Similar to games like The Walking Dead and Persona 4, Ludger’s responses will affect his relationships with the people around him and even alter the path of the plot. With the minor exception of a few grunts and nods, Ludger remains a mute character, allowing for you to select his responses in conversation. The most notable change is the use of a silent protagonist. There were even times when I forgot I was playing a sequel at all, it’s so similar.īefore you walk away thinking this is simply DLC dressed up as a sequel, let me first go into some of the new elements that TOX 2 brings to the table. Trudging through the same environments and facing identical enemy models to the tunes of familiar musical tracks may leave you feeling a sense of deja vu. A major issue with TOX 2 is that it completely reuses elements from the original. In short, I wouldn’t recommend diving into this one without first playing the original Tales of Xillia.Īnd therein lies the rub: Without the prior experience of the first game, you won’t be able to get as much out of this but if you’ve already played the first game, you might not be as enthused about spending another 50-60 hours in the same settings with the same company.
While it’s not absolutely necessary to play the first TOX (since this does have a new and separate plotline), there are quite a few references and nods back to the first title, and you’d probably miss out on a great deal of the significance without already having the foreknowledge. The writing, voice acting and animations perfectly recapture the original sense of the characters, so if you’ve already played Tales of Xillia, you’ll immediately feel right at home. After spending 50-60+ hours getting to know them in the first title, it’s nice to catch up and see the likes of Alvin, Rowen and Milla back in action. The best part of this sequel is seeing all the old gang back together again. Along the way, Ludger joins forces with some of the more familiar characters from the first TOX who will aid him in his quest. Ludger’s life gets unexpectedly turned upside-down when he crosses paths with a little girl named Elle, setting off a sequence of events that places the fate of multiple worlds in Ludger’s hands. This time around, there is a new main character named Ludger Kresnik, an experienced cook with ambitions of following his older brother’s footsteps to becoming an elite warrior-agent of the Spirius Corporation. Tales of Xillia 2 picks up one year after the events of the original title that resulted in the merging of two separate and opposing worlds, previously divided by a magical barrier. Just like in the original, the animations, character skits and in-game cut scenes are seamlessly interwoven into the gameplay, allowing TOX 2 to capture that “playing an anime” feel so many JRPG’s strive for. Thankfully, Ufotable, the animation studio responsible for the cut scenes in the first TOX, has also returned to lend its support with brilliantly rendered anime segments that are some of the best I’ve seen inside or outside of a game. But do the worlds of Reize Maxia and Elympios really warrant a revisit, and is it worth your time and money? That all depends.Īll the things that drew me into the first Tales of Xillia ( TOX) remain present in the sequel, including an engaging plot, a unique cast of expressive characters and an excitingly fast paced combat system. The end result is a game that looks and feels like the first, while playing slightly differently and telling a separate story. Tales of Xillia 2 faces this challenge by picking up the story from the close of the original, bringing back familiar characters and settings and moving forward with a new protagonist and plot while utilizing changes in mechanics and gameplay. Stray too far from the original and it’s disloyal make it too similar and it’s a money-grabbing rehash. Even before the game starts, a sequel is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t by its existing fan base.
Sequels are notoriously difficult to get right.
0 kommentar(er)
