goes to keys. Later on, you have more bones than you need and keys can be kept comparatively cheap, so it’s just a time-wasting mechanic. (I’ll admit appreciating, though, that you use bones to make “skeleton keys.”)
Also, to keep you from just grinding an absurd amount and buying the best equipment right-off (or from min-maxing your stats), each of the equipment upgrades has stat requirements to use it, and you need to earn “proficiency” in weapons to permanently master the stats associated with them. So you can’t just jump to the best weapon you can afford, and there’s some strategy to managing your stats. Near the endgame, you find a guardian that provides extra stat points at level up, and I suspect you’re intended to level all the way down to 1 at that point, then grind all the way back to 20 with the extra points at each level. (And your grinding will need to be with weaker gear, remember, because your stat would be reduced from the level down.) I did not do this, and my stats were sufficient to use the best gear and beat the final boss on my first try.
Overall: If you like Ys games and you have a craving (and don’t want to lay out $60 for Lacrimosa of DANA), this will hit the spot.
This is an Ys game with the serial numbers filed off, and given that it's made by the same publisher, I'm not terribly clear on why the bothered to do that. Your protagonist is a silent former-knight, now sword-for-hire, who is accompanying his best friend to investigate a mysterious ghostly castle that supposedly holds a legendary magical sword. This is further complicated when he gets sliced to ribbons by a mysterious swordsman and narrowly escapes death by having a guardian spirit bound into him; but that's a temporary measure and only the aforementioned legendary sword can restore him permanently.
This ties a bunch of the plot together with the game’s systems reasonably well: Because of the circumstances of his resurrection, you can switch around which guardian is holding your soul together in order to get various benefits. As you explore the ruins, you find tablets and memoirs that Char will translate for you and provide rewards when she does so. Each of the game’s weapons has a skill attached that you can permanently learn by using it for a while, and like the Ys games, you acquire treasures that unlock new areas by allowing you to push blocks, break walls, swim, etc.
The emphasis on going back to town to buy keys is weird and also irritating—especially since the price of keys is tied to the number of randomly-dropped bones you sell to the storekeeper. Early on, this means you’re choked for cash and can’t upgrade your gear without grinding, because all your money goes to keys. Later on, you have more bones than you need and keys can be kept comparatively cheap, so it’s just a time-wasting mechanic. (I’ll admit appreciating, though, that you use bones to make “skeleton keys.”)
Also, to keep you from just grinding an absurd amount and buying the best equipment right-off (or from min-maxing your stats), each of the equipment upgrades has stat requirements to use it, and you need to earn “proficiency” in weapons to permanently master the stats associated with them. So you can’t just jump to the best weapon you can afford, and there’s some strategy to managing your stats. Near the endgame, you find a guardian that provides extra stat points at level up, and I suspect you’re intended to level all the way down to 1 at that point, then grind all the way back to 20 with the extra points at each level. (And your grinding will need to be with weaker gear, remember, because your stat would be reduced from the level down.) I did not do this, and my stats were sufficient to use the best gear and beat the final boss on my first try.
Overall: If you like Ys games and you have a craving (and don’t want to lay out $60 for Lacrimosa of DANA), this will hit the spot.
