What is Xillia 2 like?

[ArgyleGamer]

Could someone tell me what Xillia 2 is like? From what I've seen it seems kinda like Final Fantasy X-2 with alot of emphasis on sidequests and stuff. And I think each character has their own quest like Legendia and the affection system returns like in Symphonia. Do people think that Xillia 2 surpasses the first game?

[Xendyl]

[Yume Hanabi]

It does surpass the first game in several aspects, but I still find the first better overall, personally.
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[Accelerator]

it does everything way better than the first game

facts:

-better battle system
-more sidequests, actual cameos, etc
-the addition of character episodes


opinion:
-good new tracks
-better storyline that actually gets pretty emotional
-cast is generally more likable because they're not dealing with the baggage they had in the first/grew up

i actually can't think of anything the first game did better than the second honestly
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[Yume Hanabi]

Xillia 2 improved on a lot of things... and they proceeded to mess with some of the things I loved the most about the first.

Better battle system, but they killed Elise and Leia's AI and for some reason Milla doesn't play as smoothly as she did in 1. I know a lot of people find they have trouble going back to 1 now, but it's not the case for me at all. The only thing I'm missing so far when I go back to it is auto-Tipo ON when casting, some artes and decent damage hi-ougi.

More sidequests... but less backstory-related sub events (or less memorable because 1) unvoiced and 2) only come as a reward for some item-fishing quest). I don't count character eps as sidequests because even though they technically are optional, the game's pretty empty without them.

Storyline... did some really great things, and then introduced really weird stuff. Also while the journey of Ludger and Elle was great, the over-arching plot was the same cliched stuff we get all the time, while Xillia took a lot of innovative approaches for Tales. Also plotholes, retcons and unexplained/unresolved random elements. The unexplained is perhaps the most annoying. Guides are there to provide more details about backstories whose main elements we find in-game, not explain major parts of the game's plot.

And Ludger being silent is, imo, a very bad design decision, especially for such an emotional game.

The first's main flaw was that it was rushed - but ultimately it told everything it wanted to tell and it was warped up nicely. Xillia 2's flaw is that it is lazy, and sometimes doesn't know where it's going. Recycling isn't bad in itself; actually my main gripe about it is that they didn't exploit the possibilities recycling offered more, and by that I mostly mean use the free time to create more stuff. It's ridiculous when at least three NPC of the same model appear in the same scene (at least swap colors a bit or idk!), it's sad that we only got two new unmemorable towns and a few more areas of another (so much for developing Elenpios), and then story-wise, there are things they didn't think through/took the cheap way out.

Character-wise, nothing to say about their development because it was indeed great, but there's a lot of wasted potential with Gaius, Musee and Alt!Milla. And they went back to the standard habit of pairing characters up for scenes (how characters didn't have an obvious "partner" was one of the things I loved the most in Xillia, so it was pretty disappointing to see that gone =/). Limitating parties to four characters was stupid, too.

And contents-wise, yay cameo. The most unoriginal cameo cast I've ever seen (especially since we have costumes of two of them already >_>) (Stan-Cless dual hi-ougi was cool tho, but what about the girls?). A new, slightly better, very repetitive (granted, they all are) extra dungeon. Good thing we got a few more artes, but I'm disappointed that the spellcasters didn't get more spells. Also how come Jude gets Meteor Storm and Milla doesn't get Elemental Meteor? Poker game was cool, and cats were awesome. Apart from that, they didn't really add much. For a game that could benefit from recycling, I think what we got new-contents-wise isn't really impressive. It's an improvement, sure, but a pretty mild one if you ask me.

Generally, story-wise at least, I feel it had a lot more problems than Xillia.

It's funny, my reaction to both games is the complete opposite. I was disappointed in Xillia at first but the more I replayed and the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. I loved Xillia 2 the first time I played, but the more I replay and the more I think, the more I'm getting frustrated with it.

The things it did right it did flawlessly, though, no argument there.
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[Suikoden2]

Leave it to Yume to give an expansive and detailed opinion of both Xillias.
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[Yume Hanabi]

Heh, it's not really detailed, nor coherent, but it's almost 2 am...

It's probably too vague to make much sense, too, but I'm not really in the mood to write an essay (though I'd like to write down all my feels-- I mean, thoughts on the two Xillias one day; I'm envious of posters who can make long, detailed analyses).
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~Find my Tales of translations on LJ or on Tumblr~

[Colour]

Xillia 2 had barely any group interaction. Only during skits did the whole party got to interact. The group interaction was great in Xillia 1, so I found Xillia 2 disappointing in that regard. Some characters should have been involved in certain scenes.
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Icon via iconography.

[froexen]

TOX 1

-Lack of comboing just killed my overall experience. This very reason is why I'll prefer TOX 2 over TOX 1 all day erry day (Milla's infinite bind DOESN'T count).

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[Radge]

It's like leftovers but when recooked with some more spices, it can taste like new or even better...
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My Backloggery - BLESS XSEED!

[Accelerator]

to be honest, I already liked Milla, Leia and Elise going into Xillia 2 and disliked the other three(well, Rowen I just don't care about.) And after finishing Xillia 2, I really just thought Alvin and Jude were "cool" and Rowen was even more unmemorable than before because man he does not really do **** in this game.

And Musee and Gaius were always awesome.

But Ludger's family drama and Elle made the game way better than the first Xillia on that alone, personally. Xillia 1's plot was too much "seen this before" for me.

I can't really say I noticed Elise or Leia's AI because I just used Ludger/Gaius/Musee/Milla.

I dunno, Xillia just felt like I was playing the skeleton of a Tales game. Xillia 2 gave that skeleton flesh and meat. Character episodes were way better sidequests than anything Xillia 1 had to do on the side because it gave character development AND cool/unique boss fights and worthwhile rewards. The game would feel empty without them, true...almost as empty as Xillia 1!

(actually not really because at least Xillia 2 would still have a cool extra dungeon, cameo bosses, character skins and giant monster hunts)
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[pflaume]

Considering Xillia 2 recycles so much but is otherwise mostly improved, would you say it's playable and even a potentially better experience without having played Xillia 1 first?

[Accelerator]

purely for the gameplay, maybe, because you might get more out of it not knowing most of the game's locations. i can see some really fun adventures because the game gives you almost free roam around the previous game's areas. exploring it at your leisure for the first time could actually be pretty legit.

you won't be able to appreciate the story/characters whatsoever though
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[Yume Hanabi]

The character episodes are so awesome because we know the characters, have seen their development, and are seeing how they've grown between the games. It's hard to dissociate 2 from 1, and not knowing 1... I don't think the experience would be half as fun.
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[pflaume]

That's what I thought as well. Well, most of the main story should work just fine, but the character quests are more than half the game, so I guess someone who plays Xillia 2 first would enjoy the world more but the individual character stories wouldn't resonate as much.