Mar '23 Monthly Game Club - Xanadu Next

rejj

Screw this guy!

I mean, I beat him first go – but had to spend so long just running around in circles kiting his homing magic around before it ran out

Gaagaagiins

RubySunrise did you finish the game at level 5, or is that just a final rank?

The latter! I cannot conceive of how you’d do a low level run of this (which isn’t to say it isn’t possible, I just can’t conceive of it)

Gaagaagiins

Tip for dealing with undead enemies that get back up after you defeat them: I didn’t test this property thoroughly enough to know if it’s unique to it, but using the Skill that embues your melee attacks with fire damage blocks the undead enemies from getting back up for round 2. I wouldn’t be surprised if any magic damage or at least any fire damage did the same thing.

thebryanjzx90

Gaagaagiins yup, can confirm others work too, which was a nice surprise and slightly against the tropes

Gaagaagiins

thebryanjzx90 yup, can confirm others work too, which was a nice surprise and slightly against the tropes

Does that carry to any magical or elemental damage source like from spells too, or just the sword elemental damage skills? Mostly asking out of curiosity, I doubt I will play further.

Would be kind of funny if it was a bit persnickety about it and applied to elemental spells and elementally boosted melee attacks, making the non-elementally aligned spells conspicuously absent.

In any case that’s good info since the elemental alignment of certain enemies can be a tricky thing to navigate, occasionally.

GigaSlime

Just popping in to say that if anyone else besides me was thinking of joining in and hadn’t bought a copy of the game yet, it’s on sale for 50% off on Steam along with a bunch of other Falcom games

RubySunrise

GigaSlime shoot I just bought it at full price last week! There goes $7.50 I’ll never get back 😞

Gaagaagiins

And as well if you can’t afford it even half off and are not morally opposed to playing the game without paying for it, speak up in the thread, you may be visited by one or even multiple benevolent figures bearing gifts

Gaagaagiins

You didn’t hear this from me but these benevolent figures may also be charming, talented, kind, and potentially even physically attractive according to most reasonable metrics surrounding that sort of thing. They may be followed by pleasant weather wherever they go, and/or have a roguish spring in their step. Which is to say, I personally speak very highly of them, for certain reasons which I hope you will trust to be substantial

Gaagaagiins

I don’t want to say anything too melodramatic or hyperbolic here, but I would take a bullet for them. I mean, I think I’d take a bullet for most of you folks, but, you know

Nemoide

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to participate this month because I really don’t like playing games on my PC (not helped that it’s a piece of trash I got for free from a library that was getting rid of it for being too old several years ago). But for a fairly simple game from 2005, my machine can handle it no problem! And using my USB 6-button Genesis controller helps me imagine that it’s a console game…

I’m not exactly an authority on Falcom, I’ve played Popful Mail, Ys for SMS, Ys I & II for PSP, Ys: Oath in Felghana and a little FaXanadu and Sorcerian. But I like their stuff have to say: Xanadu Next feels like a Falcom game in the best way!

I love hacking & slashing, exploring and making progress then going back to heal/save. I’m still pretty much in the very beginning (out through the village gates) but I can tell that I’m going to have a good time with this game. I don’t have a ton of free time but I expect to be able to finish it this month without any problem!

Even though I never sank enough time into FaXanadu to make serious progress, I do think that’s a pretty cool game. Not sure how similar it is to the original Xanadu though. I have Tokyo Xanadu in my backlog, I’ll look forward to getting to that sometime in the future and am glad to be playing this first at least!

Kez

For anyone on the Steam Deck, if you’re interested I have done some tweaking and I am pretty happy with my setup now.
My video settings are like this:

And I have created a controller layout, which binds the mouse to the right trackpad, as well as right/left click to the left/right triggers respectively. I also created some custom menus which appear on the right trackpad when you hold the rear paddles - one for F1-4 and one for 1-4. I don’t use it loads, but it allows you to change skills or items while running which isn’t possible with gamepad controls (it doesn’t accept d-pad and stick inputs simultaneously - for me anyway).

This control scheme has been pretty nice for me. Navigating the menus is a lot more pleasant, and I’ve also found that when you aim with the cursor you can target in ways that I haven’t been able to do with the gamepad controls - for example if you hover your cursor over an object/enemy and then use magic it will hit that target. I found this useful in a room where I wanted to target exploding crates but it kept attacking other crates or enemies. Additionally, when you are dealing with stacks of boxes you can specifically break a single one by using the trackpad + trigger to click on it - this even works diagonally on boxes that are surrounded on all sides.

I uploaded the control scheme to the community layouts tab under “Hybrid Controls for Steam Deck” (it should say by Kez).

Gaagaagiins

Kez I don’t use it loads, but it allows you to change skills or items while running which isn’t possible with gamepad controls (it doesn’t accept d-pad and stick inputs simultaneously - for me anyway).

I also experienced this, I used a PS5 controller, connected via USB, and while using DS4.

sabertoothalex

Kez Gonna try this later tonight! The community layout I’m using right now maps the attack/click button to one of the back buttons which isn’t the most comfortable.

thebryanjzx90

Dangit I thought I finally figured out the solution to a block puzzle in the clover ruins but no such luck. There are three wooden crates laid out left to right when you walk in, then a space then three stone blocks perpendicular to the wooden crates, and a heavy box on top of the middle stone block that you need to move on a switch one space towards the entrance. Anyone do this?

Gaagaagiins

thebryanjzx90 Dangit I thought I finally figured out the solution to a block puzzle in the clover ruins but no such luck. There are three wooden crates laid out left to right when you walk in, then a space then three stone blocks perpendicular to the wooden crates, and a heavy box on top of the middle stone block that you need to move on a switch one space towards the entrance. Anyone do this?

I can’t remember what puzzle you’re referring to but I’ll try and go over some less than obvious properties of crates and the puzzles that love them

1. If you cut a crate in half, you can no longer move that crate.
2. I can’t remember if you have this or not but you do eventually get an item which will allow you to push the stone/metal crates.
3. Under most circumstances, you cannot climb up a full crate, but you can make a staircase out of crates and half crates. A half crate is the height of a step in the crate staircase, so you need a half crate, a full crate, a full crate on top of a half crate, 2 crates, etc.
4. Using crate staircase, you can push crates up the staircase, which is the main way you can construct your own crate staircases.
5. You can cut a full crate into a half crate so long as it is eitheron the same level as you, or, up no more than one crate height. So, if a wooden crate is on top of a half crate, you can still cut it.
6. You can also push crates that are either on the same level as you or no more than one half crate height above you (which is suggested by how you can push a crate up a crate staircase but again, yeah, not immediately obvious, and I think intuiting this is required somewhere).
7. So long as an edge of a crate goes to a drop at least one crate height high, you can leap off of it.

Much later in the game, this can be combined with a mid-air motion enhancing tool to do weird shit.

sabertoothalex

Just noticed that if you go back to areas where a chest is after resting they’ll be closed and you can open them again for some gold!

thebryanjzx90

Gaagaagiins so I know you can jump at least two spaces away and a half step up, but I’m not sure if you can jump any further than that

wickedcestus

Gaagaagiins Following this thread even though I’m not playing the game, and this is my favourite post by far.

Gaagaagiins

thebryanjzx90 I might be able to help more with a screenshot, if you don’t mind uploading it to imgur

thebryanjzx90

Gaagaagiins I figured it out, or at least #8 on your list let me get it. Felt prett janky but I don’t see how else to get it.

Jumping is pretty silly in this game. It’s like Dark Souls 1, you don’t have a jump button you have a jump mechanic.

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