PixlBit

I've been busy playing Tales of Xillia 2 lately. I have no idea how far into the game I am, nor do I really care. I'm having fun and enjoying myself.

ToX 2 is a true sequel, it tales place a year after the ending of the previous game, and uses many of the previous characters from that game, as well. They even have the same abilities as the in the first game, which is nice. It also uses most of the same locations as in the first game, which does feel a little recycled, but more credible, being a sequel set in the same world.

I'm not going to go into the story, anyone really interested can google that part. I'm just going to talk about my impressions, things I like, things I don't like, and stuff like that.

In the category of “I like this”:

• The return of characters from the first game, and the slight changes that have happened to them in the year since the events of the first game.

• The playable characters from the first game have the same abilities in this one.

• The Kitty Dispatch system. Early in the game, you take on a job for a crazy cat lady who has lost her 100 cats. You have to find them, they're hidden all over the place. Once you've found a cat in a particular area, it opens that area up for “Kitty Dispatch”, where you send out your cat Rollo (an npc) to find rare items and more of the missing cats. Many of the job requests you need to fulfill have items that can only be gotten this way. The more cats you find, the better the loot Rollo comes back with.

• The story. I'm busy doing a lot of the side quests and haven't really delved into the main story too much, but I am curious as to what's going on with the main character's brother and how one other character fits in and whether the person I have pegged as being the real villain does in fact turn out to be.

• Transformation. Ludger, the main character, can transform kind of like Yuri from the Shadow Hearts games.

 

Stuff I'm not so keen on:

• The little girl who is a main character in the story but isn't playable. She's an obnoxious spoiled brat that I'd like to toss down the nearest well. And her voice is that horrible fake little girl voice acting that grates on me after about two seconds. In real life, she'd be one of those spoiled kids whose parents don't believe in discipline and have tantrums when they don't get what they want.

• The fact that the game doesn't come with a manual. The combat is so complex that in-game tutorials really aren't enough. And half the time, the tutorials don't cover the special moves well enough that I can figure out how they work.

• Debt. At the beginning of the story, you end up 20 million in debt and I'm spending most of my time and resources paying that off. It's hard enough to save up early in the game for decent gear and enough healing items to keep from dying too often without the obviously contrived debt and annoying loan officer girl bugging you to pay up every time you manage to save enough to buy better gear.

 

The rest:

• Like I mentioned earlier, combat in Tales games is, I feel, needlessly complex, They just keep adding more and more, and I can never figure out how to do anything more than just button mash and hope for the best. I know I'm not the only one with this problem, because Peter has mentioned it before, too. When I do pull off a combo or a chain, I never have any clue how I did it so I can replicate that action with any reliability. I could probably find something somewhere on the internet to explain it, but it feels too much like work.

• As far as I can tell, the “d” in Ludger's name is silent. So why they didn't just call him Luger is beyond me.

• Maps. When you find a cat, a paw print appears where you found it. Seems kind of useless to me, I mean, I've already found it, why do I care now?

There's probably more, but I usually think of this stuff when I'm playing and I can't be bothered to stop and scribble it down.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is, I'm really enjoying the game. I might actually finish before I go back to work at the park in 37 days, but it is a JRPG and they do tend to go on for a while.