Love this game, finished three playthroughs so far to farm for the Grade Shop.
Hoping to start one final playthrough since I missed out on one item in the last run that's used to make one of the ultimate weapons.
Milla's Dual Edge in the Ark Fractured Dimension. Don't leave without it!
I finished Xillia quickly after it was released but I've been holding off on playing this one while I finish up the other jrpgs I've been playing (Star Ocean 3 and FF Type-0). I've heard mixed things about the game so I hope it's at least better than Xillia which I though was pretty average for a Tales game.
Just some attachments, I think a Jude and Milla doll.
Anyway, I love Xillia 2. It's not without issues, but I'd say it's the best Tales game since Vesperia even without the asset reuse. The Xillia cast shines in this game moreso than Xillia 1.
I will say that a lot of alternate dimension stories that got cut sounded really interesting, namely one where
Leia was never born and everything happened the same way it did anyway. Talk about tragic, poor Leia
Loved the shit out of Xillia. This was fun for a few hours and then started to bore the hell out of me and I never went back. I think I need to revisit in a few years when the first game is less fresh in my mind.
Weird game. The new dungeons were great, but the recycled content was eh. Nice development for all the characters, too. And fuuuuuuck the debt system, and Julius' underused character.
BTW, "bad" ending is the better ending, IMO. Makes more sense.
Enjoyed it a bit less than the first game story wise as I really loved getting to know the characters of the first game, however i enjoyed my time greatly with xillia 2.
Don't know how folks can keep playing these. The combat in Graces was alright (way over-praised), but the dungeons and fields are so incredibly linear and snooze-worthy at this point. It's a bad sign when I'm popping holy bottles like an addict to just finish the game.
Enjoyed it a bit less than the first game story wise as I really loved getting to know the characters of the first game, however i enjoyed my time greatly with xillia 2.
Xillia 2 was a great game. I think after Vesperia it's my 2nd favorite. In my opinion, everything about the 2nd is better than the original except for the story. Both have great stories, but I slightly preferred the lighter story of the original. The combat in the sequel is improved and I like how they gave Ludger 3 different fighting styles. Plus the new characters are great (I wish Elle was playable too lol). I would say the music is equal between the two games, but the sequel also has much more post-game content and I've logged more hours in it than the first. Reusing assets didn't bother me and this is one game where the time travel didn't bother me. I think it's one of the best RPG's of all time and definitely will be a classic some day. Was it just me, or did Teepo not talk as much in this one though? I did think he was funnier in the original, but the 2nd game has a darker tone some I guess this would make sense.
Xillia 2 could have been my favorite tales even better than Vesperia which is one of my favorite of all time
but wish it was its own game and not a sequel I loved the characters and the story but still disappointed about how much underused the new characters are
I didn't care about the dept or the reused contents what almost killed the game for me were Those damn fields between every town
its the worst thing about both Xillia 1 and 2 without those bland fields I give it a 9/10
and Ludger is the most fun character in any Action JRPG
I've been playing this game recently and Ludger being an odd mix of silent protagonist and standard one bothers me. I get they are trying to implicate the player more by letting you choose the answers, but why does Ludger speak sometimes in monosyllabes, sometimes he speaks full sentences and most of the time he just looks stupid? Why does the camera have to frame him everytime while he says nothing, just grunts? It has to be the worst attempt at a silent protagonist I've ever seen. That or he is retarded.
Tales games generally get percieved as having bad narratives (stuff that Team Destiny games do nothing but feed), but this is one of those that generally aim darkish, and hits true. I was generally impressed! Plus we got 3 different excellent Milla personalities during the course of the two games and you can't knock that.
Plus everyone was redesigned to ooze with styyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyle. Okumura is easily better at this than Inomata or Fujishima.
Reuse isn't an issue, its a direct sequel! Why would you think that?!? The alternate dimensions reruns though...
This one isn't as "game at war against itself" as X1 was about this thing due to Udo magnificience, but they did add what you found out: more than 2 clustered up near a boss: PBAoE of savage damage spam. You are not going to like Ch. 12...
Consequentially, I played this in Moderate from X1's boss fights being sapped by that so much, so that particular "game at war against itself" issue wasn't as crippling as it could've been.
Just some attachments, I think a Jude and Milla doll.
Anyway, I love Xillia 2. It's not without issues, but I'd say it's the best Tales game since Vesperia even without the asset reuse. The Xillia cast shines in this game moreso than Xillia 1.
I will say that a lot of alternate dimension stories that got cut sounded really interesting, namely one where
Leia was never born and everything happened the same way it did anyway. Talk about tragic, poor Leia
Yeah, Xillia 2 has its huge flaws (silent Ludger, debt system), but I think it's one of the better stories for the 3D Tales. Gameplay was really solid too, with Ludger being on the the funnest Tales characters to play to date. For a child character, Elle was really likable as well. I found the character stories to be interesting though. Only Alt Milla's wasn't that interesting since it didn't really go anywhere. The others had ties to another's character's stories which made them interesting.
People's opinions are so divided between the first Xillia and the second. Always kinda funny to read. I wish I enjoyed and finished the first game enough to play the second just because I think I would like the main characters more from what I've seen.
It's a really good game that is only brought down by the reused stuff from the first game, sadly. In some ways, it would have been better if they had skipped Xillia 1 and gone straight to 2, even with the story.
So I just completed the game. I got the true ending with
Elle
at the end of the credits.
So freaking magnificent. It has officially my second favorite Tales game behind Tales of Vesperia. The game started off so slowly but picked up. If you didn't like the beginning, just try and keep at it.
- Tales of Vesperia & Tales of Symphonia
- Tales of Xillia 2
- Tales of Graces
- Tales of Xillia
- Tales of the Abyss
- Tales of Legendia
- Tales of Symphonia 2
So I just completed the game. I got the true ending with
Elle
at the end of the credits.
So freaking magnificent. It has officially my second favorite Tales game behind Tales of Vesperia. The game started off so slowly but picked up. If you didn't like the beginning, just try and keep at it.
- Tales of Vesperia & Tales of Symphonia
- Tales of Xillia 2
- Tales of Graces
- Tales of Xillia
- Tales of the Abyss
- Tales of Legendia
- Tales of Symphonia 2
Most people in Japan were disappointed by Zestiria, also because of the "false" advertising of the character which was promoted so much, but I will play it myself too.
Yeah I really can't understand why they went down the silent protagonist route with him, especially since I don't recall a silent protagonist in any other recent Tales game. It was a huge step backwards.
I play Tales solely for the combat but the story in Xillia 2 really surprised me. In fact it's the first Tales game with a story i've ever cared about (Abyss and Vesperia did nothing for me). The combat system is also significantly improved from Xillia 1 though i really miss the ability to swap characters in the midst of battle.
Most people in Japan were disappointed by Zestiria, also because of the "false" advertising of the character which was promoted so much, but I will play it myself too.
I absolutely loved the first one, but I'll wait until I get the second one, as it seems to have a lot of reused assets. Reading that this game seems to be even better sounds great!
Only at chapter 8, but the tone is much darker than the first game. Need to finish it soon, since I'm been putting it off for way too long. Wished Jude and Milla Maxwell had more of the spotlight compared to silent Ludger.
I've been humming that song Julius does more often.
I loved this a lot more than the first Xillia (which I still enjoyed). The tone, storyline & characters were miles ahead of the first game. Shame that there was so much asset reuse, but I wasn't too bothered by it.
Endings were great too. Particularly the bad ending. I actually got that by accident and man... hit me right in the feels.
I will never understand the popularity of Ludger and Julius considering that both characters are pretty much pulled out of nowhere in the second game with nothing whatsoever (besides the Kresnik sage) hinting to their existence in the first game. And the second game retcons the hell out of the Kresnik sage backstory from the first game anyway.
Ludger is a Gary Stu. He's designed as a self-insert for the player and while in Xillia 1 they bothered to explain why everyone in the cast, yes even Elize, was as proficient in combat as they were, Ludger just magically figures out how to use a gun and hammer right away. The ultimate proof of Ludger's Gary Stu-ness is
the bad ending where he manages to kill the entire Xillia 1 cast including Milla (a god pretty much), Gaius (known for being insanely powerful), and Muzet (powerful in her own right). Separately could he have taken them on? Sure, maybe. But in a group?
That is the textbook definition of a Gary Stu.
As for Julius, I wanted to care about him. Loved his voice actor. Love his design. But he shows up so infrequently that I just could not bring myself to care about him. The game tells you to care about him because he's Ludger's brother, but it doesn't try and show that. He plays a similar role to Alvin in the first game, I guess? Except Alvin was actually written so that I wasn't told to think a certain way about him, I gleaned that by how he reacted in certain situations because he was actually around for more than 10% of the game.
I don't get why people love Xillia 2's story so much. Grim dark =/= well written. A high body count doesn't mean the story is particularly deep. Most of the melodrama in Xillia 2 is completely contrived.
Fractured Milla is a prime example of this as she exists only to be killed off. She's only there so that Milla Maxwell can't show up early on to fix things. Fractued Milla has literally no agency throughout the entire game and just gets killed off and then mostly forgotten by everyone but Elle.
That Xillia 2 insists on throwing in characters you've never heard of, insisting that you care about them before
cheaply killing them off
just made the writing feel objectively worse than the first Xillia. The first Xillia didn't have any characters that existed just to die.
And as for the quality of the battle systems, of course Xillia 2's battle system is better. It's pretty much the finished version of Xillia 1's battle system that they didn't finish because they rushed Xillia 1. Xillia 2 may feel like everything Xillia 1 should have been because it's just a finished Xillia 1 shoehorned into another game with the debt system added as a mechanic to pad out the game because they obviously didn't have enough story content to fill an actual 40-50 hours. Fractured dimensions are literally nothing more than an excuse to reuse assets.
Xillia 2 is a game whose plot is written by bad development decisions. Had Bamco actually finished Xillia 1 (though these days finishing games seems to be very difficult for them), Xillia 2 wouldn't even exist. It probably would have been its own game with better fleshed out characters and a story that didn't feel like it was awkwardly taped onto the first Xillia.
The character stories probably don't seem that interesting because as I said before, Xillia 2 is just awkwardly taped onto Xillia 1 story-wise. So the Xillia 1 cast is mostly sitting around twiddling their thumbs and they had to give them something to do.
People laugh at fanfiction where someone writes a self-insert character who is stronger, better, and more special than the main cast. When that's actually done in canon, people applaud that character.
I will never understand the popularity of Ludger and Julius considering that both characters are pretty much pulled out of nowhere in the second game with nothing whatsoever (besides the Kresnik sage) hinting to their existence in the first game. And the second game retcons the hell out of the Kresnik sage backstory from the first game anyway.
At the end of the day, I think it's a personal choice. I had no problem with the way Ludger and Julius were introduced to the story even if they weren't hinted in the first game. For a Tales of game, the story was solid IMO.
I didn't have much of an opinion on Julius at the beginning of the game but later on, you interact with him more and I started liking him more from there along with Ludger and Elle.
Also not all the Character stories were bad. Judes, Milla's, Leia's were great. Judes really explores his relationship with Milla even more and I liked that.
All I knowz is that I enjoyed Julius and Ludger's story, just like I enjoyed Noel, Caius and Yeul's story in Final Fantasy XIII-2.
