The story doesn’t really lend itself to a lot of opportunities for combat in the first few hours, so this is an artificial way to force the player to fight and get used to things (and ensure the game hits that 50 hour standard) before the plot really gets moving. “I’m just doing my job.” But it’s kind of hard not to when you can’t buy those boots anymore. “Don’t hate me,” Nova pleads as she walks off with more of your money. At least, until your next payment comes due. So you put those purchases off, pay off the debt, and do the best you can against increasingly more difficult enemies with what you have. Let’s see, I could buy some new weapons, armor, and healing items, but then I’d have to grind for another hour to pay back my debt. Most of the gear and items in the game can only be acquired by purchasing them from the shops that are scattered among the various cities and other areas, but it becomes hard to justify your purchases with a debt collector breathing down your neck. And then there’s Rollo, who may be the best feline companion in all of video games.īut your ability to do things does. "The entire cast of the original game returns to join Ludger, Elle, and Rollo, and each one brings something unique to the party, from Alvin’s scoundrel-like tendencies to Leia’s bumbling perseverance. “Give up the gald and no one gets hurt!” So you pay, and the required payments grow larger and larger, and because 20 million is such an enormous number, nothing ever really changes. “We have your wallet surrounded!” Nova, your debt collector, announces as the debt interface forces its way onto your screen. It wouldn’t be so bad if the game wasn’t so damn obnoxious about it, but Xillia doesn’t really seem to care about how the mechanic comes across. You can shrug most of these off and keep going, but you’ll be forced to pay eventually, when the game won’t let you leave the debt interface.Īfter a couple hours, the process gets downright painful. But after a while, the game will prompt you for another, and another, and another. The required payments are pretty small, so you’ll do a few side missions, make the payment and move on. In the world of Xillia, people with large amount of debt are treated like criminals, and severe restrictions are placed on their ability to travel, which means you’ll need to make regular debt payments in order to “unlock” new parts of the world and advance the plot. And I thought my medical bills were ridiculous. Ludger and company survive the incident but, in what is one of the worst game mechanics I have ever seen in any game, our hero finds himself 20 million gald (yes, you read that right) in debt to the doctor that saves their lives. Things are going pretty well, until a chance meeting with Jude Mathis from the previous game and a young girl named Elle force Ludger onto a train that’s being hijacked by a terrorist organization known as Exodus. Protagonist Ludger Kresnik seems content to be living with his brother, Julius and Rollo, their adorable fat cat, and has just landed a new job. "In the world of Xillia, people with large amount of debt are treated like criminals, and severe restrictions are placed on their ability to travel, which means you’ll need to make regular debt payments in order to “unlock” new parts of the world and advance the plot.
The worst thing a JRPG can do is waste your time, and unfortunately, Tales of Xillia 2 is a game that does just that. This mindset means that most games are padded out longer than their story or gameplay ideas can support. For whatever reason, most developers have decided that no JRPG is allowed to have a run time that is below 50 hours, lest it place a pox on their houses.
I had a general idea of what the franchise was, thanks mostly to a long time friend who put many hours into 2008’s Tales of Vesperia, but I’d never played one myself, mostly because I didn’t have the time to tackle a huge JRPG.
TALES OF XILLIA 2 RATING SERIES
And just like each one of us has those comfort food genres, each of us has a rather important and long-running franchise that we’ve never really experienced, one that has slipped through the sifter in our panning for “the next great game.”įor me, the Tales series is one of those franchises. We’ve all got ‘em, and JRPGs are one of mine. You know, the ones that you keep going back to year after year, the old stand bys, the ones that you want to play on the rainy days or when you’re sick.
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