There's always a slight feeling of sadness when you finish a good role-playing game. Having sunk dozens of hours in a story, getting caught up in the world, plot and characters along the way, finally finishing one can leave you feeling a little lost. It's like finishing a good book that took you sixty hours to read - what do you do when it's finished? Well, for people who played last year's Tales of Xillia, the story of Milla, Jude and co isn't done yet, as for the second time in the Tales of series' (almost) twenty year history, we get a direct sequel.
Xillia 2 thrusts players back into the two adjacent worlds of Elympios and Rieze Maxia - the former a grey, technologically advanced region big on industry, and the latter a green and pleasant land where magic is key - roughly a year on from the events of the original game. Speaking of which - it's probably worth mentioning here that despite being a direct sequel, you don't actually have to have played the original game. There's an in game encyclopedia that'll get you up to speed with everything you've missed if you're a Xillia novice - but you do run the risk of having characters mention things that happened during the "events of a year ago", which may spoil the original game for you. But we digress.
Xillia 2 thrusts you into the shoes of a young Ludger Kresnik, whose life gets turned upside down when his brother goes missing and becomes the prime suspect in a terrorist attack. On the same day, Ludger finds himself somehow becoming responsible for the safety and well-being of an eight year old girl called Elle, a lone child looking for the mythical 'Land of Canaan', where she's been told to go to be reunited with her father. The pair (or trio, if you include Ludger's cat Rollo) quickly become inseparable, and join up with the familiar cast from the original Tales of Xillia, as they start the search for Ludger's most-wanted brother, Julius.
Milla's nutcase handmaid-with-an-inferiority-complex Ivar makes more than a few appearances too.
Hired by the prestigious Spirius Corporation to track his brother down, Ludger isn't the first choice to find his brother - he's the only hope. You see, the Kresnik family has passed down a special gift through the generations - a gift that only they have - the ability to travel to parallel dimensions. By heading into these fractured dimensions though rifts that appear on the game's map, you can find yourself in a near-identical replica of the various Tales of Xillia 2 locales. Suspecting that your bad bro may be hiding in one of these - somewhere no-one else can find him - it's up to you hunt out the single object/person/thing that powers the dimension and destroy it, because the world can't sustain all these extra dimensions without crumbling apart at the seams. A cool plot point though it may be, the only problem here is that treading through the fractionally different versions of areas you've already visited umpteen times can be a tad samey - kind of like Groundhog Day, but with more extravagant animé hairstyles.
One interesting elements of Tales of Xillia 2 is it's debt system. Saddled with a whopping 20 million Gald loan to cover medical expenses incurred during the terrorist train attack (medical expenses must cost a bomb in Xillia-land - that's just for him, Jude (another character from the first game who happened to be with you on the train), Elle and the cat), Ludger needs to work to pay off his debt if he ever wants to be able to find his brother again. You see, in the high-tech world of Elympios, those with debts, criminal records and the like are kept under strict surveillance, with travel restrictions preventing them from doing a runner - so practically speaking, you need to keep making payments to open up new areas in order to explore and advance the story. Fortunately, there's no shortage of jobs, fetch quests and monsters to defeat, each rewarding you with cash and items that'll go some way to making your next repayment. There's no penalties for not keeping up with your bills either, nor is there any rush to pay things back - but only once you reach each milestone amount will you be able to progress to the next part of the tale, which can seem a tad sucky at times, when you decide to splash out on a fancy new sword at the expense of your loan. But such are the harsh realities of life, we suppose.
Like all good role-playing games, Tales of Xillia 2 has its own easy-to-pick-up, difficult-to-master battle system, which will be immediately familiar to anyone whose played one of the 14 Tales of games before, particularly if one of those was last year's Tales of Xillia. Taking place in real-time, you have two sets of different attacks at your disposal - regular sword slashes, hammer bashes and pistol firing attacks on X, while O has a whole range of special 'Arte' moves, which are both fancier and more powerful, but come at a cost of some of your TP (Technical Points) bar. On the plus side, TP does regenerate as you damage your opponents with your regular attacks, or use regenerative items, so you don't really need to be especially cautious with their use. You can also block with the Square button, negating some of the damage done by your enemies - and if timed correctly, stopping you from being knocked flat on your back by their attacks.
It may look like a load of numbers and explosions, but the Tales battle systems are actually pretty straight-forward - we promise!
Of course, there's more to the battles than simply alternately mashing X and O - with four of your party members taking part in battles at once, Xillia 2 takes teamwork to the next level by bringing back the "Linking" mechanic found in the original game. By joining up - 'linking' - with one of the other characters, you'll not only have someone to watch your back in battle and help you take down the bad guys, but you'll also gain access to a number of special team moves and abilities. For example, teaming up with Jude will have him heal you periodically with his Restore skill, whilst Leia is adept at pilfering useful items from baddies, bolstering your backpack rather than your battle performance instead. While linked, you can perform special 'Linked Artes' - super dooper double team moves which differ from character to character.
But Xillia 2's battle system isn't simply a rehash of the original game, and Ludger brings two unique abilities to the table - his Weapon Swap and Chromatus Transformation skills. The former does exactly what it says on the tin, letting Ludger hot-swap between a speedy set of dual blades, a heavy hammer and some long-distance pistols during combat. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses against different sets of enemies, so picking the best weapon for the job is paramount - fortunately, it's a simple matter of looking for the red 'Power Hit' text over your enemy to know when you've got the right combo. His Chromatus Transformation is a bit more obtuse, however. A by-product of the Kresnik family's genetics, Ludger is able to enter a special, more powerful state for a short time, where he can lay a serious smack down on enemies, courtesy of some crazy yellow time-spear thing - but the transformation needs time to charge and only lasts for a short time, so some strategy is required as to when the best time to pull it off is. And a fight against a giant bird that likes to fly just out of reach, making him nigh on impossible to hit isn't one of them.
'Skits' - random (and often hilarious) little conversations between your party members are a series staple.
As you fight battle after battle, your characters will earn experience points and get more powerful as they gain levels - all standard role-playing game fare. But learning new moves and abilities is a little more complex then you might expect, and requires the use of an 'Allium Orb'. Supposedly an evolution of the Illium Orbs of the original game, where you simply 'purchased' points to use in a spiderweb-like grid for new moves and upgrades, the Allium Orb seems way more complex in the beginning. You have a selection of 'extractors' which you can give each character in order to harvest 'elemental ore' from defeated enemies, which for all intents and purposes function simply as 'points' towards unlocking new upgrades. However, the rate at which you earn new abilities decreases the longer you have the same extractor equipped, so its in your interest to switch things up from time to time. To be honest, it seems like too much micromanagement than we can really be bothered with.
Ludger is perhaps the quietest protagonist in a Tales game ever. Most lead characters have verbal diarrhoea, and chunter to themselves constantly, even when there's no-one around to hear them - but Ludger, on the other hand, stays completely silent, bar a handful of sighs and the odd 'Yeah...'. Whether a deliberate attempt to make him seem easier to identify with, or whether it's simply the traits they chose to give him, his quietness is unnerving at times, and can make him seem a bit of a boring main character, which is a shame to say the least. The real stars of the show end up being your companions, overflowing with personality, particularly for those who are already familiar with the cast from the original Xillia. Even Rollo, Ludger's fat pet cat, has more of a personality than his owner, and all he can say is 'meow'.
He's just big boned...
At various points during the game's story, Ludger is faced with a choice of what to say or do next - a binary A or B choice - do you save the damsel in distress, or call for help? Do you order hungry Leia a mabo curry or a dish of tomato pasta? Would you rather have the travel restrictions lifted on the Helioborg research station or Marksborg city first? Depending on the situation, your choices can alter the course of events slightly (but Tales of Xillia 2 still follows the same overarching story regardless), unlock different events or bring you closer to your party members. How well you get on with your comrades plays into Xillia 2 more than any of the previous games, and can net you exclusive scenes, conversations and items if you get your friendship high enough - as well as unlocking character-specific quests and side stories, to give you a bit of background into what your favourite characters have been up to in the interim between the two games.
Regular Tales-ers will know of the series' love of furry felines, but Xillia 2 really takes the cat biscuit when it comes to kitties. Not only do we have the humongous Rollo, but a crazy cat lady living in Ludger's apartment block has lost 100 - yes, 100 - of her precious pets, and has asked you to help her track them down. Effectively functioning as furry collectables, scattered far and wide, from Elympios to Reize Maxia and back, finding all of them is one heck of a challenge. But these cats are more than just a furry face - along with providing plenty of excuse for people like us to scour the land, you can send your caught kitties off on quests to catch exclusive and rare items for you through the game's 'Kitty Dispatch' mode. And the more cats you have, the rarer the items you'll be able to find - some of which are needed to finish certain jobs and quests, and some of which are simply fun accessories and weapons to deck out your characters with. Although all ours seem to bring back are carrots...
Tales of Xillia 2 treads familiar territory, as is to be expected for a direct sequel. For those who loved the original Tales of Xillia, the opportunity to meet back up with Milla, Jude, Alvin and co. shouldn't be missed, even if Ludger himself is a bit of a lacklustre protagonist (his morbidly obese cat companion Rollo is amazing, however). It's perhaps not quite as good as it's predecessor, and you may find yourself tiring of trudging through the same locations again, but it's still a thoroughly decent game with a solid story and well worth the investment. Newcomers may want to start with the original Xillia though first - while it's not a necessity, you will be better placed to enjoy Xillia 2 if you know your Dr. Mathis from your Rowen.
Format Reviewed: Playstation 3
