One of my favorite new features is Ludger’s weapons. Luke, Lloyd, I have no idea how you did that, but could you repeat that please?) The variety of skills and abilities to use offer endless ways to battle, and successfully mastering Linked Artes makes the tougher boss fights much easier. Even the Mystic Artes remain as easy as they were in the original Xillia, which was the only game I ever managed to execute a Mystic Arte on purpose, and more than once. It’s as easy as ever to perform Artes, Linked Artes, and Chained Linked Arts. While there is still customization available, it isn’t nearly as much, in my own opinion. Whatever one you equip decides what skills and attributes your characters develop. In the first game, players could either fill out a Lilium Orb completely, or rush through to get the desired skills and expand the webs without lighting up all the nodes. The joy of customization that the Lilium Orbs offered was gone, replaced by an automatic leveling system. The Lilium Orbs of the first game have been replaced by Alium Orbs in Tales of Xillia 2. This is an excellent encouragement for players to link up with more than just their favorites. The more you link with an ally in battle, and the more successful those links, the more your affinity grows with that character. One thing I have to applaud Xillia 2 on is the use of Linking to increase the Affinity. Even some NPCs have affinity with Ludger. Based upon your actions and answers, Ludger and his allies can learn new skills, gain new items, and open up dialogue scenes that may have been otherwise hidden. Xillia 2 brings back an aspect of earlier Tales games that Xillia chose to overlook: Companion affinity/affection. Other than Ludger’s plot-important silence, the voice acting is still fairly decent, with a few exceptions. Gaius and Muzet are now among the companions who join you, adding a wider range of party members to chose from, and a heavier emphasis on strategy. The cast of the first game returns, with new additions to join your party. Players will no doubt end up doing a second playthrough just to see how these choices could have panned out differently, as well as finally hearing Ludger’s voice. Ludger will find himself faced with different choices throughout the game, and these choices can affect everything from his relationship with his fellow characters, to the story itself. The political intrigue between the cultures of Rieze Maxia and Elympios is both delicious and reasonable, but like any good JRPG sequel, if the player hasn’t played the first episode, the second game will leave them scratching their heads at certain parts.Ī main aspect of the game is the trigger choices mentioned earlier. The story follows Ludger, but offers numerous side chapters to help explain what happened to the various characters in the year after the schism was dispelled. It was a risky move for Namco, and unfortunately, it didn’t work. After the lush, full voice acting of the first game, this was a disappointment and tainted my enjoyment of the game. (I won’t spoil it in this review, fear not!) Ludger voices all of his lines completely in New Game+ mode, but the fact still remains that the game sounded broken or rushed during the first playthrough. Thankfully, he spared me from doing the same thing, as the matter of Ludger’s voice is actually a huge spoiler. I actually began to wonder if Namco had run short on their voice acting budget.įellow Xbro Shadowstorm144 had actually gone to Google to find out if his game was glitched or if this was intentional. This trend continued, with Ludger only uttering one-word answers or short phrases, if need be. To my disappointment, Ludger did not utter the phrases and would merely nod or react with action. The moment I saw a trigger choice with dialogue options, I was excited to hear Ludger’s voice, as the voice acting in the original Tales of Xillia was mostly phenomenal. You start the game as Ludger Will Kresnik, and the first disappointment happens almost immediately. In the very beginning, Ludger is fairly quiet, and isn’t overly vocal. Rieze Maxians are viewed as supernatural freaks, Elympions are viewed as spirit-murdering barbarians, and those in-between are torn between wishing the two worlds were divided again, or united in peace. As with any political turmoil, different factions exist. Citizens of Rieze Maxia and Elympios live in varying degrees of suspicion, fear, and optimism. Tales of Xillia 2 takes place one year after the schism has been dispelled. Combine both together, and what do you get? Why, you get the Tales series, of course! And just this past August, the latest installment in the franchise was released as the sequel to 2013’s English release of Tales of Xillia. If there’s a guilty pleasure any of us can admit to, it’s a good JRPG, or an insanely addicting anime.
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