Out of the handful of classics for the NES, make sure you play this one.

User Rating: 9 | Faxanadu NES
In Faxanadu you have lived in some sort of tree, with the elves, dwarves, and humans. However "The evil one" has corrupted the dwarves making them mutate into terrible creatures, and has taken all the life from the tree. In the beginning you return to your town to find it nearly destroyed. You decide to set things right so the king hands you a bag of gold to get started and you move out.

The Bad: I cannot get out in words how much I hate using passwords. I lost mine twice playing through this game and had to start over both times. Anytime I start a game and see "Password" at the main menu I cringe. To get a password you talk to a guru in this church and gives you a "mantra", which is your password. The coloring was bad. You walk into a town and the people, buildings, and ground is either blue or brown, and the sky is black. In some parts the whole scenery is one color, including yourself. This games favorite color is blue and brown. Yeah you'll find a few things different colors but for the most part, blue or brown. Maybe this is to show that the tree is dying and whithering but why are you brown too? One other thing that bothered me.. This game had a very anticlimatic ending. You just walk in, kill the monster(it isn't even hard) like you would any other enemy and watch about a 2 minute ending and it goes right back to the title screen.

The Good: The music in this game I thought was really good. When your exploring through the mist, or fighting a boss(There really isn't bosses in this game just enemies that have to take more hits to defeat). I never noticed much sound effects but this does not subtract from the game in anyway. The enemies were really well designed. You have this huge vicious looking dwarf swooping down spitting fire balls at you, and believe me it looks pretty good for 8-bit standards. It's just plain fun to explore in this game. You travel from town to town but its not as linear as you would think. Plus theres plenty of sidequests to do, upgrades to collect that make you stronger, and monsters to slay. The level up system is a little bit different then you may have to get used to. Im not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it stands out. So in the top right corner you have EX and gold. Lets say you get 1000 EX from killing monsters and talk to the guru he will give you a new title rank. As you get more EX and keep getting new titles ranks you may think your get stronger. Nope. This just affects how much money you have when you return. Lets say you have 10000 gold and your rank is soldier. When you return you'll have around 6000. Same for if you 0 and your rank is solider. When you come back you'll have around 6000. However you can keep any items you buy or have. Which means you can spend, write down your password, come back and spend again. Repeat as many times as you like. The combat is pretty simple. You tap a button and your guy stabs his sword foward. Its pretty straightfoward. One thing I loved about the game..Wing boots! You may not know what these are but in the game if you have a pair. They allow you to fly! Pretty cool.

All in all Faxanadu is a great game. Even though there is some annoyances, that doesn't mean it isn't a great game. While it lacked an in-depth storyline which I love(me being an RPG lover), and I wouldn't have minded a little more color or a better ending, I recommend this game to anyone with an NES or anyone with an emulator to play it on their computer. Faxanadu is a Masterpiece that should not be overlooked by anyone.