Before brown backgrounds were “in” Faxanadu, a Zelda II-like spinoff of Falcom’s Xanadu series, used sepia tones liberally. The NES game follows a wanderer, armed with life refilling red potions and winged boots, as he hacks and slashes his way up the world tree.



At the very beginning of the game players have an opportunity to buy some of the most powerful equipment, the Magic Shield and Death spell (it’s really a slow moving spiked ball). The problem is these items cost a ton of money. You can (and I’ve done it) grind enough to get the items, which pretty much makes the game a breeze.



Soon a new generation of gamers will learn what “this is not enough golds” means because Faxanadu appears to be Virtual Console bound. Australia’s Classifications Board just rated the NES game with Nintendo as the publisher.