Despite holding the record for physical sales of a domestic Japanese computer game for almost 40 years (400k+ across X1, PC88 series, FM7/77, MSX/2, PC98 & Windows), Falcom's massively popular action-RPG has never received an authentic console port: there have famously been other games released for contemporary consoles that bore the name but not the contents, like the Hudson-made/published Faxanadu for FC/NES, and the one version purporting to be a faithful port—the "original mode" contained in the Falcom Classics anthology for Sega Saturn—is based on a decade-later remake and not the original.
Anyway, this is one of those games that presents as open-ended but in actuality requires you to route your every action, including saving/loading, and will screw you in multiple ways if you don't—that's not to say it isn't fun or that it's opaque to the degree of unplayability, just that you can't Ys your way through it, no matter how Ys-y it might seem in spots. (EGG has added prepared save states for most of the levels, but it doesn't look like they go all the way to the end.)
Is the game completely in English? The trailer at least made it look like it is.
yeah, the text is all in basic English... the bigger hurdle is all the stuff that just isn't explained or addressed in-game, but that comes with the territory, I guess. I imagine EGG will include the essential details in the how-to-play section of the frontend, at the very least.
Masahiro Sakurai chimed in on this reissue by posting a photo of his official certificate of completion, which Falcom would issue to anyone who mailed them a disk with Xanadu clear data... and, naturally, his is a single-digit certificate, making him one of the very first players to ever officially beat Xanadu. Figures.
