Tales of Xillia 2 Review: JRPG's Triumphant Return

There is in Japan a genre of video games, like JRPG. This genre became insanely popular in the mid-80s of the last century, when the first games of the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy series appeared. In recent years, the genre has experienced a stagnant stasis, but some studios are eager to return the former glory to the once popular game series.

JRPG can alienate many players by the fact that games of this genre almost always use anime stylistics. Yes, these are the most vivid and lurid characters from the numerous Japanese animated series. Nevertheless, behind this deliberately children's façade there is often a very deep and elaborate plot that can easily give odds to many much more serious-looking Western role-playing games.

The second distinctive feature of the games of the JRPG genre is, without a doubt, an elaborate combat system that is constantly evolving and acquiring additional details and capabilities. Dozens of intricate game menus, initially not very clear to beginners who play in JRPG for the first time, after a while become for many a real discovery. This can and should be played, and sometimes the JRPG seem to be much more interesting than the more famous role-playing series in the world.

Namco released the first role-playing game series "Tales of" in the distant 1995 for the 16-bit console Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The game immediately became a hit in Japan and brought a lot of new things to the JRPG genre. For example, it was the first game that came out on a 48-megabit cartridge, which in those years was just an incredibly large amount. The game also used voice samples, and before that, in all Japanese role-playing games, the characters communicated exclusively using text messages. The combat system, in contrast to the same Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, resembled a two-dimensional fighting game, when fights took place in real time, and not in a step-by-step mode.

Tales of Xillia (2011) became the thirteenth game in this series, and Tales of Xillia 2 (2012), respectively, the fourteenth. Both games were released on the Sony PlayStation 3 gaming console solely due to its popularity among Japanese gamers. And both games were translated into English only two years after the release of the Japanese versions. On the localization of such giant projects, even for large Japanese publishers, it sometimes takes a very long time, and there is nothing to be done about it.

Considering that in recent years the whole genre of JRPG has come to a real decline, the rates of Japanese publishing house Namco Bandai for these games were really high. There was a risk that if the new parts are not liked by fans in Japan and the West, then developers will have to significantly cut the budget of the subsequent games of the series, and from some and completely refuse. But, fortunately, the developers did not lose, and the games were expected to be a great success both in the Land of the Rising Sun and in other countries.

Each game of the "Tales of" series offers you a completely unique story, not connected with other games, the game world and new characters. But some particularly popular parts acquired a direct number sequel to the numerous requests of fans. Despite the fact that today I will tell you about Tales of Xillia 2, you don’t have to go through the first part of it in order to understand what is happening on the screen and understand who all these people are. But with a special desire, you can look directly inside the game for a brief summary of the plot of the first part of it, read about each character in a special illustrated encyclopedia built into the game, and if you really want to plunge into the plot with your ears, Tales of Xillia.

The game unfolds a year after the end of the first part. In the world of Tales of Xillia, people are forced to coexist in the neighborhood with disembodied spirits. Thanks to spirits, people are able to use magic, this is the basis for peace and harmony between them. The main character is a guy named Luger Kresnik, who earns a job as a cook in a station cafeteria and constantly gets into some kind of incredible troubles.

By the will of fate, Luger finds himself embroiled in a government conspiracy and becomes a particularly dangerous wanted criminal. Together with his rather colorful comrades, including both characters from the first game, and completely new personalities, he has to confront terrorist organizations, treacherous politicians and even his own brother Julius, who for unknown reasons took the side of evil.

Detail about the plot of JRPG - death is similar, since the density of events in such games, as a rule, goes off scale, and the plot spoilers can deprive you of a fair amount of pleasure from passing the game. So I'll leave the story alone, but instead I'll tell you more about the other aspects of the game.

As I said above, the mandatory component of Japanese role-playing games is a well-developed combat system. Tales of Xillia 2 is no exception to the rules and offers the player a huge scope for tactical planning and combat. In addition, that the character chosen by you can alone mutunate opponents, the game invites you to combine efforts with your friends controlled by artificial intelligence, thanks to a special tactical system. You can ask any character to help you in battle or give him complete freedom of action, then he will make all his decisions on his own.

During the battle, the characters use several types of energy. In addition to traditional HP (Hit Points, displaying the amount of remaining life energy, as in fighting games), each character accumulates and consumes AC (Assault Counter) and TP (Technical Points) scales, the first of which displays the number of available attacks, and the second - points that can be spent on special magic tricks. Thanks to the "links" system, several characters can perform a joint, incredibly powerful attack on the enemy.

Bleeding takes place both by traditional accumulation of experience points, and by means of special energy spheres, equipping with their characters, you can pump their individual skills. All this is easier to see during the game, rather than describe in words.

The game can be conditionally divided into two modes: it is a mode of research when the character walks on foot across cities and dungeons, and combat mode when the team fights with opponents. The research mode will allow you to communicate with the inhabitants of cities and villages, as well as to search for various hidden objects, perform numerous quests and in general - to feel the world of the game as much as possible. While the combat mode will allow you to pump out the main characteristics and master the strategic component of the game in battles against ordinary opponents and powerful bosses.

Another distinctive feature of the "Tales of" series is the ability to prepare food from products available in stores. You can invent recipes for various dishes, by trial and error, or get them for completing various plot tasks. The food you prepare can be used in combat to enhance individual characteristics, or to have a snack between fights, so that, for example, during the fight your characters get more experience. Such a culinary system first appeared in the very first games of the series and has always been used since then in every new part.

Visually, the game is performed very qualitatively, nevertheless it would be interesting to see how it all looked on the PlayStation 4. Despite the fact that the characters meet all the requirements of anime stylistics, you get used to this picture quite quickly and even get to the characters with a feeling of deep empathy . When moving around the locations in the game, a third-person view is used, and at some moments it becomes possible to communicate with members of your team. These conversations are activated by the Select button on the DualShock 3 controller. During the conversations, you will be able to learn more about what's on your companions' mind, to hear their stories, in other words - they will get you much closer as you go.

Another important innovation of the game was the opportunity at certain moments of the narrative to make a choice. The game pauses, and you are shown two options for further actions, from which you choose the one that suits your personal perception of the situation. Sometimes, if the situation requires it, the choice takes quite a bit of time. In these moments, you must calculate all the pros and cons and act as quickly as possible. Depending on your choice, the plot of the game can evolve in a few slightly different directions, as well as the relationship between the protagonist and members of his team.

Modern video games differ from their predecessors in that their publishers have become more practical and are trying to recoup the development to the maximum with the help of paid add-ons DLC (Downloadable Content). This model of monetization has reached and to the east, thanks to what now in games it is possible to get various "buns" for an additional payment. In Tales of Xillia 2, you can pay your characters in different styles for a fee, as well as purchase especially powerful weapons and magic accessories for them. Fortunately, this function is completely optional, so no one forces you to spend your hard-earned money.

The only thing that upset me very much during the passing game was the English dubbing. Americans have repeatedly argued that they do not know how to sound Japanese video games, take my word for it, I've picked up more than one dog. Some publishers specifically leave a Japanese soundtrack on the disc with the game, so that the player can activate it at any time if he hears the hearing of a mediocre game of American actors. But in Tales of Xillia 2 no one will give you this choice. We'll have to frown on replaying and completely ridiculous voices, which correspond little to the characters you see on the TV screen.

To music, I had no complaints whatsoever - everything is very worthy (even an introductory composition performed by the Japanese pop diva Ayumi Hamasaki is available) and this soundtrack does not get tired for tens of hours of passage, which you probably will take away this game. Yes, another difference between JRPG and other role-playing games is simply the gigantic duration of such games. Some representatives of the genre can take away from the player more than 100 hours. And quite rare JRPG can be played for 30 or less hours of playing time.

I can talk about this game for a very long time, but it's time to sum up all the above.

Pros:

• Very deep plot, which continues to keep you at the screen for tens of hours.
• A beautiful fantasy world that you want to explore from beginning to end.
• A unique combat system that has become even more complex and elaborate.
• A crazy amount of minor quests and opportunities is an interesting time.
• Great duration of the game.

Minuses:

• A little outdated graphics, thanks to the fact that the game was developed for the PS3.
• Absence of Japanese dubbing.
• Many can scare away the anime stylistics of the game.
• In part, the game uses the results from the first part.

My score game Tales of Xillia 2 - 7 points out of 10 . If this game add a bit of visual gloss and release it in an updated guise on the Sony PlayStation 4 console, and supply it with an alternative Japanese voice acting, it would receive a much higher mark from me. But even in this version of the game you can and should play all the fans of the genre JRPG, which, in my opinion, begins to revive precisely because of such projects. I recommend to try the game even for those gamers who never crossed with JRPG. It may well be that you will discover a whole new world.

The game was played on the PlayStation 3 console. I thank the New Disc company for providing a copy of the game.

The article is based on materials https://hi-news.ru/entertainment/obzor-igry-tales-of-xillia-2-triumfalnoe-vozvrashhenie-jrpg.html.