Topic: Faxanadu Remastered shut down

[Crying Freeman]

What you just described is why Goldeneye has been stuck in limbo for almost two decades now.

A lot of these older games have incredibly complex licensing/ownership deals. This is partially because at the time these deals were made, nobody foresaw how nostalgia driven the industry would come to be -- kind of like how networks didn't keep episodes of their old 1960's shows: nobody ever thought reruns or home video would ever be a thing. There was just no conception that people would want to play these games 20 or even just 10 years after release.

As a result, there was much less to cause developers to hold onto old assets and ip's, and so we had very complex licensing deals, such as "Developer X makes a game and signs it for release under Publisher Y. Publisher Y now owns the property for that game and releases it on a console owned by Company Z. Company Z is therefore able to control the destiny of that individual game, but not the franchise, as that is owned by Publisher Y. Developer X therefore makes money off of the game, but is essentially screwed in the future because they don't technically own any of the rights to the IP that they created while signed with Publisher Y."

That does make sense: how the fuck would Nintendo think a James Bond video game would be so wildly popular for so long. Even before then, it's not like secs could predict the cultural impact games have on us today. No way in hell the CV secs would imagine a parody of their game in a show like Robot Chicken lol. Back then secs just did their job and did it well for the most part: make fun games for consumers. Now we have SO much focus on longevity over good pacing and fun gameplay, cinematic a over fun gameplay, trying to be the next thing that it drives us crazy lol(a bit off-topic side rant, but hey)

[Claimh Solais]

Being the MASSIVE Falcom fan that I am (currently enjoying the HELL out of Trails of Cold Steel), I would have loved to see a remake of Faxanadu. But man, why would one even think they could profit off a fan remake? Pretty bad move from the get-go.

But yeah, like said. It's a good way to go by doing a Faxanadu spiritual successor.

Also, for the record, while the Xanadu IP itself is owned by Falcom, they didn't develop Faxanadu, nor publish it. They only lent the license out to Hudson Soft, who proceeded to develop and publish the game themselves (they'd later go on to make other games, like Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys). I guess Falcom doesn't really have much of a say in it since, aside from the obvious "xanadu" in the name and a few world elements here and there, the game barely resembles the Xanadu games at all.

I imagine it's a similar case with the Phillips CD-i Nintendo games (Link: The Faces of Evil, Hotel Mario, etc.). I imagine that Phillips owns the rights to those games, like with Hudson Soft (and now Konami) owning the rights to Faxanadu. I could be wrong though, but I'd imagine that's how this works.

[zangetsu468]

I imagine it's a similar case with the Phillips CD-i Nintendo games (Link: The Faces of Evil, Hotel Mario, etc.). I imagine that Phillips owns the rights to those games, like with Hudson Soft (and now Konami) owning the rights to Faxanadu. I could be wrong though, but I'd imagine that's how this works.

Yeah, there was never a hotel in the mushroom kingdom run by goombas..

Nor any of the crap in the world of Hyrule that appeared in the Zelda CD-i titles.

[X]

Nor any of the crap in the world of Hyrule that appeared in the Zelda CD-i titles.

Last time I checked both Faces of Evil and the Wand of Gamelon both took place outside of the Hyrulean kingdom. The countries of Koridai and (obviously) Gamelon, as well as Zelda's Adventure taking place in the land of Tolemac. But yeah the cutscenes and voice acting were pretty bad, lol. Although the third game was done with live action cut scenes and the game itself was fully CG with the traditional overhead view. Can't even begin to imaging the loading time on that one, lol.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

yeah the cutscenes and voice acting were pretty bad

The badness that launched ten million YouTube parodies.
Also, still not as a bad as Konami upper management.

[zangetsu468]

Also, still not as a bad as Konami upper management.

Actually it's exactly how I picture konami upper management. Fake, terrible, trying to ride the successes of good things passed.

A bunch of morons doing the graveyard duck-walk.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

I'll concede you've actually got a point there.

At least the CD-i games are entertaining though.
For all the wrong reasons, but still.
I chuckled.