I have not had a lot of experience with games by the venerable game studio Falcom. In fact before now, I had only ever played the first two Y's games. But my first encounter with them happened at a much much younger age. I was a tiny kid during the age of the original NES, and at times a game would come along with a mysterious enough concept that that alone would at least draw my attention for a while. Faxanadu was one of those games. I never got to play it, but I remember watching a friend play before having to go home one day. At the time, my curiosity was satisfied and I moved on...
At least I did until I found Xanadu Next was part of a sale on gog.com. My curiosity peaked, I found not only that the NES game that grabbed that same curiosity was a spinoff from a series I never even knew existed, but there was another such spin-off that instantly felt more familiar to me from the trailer: Tokyo Xanadu eX+. At the time I left both games alone as my backlog was kinda large for a game who's place in the main timeline I couldn't even guess as well as another more enticing, but full price title. Then Tokyo Xanadu eX+ went on a steep sale. And I promised myself I play it next as I picked it up. I kinda lied a bit to myself due to news at E3: PSO2 coming out in the west demanded this title wait till I was done with Ragol. But as soon as I finished with Phantasy Star Online, it was time to install.