JRPG Review: Tales of Xillia 2
Tales of Xillia 2 is the direct sequel to last year’s Tales of Xillia, not an uncommon thing for the Tales games to receive sequels though still far between when it does happen. I immensely loved the first game, as with all Tales games I’ve played, they are always fun and entertaining games to play. Tales of Xillia 2 proved to be no different and gave me a chance to return to the characters and world to see where things had gone. The end of the last game left some big changes in the world setting. So I was excited to jump back in.
A little bit of a setup for the game is needed, since it is a sequel taking place a year after the last game. If you haven’t played the first game and don’t want spoilers skip ahead a few paragraphs. In Xillia, it is discovered that there are two sections to the world, one that has been isolated from the rest of the world and magic thrives. While the outside world is stuck without magic and forced to live off technological advancements. So you can think of it as a modern world and a fantasy world living side by side. However, the fantasy world knows not of the other world’s existence, but that’s not true for the reverse.
The modern world is in trouble. The land is dying and they’re having trouble just keeping nature alive. So they’re looking for a way to survive. The thriving magic world becomes their target. They plan to harness the magic and energy used to keep the place isolated and power their civilization’s survival. Ideals and swords clash and eventually, one of the main characters makes a sacrifice to try to bring a compromise to the warring people. Milla brings down the barrier protecting the magic world and allows magic and the life energy to spread out through the world once more. This gives the modern world a chance of a survival, but they know it is still just a life extension, not a solution. They still have to find a solution.
One of the big points fought over is nature versus progress. Some want to harness nature in a more violent fashion while others want to co-exist with nature. It became one of the dividing points of the entire thing, how humans treat nature.
Xillia 2 picks up a year after all of this happened. The worlds are trying to work towards peace, after their bloody and brutal war. However, a lot of disagreements still exist and people are not so quick to forget past mistakes. The modern world was very happy to kill or subjugate the other world, not really viewing them as equals or even necessarily as human. They can do things that the others can’t, use magic. So they’re viewed a bit like monsters. So racism is a common story thread through Xillia 2.
The story covers a wide range of things, but most importantly it really helps to expand on areas of the background of the world and the setting in ways that I didn’t really even think about. It is a sequel to a game that did largely fill complete. Yet, the additions Xillia 2 brought to the story felt like they were answers that I needed to fully understand the world situation and not a last minute rush to slap a story together where there wasn’t one.
Now that isn’t to say things are perfect with the story. The main plot does admittedly come a little across as if this was going on the whole time the heroes in the last game probably would have been told something. It is secret enough that you can give it a hand wave. But it does fill tacked on to something that really wasn’t foreshadowed. But the background it gives doesn’t feel that way, so it is a weird complicated feeling.
Needless to say though, if you can get past that, the story for Xillia 2 is significantly darker and in some ways more fascinating than the original. While pseudo-time travel and alternate realities mixed with player choice dialogue options can make for some weird story’s at times, Xillia 2 makes it all work out. As I said, one of the big subjects is racism. It comes up in many of the side stories and the main story. There are frequent terrorist threats. And when you start realizing what you’re doing, things get insanely dark.
And while I won’t spoil what happens, there are multiple endings and the one that I probably enjoyed the most is what they would call the bad ending. In a very unusual example, you have to actually earn your bad ending, normally it is just fail to do something or make the wrong choice. Here you have to earn and it’ll beat you down until you to win. But that ending cutscene, you think everything is sort of fine and then you see the cutscene and know, yup that’s a bad ending. But wow, I loved it.
Moving on though, I’ll talk about the gameplay. This is a Tales game and if you’ve played Xillia or even Graces you know what you’re getting. Largely if you played any Tales game combat hasn’t really changed a lot. There are always tweaks between the games to add or subtract things, but Xillia made a refinement of Graces combat in a way that was near perfect. So there wasn’t much to add for Xillia 2. But that didn’t stop them from trying.
The biggest change is the main character, Ludger. He is largely a silent protagonist. But he, in time, is gifted with three different weapon types, unlike the standard one weapon type per character. And so he is able to switch out the weapons on the fly in combat. You can get away with largely never swapping or doing so on specific occasions. Advance play will have you switching out regularly to juggle and keep combos going, because you can equip a massive amount of skills, which everyone links with different ones more than others.
The other addition made, also to Ludger, is that he has a special transformation called the Chromatus. When activated, all other party members disappear and you fight all the enemies solo but with new weapon skills and enhanced power. It is good way to get a lot of unguarded hits off. And it is important to the story.
The last note, the old system of learning skills and improving was dropped for a new similar system. Now rather than picking and selecting what you want as you earn points, you aside an item that absorbs points from combat to fill into a specific branch of growth. You can think of it in a way like the Abyss system, except it doesn’t directly impact stats like it does there. It is just a means of learning skills. Every skill requires so many of these points you absorb to learn and it is gained automatic when met. It is simplified and probably the worst part is that you can only see a few skills beyond what you’re currently working sorts. So it is really bad for planning, unlike with Xillia where you could see everything on one web.
One of the biggest changes is to how game unfolds to the player. It is no longer the linear progress to a new area to get the next story element. Now, story and areas are locked behind a gating mechanic. Early in the story, Ludger ends up dumped on with a massive debt of 20 million gald. They have a system in place for people with massive debts to keep tabs on them and restrict their movement, apparently people with massive debt that they have no hopes of paying off tend to try to skip town, who would have thought. So they put systems in place to stop that from happening and so Ludger’s travel is heavily restricted. He is only able to get lifts on it by paying back some of his debt. And the story doesn’t move until you do so, even if the world hangs in the balance. It makes for an odd disconnect at times, but they usually justify things by saying they need time to investigate or figure things out so go work off your debt while you wait. So story-wise they do their best not to make it seem really weird. But it does mean the story is segmented and not under you control. But paying off the needed debt to progress rarely is much trouble. Usually you’re flowing in a decent amount of money, though it does also prevent you from stockpiling money away. As they know how much you have and if you have too much they demand payments as well. So it changes one of the paradigms I’m used to in games of just squirreling away my resources. I was more willing to spend money, which isn’t a bad thing.
Getting to the visuals, ties a bit into a few things. Before I get too much into the visuals for the game, as a sequel they took one of the lazier ways out to make it. There is very little new to the game. There are some new monsters, bosses and a few new areas, but by large it is the same world you visited the first time. Which is a little sad, since Ludger comes from the modern world and the focus is so much on that, I hoped for more exploration into a world that was only lightly touched upon in the first game. So it was disappointing to learn that the areas were largely weighted to the other world and had little use in the plot.
Graphically, this is the same game as Xillia, which isn’t a bad thing in anyway. Xillia still looks great today with the style they set really giving it a strong feeling and not weighed down by trying to be realistic. It isn’t full anime style as some Tales games, but it is still very heavily anime inspired. And so, Xillia 2 still looks just as beautiful and works so well for the game. Until Zesteria comes out next year, Xillia and Xillia 2 will still be the best-looking Tales games.
And now onto the last note, the quirkiness and uniqueness for the game. I’ll address the characters a little here, since it is the best place to fit. This is a Tales game, so it is very much anime inspired, but the unique brand of Tales entertainment that is brought in each game is what continues to win me over in every game I play. And that is the skits, fully voiced and dripping with comedy and great character moments, these are the places where the characters truly come alive and give you a real sense of what they are like as a whole and not just how they handle under the pressure of a world ending event. The skits are short little moments between 2 or more characters that talk about some subject that randomly comes up in their journey. It is usually triggered by something, but this is when the characters break out of their serious game faces and just let loose on what they are really like. You find out so many more things that would never come up in the main story. The things you learn about Gaius alone make me laugh thinking about even now.
They’re funny and revealing moments that you may remember more than the dark and edge story, not that’s a bad thing. Tales unique brand of story presentation always makes them standout in the series of JRPGs, even if it is not unique anymore as is they are staples of the series they are never wrong and always entertaining. If they weren’t here I’d be very sad.
And I’d be remiss in ignoring it, something that makes this Tales game unique is that you make the choices of what Ludger says and does during certain moments in the story. Like with most choice based games, they are all very largely pointless. They mostly serve to give you a slight different line before things go back on track or to grant you points of friendship with characters. You’re told after your selection if it improved ties with a character. There are some choices that do have weight on the way the story goes, but there are very few. The Tales games have always been about one story and telling the story they want, so it largely felt like an unnecessary addition. It didn’t give me anymore investment.
Reason to Play:
The easiest answer is if you played Tales of Xillia, you should play Xillia 2. It expands on the world building and mythology in great ways. This is more of the same fun with the characters that you know and love. Rehash and gating aside, combat is a blast as always and the surprising dark, edgy plot is really great to see it unfold. There are some truly great story moments to come out of it.
Story – 8/10 – A new darker, edger story than Xillia you get to see how the world handles the fallout from the last game, making for a great look back into a very troubled and broken world. Racism and terrorism is throughout, making for one of the more topical games as well. Still it is a sequel and so it does feel a little left field at times.
Combat System – 9.5/10 – The same deep and engaging combat you know from Xillia and with Ludger added the complexity and depth increases even more if you take full power of it.
Customization – 5/10 – It is actually more limiting than Xillia and less of make your picks and more just randomly pick one and hope for the best. They could have done a lot better.
Graphics – 9/10 – The style really sells well even if it is not the most detailed or amazing looking game, it still looks and feels great. While reused, the locales are still breathtaking to behold.
Characters – 9.5/10 – It’s a Tales games, they always do a great job making you love the characters. There are only a few new additions, as all the old characters are back. But there are some really great moments and some good character scenes that really pull on you. They actually feel even better done than the original.
Uniqueness/Quirkiness – 7/10 – While skits are nothing new to the series, they are never boring and always provide hours of entertainment. The choice system though feels unnecessary in a series that has never needed it.
Overall – 9/10 (Not an average)
Last edited by Andromeda; 12-24-2014 at 03:20 PM.
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