Xanadu Next

Xanadu Next
Developer(s)	Nihon Falcom ScriptArts (N-Gage)
Publisher(s)	^JP Nokia (N-Gage) ^JP Nihon Falcom (PC) ^WW XSEED Games (PC)
Platform(s)	N-Gage, Microsoft Windows
Release date(s)	N-Gage ^JP 20 June 2005 Microsoft Windows ^JP 27 October 2005 ^WW 2016
Genre(s)	Action role-playing game
Mode(s)	One player; two-players (N-Gage)

Xanadu Next (ザナドゥ・ネクスト) is an action role-playing game developed and published by Nihon Falcom for Microsoft Windows. On 20 June 2005 Nokia published ScriptArts' two-player-capable adaptation of the game for the Nokia N-Gage. The game is a spin-off of the 1985 action role-playing game Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu. The Microsoft Windows version will be published worldwide by XSEED Games in 2016.^[1]

Story

N-Gage:

• The player character is a hunter who has been hired by a small town named Marion Berck to find a missing girl named Momo who disappeared after King-Dragon attacked. Since King-Dragon's attack, the villagers have been plagued by mysterious deaths, dying crops, and monster attacks, which you must help with along journey to find Momo.

Original PC version:

• The player character is a dishonored knight hired by a scholar named Charlotte L. Wells to investigate the ruins of Harlech Island on her behalf. Almost as soon as he begins, however, he is mortally wounded by a mysterious warrior named Dvorak and must undergo a life-saving process which binds him to Harlech. He will now die if he ever leaves – unless he can find the fabled Dragon Slayer sword, which is the only item capable of severing his ties with Harlech and giving him his life back.

Gameplay

N-Gage:

• The gameplay was compared to other similar games like Diablo, The Legend of Zelda, and to an extent, Final Fantasy.^[2] Players seek out enemies, and then rapidly press the attack button to attack them. Spells could also be cast with varying strengths by holding down the spell button, allowing you to cast more powerful spells, but allow the enemies to close in on you.
• One unique quality the game had was allowing players to switch between two different classes per level, using "Guardians". On each level up, players were able to pick between playing as a spell-casting character, or a melee-fighting character. This was an interesting feature, but generally useless – if you play as the melee character, you would gain points in Strength, which is useless to you as a spell-casting character, and if you play as a spell caster, you gain points in Magic, which is useless as a melee fighter.^[3]
• Players were encouraged to play for long periods of time. Each group of enemies you cleared raised the experience point bonus from the next group by 1%. The longer a person played, the more experience they would get with each enemy killed.

References

2. Xanadu Next (Translation), MeriStation
3. Flint, Thomas. "GameSpy: Xanadu Next – Page 1". GameSpy. Retrieved 4 November 2005.