As an unfortunate by-product of the Western gaming industry churning out hit after hit, it’s becoming rarer and rarer to see newly released JRPG’s cross our paths. Fortunately at least, Bandai Namco doesn’t quite see it that way. A sequel, and yet another entry in the largely brilliant ‘Tales’ saga, Tales of Xillia 2 promises to empower you with choice during Ludger’s adventure across Elympios, can they live up to their own lofty expectations?
It’s a rough start for our protagonist Ludger. Chasing his dream and following in his brothers footsteps, he gets a shot at becoming an agent of the Spirius Corporation, unfortunately Ludger fails the ’exam’ and instead we’re laden with his second career choice, becoming a chef. It’s not long however before we’re introduced to the core of our storytelling, ragtag group of archetypal misfits. An inhumanely fat cat named Rollo, a small girl who essentially shouts out in a train station that you’re an abductor, and finally some not at all innocuous guy asking for directions. This is all punctuated by a terrorist attack on the prestigious Ceremonial Train pulling into the local station where, coincidently, Ludger is about to start his first day of work as a chef.
Things inevitably escalate quickly; it’s up to Ludger and his new friend Jude to fight their way through the repetitive train carriages, in an on the rails style, battle system tutorial. Not long after being confounded with the short series of plot set-ups, one of the oddest gaming mechanics ever dreamt up rears its greedy head. Due to some pretty hefty medical bills, undertaken without our permission I might add, we find ourselves in some extortionate debt. 20 million gald’s worth of debt to be exact.
Starting out with an open mind, I was quite intrigued by the concept. Here was a video game dealing with several true to life, serious issues. Terrorism, debt, campaigners and rival corporations all participate in what should have been a mature narrative. Instead, the debt you find yourselves in is taken to a whole new level of irritation once you get past the first few hours. Due to your liabilities, there are sanctions put on your ability to travel; once you pay the required amounts, these get slowly lifted, allowing you to progress to the next area. With a bounty board full of small quests and epic enemies to vanquish, gathering gald for your next payment is fairly simple. Kill three Ribbits, grab a handful of sand from the nearby beach and find a lost cat. You get rewarded in gald and materials on top of getting to explore the surrounding areas, sounds good so far.
The issue being that once you have over a certain amount of money, essentially someone rings you and ‘requests’ payment. At one point I was flush with over 15,000 gald after grinding some levels and completing menial tasks, only for every screen transition to have to pay an indeterminable amount to the interrupting debt fairy. Considering each area might only take 10-20 seconds of jogging from one side to the next, it was fair to say it got quite annoying after the fifth or so time it happened. I’m used to saving up a little pocket money in anticipation of the next cities worth of shops, but unless you spend every penny, you’ll be frequently harassed by your creditor. Aside from the frequency of disruptions, the episodic story progression is also hampered too, with areas locked until you pay up.
As far as the story goes, it’s the usual inter-dimensional affair, with strange happenings, pocket watches and alternate realities. Across the 50 hour campaign, you’ll come across returning characters from the previous game along with some new faces. Aside from the main plot, of which it warns you before progressing, (a great thing in a JRPG!) there are also character plots that offer insight into your companions and are often easily as enjoyable as the main story. Other distractions are also on offer such as the addictive Kitty Dispatch where you end up finding cats and sending them off to hunt for items.
The battle system has had some tweaks here and there; for the most part it’s still the combat system you know and love. Happening in real time, and with incredible depth and intricacies that won’t even be useful for the first quarter of the game, it’s a constant learning process; deciding which artes are best used in what situation is tricky enough, never mind the linking and chaining potentials. Also new to the party are Ludger’s additional weapons, the hammer and the dual pistols, both of which can be swapped out mid-combo to take advantage of enemy weaknesses. Levelling up has taken a different route too; instead of the Lilium structure, we now use the totally distinguishable Allium system. The variance being that you can now align yourself with an element to further customise which skills you learn first.
Presentation is unfortunately a bit of a mixed bag; for every positive, there’s a corresponding negative. The load times between areas are incredibly fast, however the pop-in for all the ancillary NPC’s takes a noticeable while. The beautiful, cell shaded, anime look gets offset by the restrictions of the draw distance. The voice acting is fantastic, yet for some reason Ludger, the protagonist, is essentially mute, save for some clichéd grunts. The areas are all packed with enemies and treasures to seek out, yet most are reused from the previous game. The list goes on; however it’s safe to say that on the PS4 most, if not all, of the issues would be resolved.
Tales of Xillia 2 is a difficult game to rate, areas are revisited, re-tread and reused, the choice system matters little except for a few instances and the game forces an irritating mechanic on you with the incessant debt repayments. On the other hand, it raises sensitive, real world issues; it pays attention to the little things gamers like such as quick load times, responsive menus, rewarding you for having save data from the previous game and it even has a quick save, extra marks for that inclusion alone! For players new to the series, I would probably recommend you pick up the first one before trying this; if you’re a fan of the ‘Tales’ games, you’ll likely have bought it, played it and enjoyed it anyway!
