The Legend of Xanadu

Overview

The Legend of Xanadu (風の伝説ザナドゥ), which directly translates to something similar to "Legend of the Wind: Xanadu," is an action RPG featuring a bump-style combat system similar to the early Ys games. The game is both the eighth entry in Falcom's Dragon Slayer family of RPGs as well as the third title developed by Falcom to feature the Xanadu moniker. Nihon Falcom released The Legend of Xanadu in Japan for the PC-Engine CD on February 18, 1994 and it was later made available on the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console in 2008. Emulated versions of The Legend of Xanadu have also been released for the PC numerous times as a pack-ins with the Falcom Special Box 2004, the first edition of Xanadu Next and 2012's Dragon Slayers Chronicle. A digital version was also released on Project EGG in 2007.

Historically, The Legend of Xanadu is significant for being the first game Falcom developed exclusively for home consoles, with the game never receiving a PC conversion in Japan, and for being the last game designed by Yoshio Kiya at the company. Kiya was a key figure in the early days of Falcom and was responsible for creating Dragon Slayer among many other classic titles. A direct sequel called The Legend of Xanadu II was released a year after the original in 1995 without Kiya's involvement.

Trivia

• The game contains an English logo on its box that reads "The Legend of Xanadu" but in Japanese the title is actually closer to "Legend of the Wind: Xanadu." However, the game actually went through several name changes during its development. Before the game was even revealed to the public, the title was going to be completely unrelated to Xanadu. Satoko Ono, the game's scenario writer, originally titled the game as just "Story of the Wind" [3]. Eventually management mandated that the game be connected to the Xanadu series and initially announced the game as "Legend of Xanadu: Story of the Wind" (レジェンドオブザナドゥ 〜風の物語〜) in 1992 before it was later changed to its final name [2].

External Links

1. The Legend of Xanadu I & II Complete Product Page
2. Fan Made Development History Timeline (Winddorf Blog, 2018).
3. Tweet by Yoshio Kiya (2014).