What I did in the game: Game beaten (this may seems basic, but you pretty need to have done everything in the game to do so, else you're blocked and you die).
The One Picture I have taken: King Dragon slain.
This goes in directly in my Gaming Hall of Fame. Xanadu and me had a long and weird history dating back when I first tried its last version on the Sega Saturn as a teenager as part of the Falcom Classics Vol. 1. Back then, I bought this collection for Ys, but still tried the Dragon Slayer and Xanadu (which is Dragon Slayer II) remake. All I could remember from this era is me bumping my head on what I needed to do and never leaving Level 1. I tried again and again to replay it, but this game was just a big mystery. Since then, I've learned that Xanadu was one of these games where you TRULY needed to read a guide beforehand, because there was just so many cryptic secrets and gameplay elements that will NEVER be explained to you in the game. And failing to understand EVERYTHING means you just WON'T progress. Period! That was so scary to me, that I just gave up on it...until now. I just couldnt leave this mark of shame being left uncheked for any longer. I needed to complete this legendary Falcom game. The version I've played was Revival Xanadu for the PC-98, available on Switch through EGGConsole. It is also the EASY Version, which I thought would help me. But believe me, I don't know what is easier in this version, because I was getting wrecked all the time.
So first thing first, I went and read the only available guide for it on Gamefaqs, which was for the MSX version, but it was similar enough that it was still helpful. This game has so many things to understand. The correct stats to put at the beginning of the game, how to solve platforming puzzle (because yes, your character do have a lot of hidden move when jumping), the karma system which could actually prevent you from leveling up if you kill the wrong enemies, the price of a lot of things being impacted by your charisma stat and you just leveling up which can lock you up of buying necessary things like keys, the function of each item and when to use them (because you could get stuck if you don't have them at the right moment), or even the fact that killing the last enemy of a group with magic won't give you the item it may drop, so you have to kill it with physical attack, but just the last one. The list goes on and on. But once you know the rules, I was surprised to see that I was getting through each of the 10 Levels of the Dungeon quite easily, in big part thanks to the very detailled map feature included in the game. I don't remember if it was in the others versions, but in Revival Xanadu, it sure was a godly feature! So, I was just reading the guide when entering a new Level, to know what to look for, and then I was doing it on my own mostly. Obviously, I totally abused save states and the rewind function. But even when playing on original hardware, you would save and reload to try what was working and what was not, except that in the original, saving and reloading costs you money or Karma if you were broke, so if I can have a few QoL options on my way down, I will gladly take them.
The whole game is a matter of managing everything. When to buy stuff, when to kill enemies (because there's a limited amount of them in the whole game, and you need to grind A LOT if you want to survive, but also keep some of them alive for later grinding sessions), what to use at what moment. A wrong decision and you may have to lose hours of progress because there will be no way to go further without reloading a previous save, if you can. I almost had to give up just before getting the Dragon Slayer in Level 10, because I couldnt beat the Silver Dragon in Level 9 that was giving me the last Crown. I've learned that you could use the Death Spell, but didnt had enough money anymore to buy it because I didnt put enough point into Charisma so everything was costing me way too much, even when using a Bottle (which double your Charisma). I also NEVER KNEW how to upgrade your Armor and Shield level effectively, so it made me pretty fragile through many parts of the game (because yes, every weapons, spells and armors had to be leveled for them to actually be useful, including the Dragon Slayer sword, which is actually REALLY WEAK, but still is the only thing that can kill the Final Boss).
So yeah, the game just hate you and want to see you suffer, but still, the feeling of crushing little by little everything it was throwing at me was so great!. And so, when I finally managed to cheese the King Dragon with my underpowered armor and shield, but a LV255 Dragon Slayer, it felt SO GREAT! I just couldnt believe I was finally able to put this game to rest after all those years. Now that I know more stuff about the game, I'm sure I could do a way better second run (MORE POINTS IN CHARISMA), but it will never be as thrilling as the first one. If you ever want to tackle this challenge, there's no Japanese language at all in the game except in the ending. Everything is in english, so there's no language barrier here. The only barrier is all the secrets this game has. So truly read a lot about all the systems available in the game beforehand, save and reload a lot, stockpile everything and just take your time while progressing. If you do, you will surely have the adventure of a lifetime!
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