An expanded game of Tokyo Xanadu
Tokyo Xanadu eX+; a massive action RPG from the masters of the genre, Nihon Falcom! When high school student Kou Tokisaka encounters the nightmare realm known as the Eclipse, his world is forever changed. In this definitive version of Tokyo Xanadu, experience the game in 60 FPS along with new scenarios, new playable characters, new modes and more!
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Tokyo Xanadu EX+ is an action RPG with an almost visual novel like backstory in a Tokyo school. The story bears great similiarity to Persona for sure, but so do 100s of other anime stories related to schools in Japan and so on. The story is quite well written and I especially liked that most of the characters are quite well written and have a progression arc. For many people the game might be too story heavy but I find the balance between fighting and story actually quite perfect. The battle system is quite complex and makes use of most buttons on the joypad including directional pad arrows, as I am not very good in ARPGs in general I often forgot to use half the special moves or accidentally used one when trying to switch characters or open menu, however, the normal difficulty is easy enough to enjoy the game anyways. Only the final boss fight required extra googling of instructions. Music is ok, and sounds too., and so is graphic, nothing super spectacular but works.
Movesets are too small for a 50-hour action game and too homogenous for character swapping to fix the problem. First and last acts are solid, but everything in between is boring. NPC chatter is absolutely dire. There are four cool dungeons and a couple dozen boring ones.
I think it's neat. Went in expecting a fun cliched anime story, and that's pretty much what I got, but with some unexpected extras. If we talk about how this integrates real world social themes vs Persona, this is obviously going to Persona, but that's not really what TX is trying to be from my perspective. It's basically urban fantasy LN style Cold Steel 1 and does a pretty good job at that. The world building is fairly in-depth and leaves room for series potential, and as per usual Falcom has crafted a great NPC cast—they're not going to blow you away with their arcs, but I found it pretty rewarding talking to them all and seeing how they were affected by story events, along with Falcom's crazy dedication to giving like 100+ NPCs a crapton of dialogue and personality in most of their modern games.
Graphically it's a slightly upgraded CS1/2. I personally find those some of the worst looking Falcom games (though not quite Ys Seven level), so it still leaves a lot to be desired. Morimiya is a cool city with a nice personality, and it's interesting seeing Falcom do this kind of Trails-lite world building in the real world. The main and side casts are quite good with fun, likable characters. I do like the narrative structure of focusing roughly on one party member per chapter, though it has the usual weakness of said character getting minimal focus for the rest of the game. My favourite was Shio because he's cool and has one of the better arcs. I also am probably the only one who finds the concept of ShioKou more interesting than Kou's other candidates—sadly their chemistry is barely capitalised on after chapter 5.
Speaking of which, it's nice to see this game take a step back from the galge zone. In part because I have no interest, but primarily because I think Falcom are horrid at writing player romance options. There is a very clear canon romance in the form of Shiori, and it's a pretty well developed romance that I don't have complaints with. Asuka and to a lesser extent Rion exist as well, but their teases are minor in comparison.
The story itself mostly drags its feet with padding, taking forever to get to the point for a self-contained story, but once it actually goes somewhere it gets really interesting with some wild twists and turns. It could probably benefit from stronger villains, though what we have was still very threatening and well built up. Sadly it's the worst offender of the era where Falcom games didn't know when to end, making you question the definition of a 'final' chapter. I am also of the belief that we should ban Falcom from devising true endings, as they don't seem to understand how to implement them correctly.
After story, while I'm not sure if it was wise to make the game even longer in this version, is at least great. I was surprised at the amount of new assets they made for this, it has nice vibes. The sequel baiting is interesting and I think whatever the next game they make in this universe could be interesting—hopefully not once again built on the shell of Kiseki to give themselves more time for the next Ys.
Gameplay is pretty straightforward, and it's no Ys, but still pretty fun and there's good variety in the characters. It plays well to its strength of fast-paced battles and encouraging you to speed through the dungeons. There's some surprising difficulty spikes that gave me trouble (in a good way), such as the boss of chapter 5.
Music though? Absolutely the best part of this game. You have Unisuga handling more of the soundtrack than I believe he has on any other Falcom game, and he knocks it out of the park. Sonoda also chimes in with his excellent atmospheric themes, and Jindo doesn't lack for strong contributions either. Singa's opening theme might be my favourite song from him, though I can't say I cared for his battle theme (as usual, it meshes badly with the other composers).
As for the translation... let's say that I sure hope the switch relocalisation for this game is significant, because the translation I played was bad. Ignoring the badly placed memes (which I gotta say are super minor in comparison to what I'm about to say), I counted a truly wild amount of mistranslations in all the voiced scenes alone, and in a fair amount of unvoiced scenes I had to crosscheck with the JP to make sure the TL wasn't spouting BS at me (it usually was!). Honestly I really regret playing this in English in retrospect, easily the worst Falcom loc I've experienced. Granted, coming from Aksys it's a surprise that it was even comprehensible—their Otome translations are fucking atrocious.
So yeah, was it worth playing? For me, yep, it was fun and I found it pretty great. It doesn't stand out in any area, but it makes for a fun anime game with a lot of Falcom's usual strengths. I'd certainly recommend it to anyone who enjoys anime rpgs that don't pretend to be more than they are, at least once the relocalisation for switch comes out. If I'm to compare it to Trails, which let's be honest is inevitable here, it would probably going around the middle of my rankings for that series—which puts it a good bit above CS1/2.
Also if anyone cares, there's no DLC costume for the guys. Though it's not CS4 level as the girls don't get much either.
Graphically it's a slightly upgraded CS1/2. I personally find those some of the worst looking Falcom games (though not quite Ys Seven level), so it still leaves a lot to be desired. Morimiya is a cool city with a nice personality, and it's interesting seeing Falcom do this kind of Trails-lite world building in the real world. The main and side casts are quite good with fun, likable characters. I do like the narrative structure of focusing roughly on one party member per chapter, though it has the usual weakness of said character getting minimal focus for the rest of the game. My favourite was Shio because he's cool and has one of the better arcs. I also am probably the only one who finds the concept of ShioKou more interesting than Kou's other candidates—sadly their chemistry is barely capitalised on after chapter 5.
Speaking of which, it's nice to see this game take a step back from the galge zone. In part because I have no interest, but primarily because I think Falcom are horrid at writing player romance options. There is a very clear canon romance in the form of Shiori, and it's a pretty well developed romance that I don't have complaints with. Asuka and to a lesser extent Rion exist as well, but their teases are minor in comparison.
The story itself mostly drags its feet with padding, taking forever to get to the point for a self-contained story, but once it actually goes somewhere it gets really interesting with some wild twists and turns. It could probably benefit from stronger villains, though what we have was still very threatening and well built up. Sadly it's the worst offender of the era where Falcom games didn't know when to end, making you question the definition of a 'final' chapter. I am also of the belief that we should ban Falcom from devising true endings, as they don't seem to understand how to implement them correctly.
After story, while I'm not sure if it was wise to make the game even longer in this version, is at least great. I was surprised at the amount of new assets they made for this, it has nice vibes. The sequel baiting is interesting and I think whatever the next game they make in this universe could be interesting—hopefully not once again built on the shell of Kiseki to give themselves more time for the next Ys.
Gameplay is pretty straightforward, and it's no Ys, but still pretty fun and there's good variety in the characters. It plays well to its strength of fast-paced battles and encouraging you to speed through the dungeons. There's some surprising difficulty spikes that gave me trouble (in a good way), such as the boss of chapter 5.
Music though? Absolutely the best part of this game. You have Unisuga handling more of the soundtrack than I believe he has on any other Falcom game, and he knocks it out of the park. Sonoda also chimes in with his excellent atmospheric themes, and Jindo doesn't lack for strong contributions either. Singa's opening theme might be my favourite song from him, though I can't say I cared for his battle theme (as usual, it meshes badly with the other composers).
As for the translation... let's say that I sure hope the switch relocalisation for this game is significant, because the translation I played was bad. Ignoring the badly placed memes (which I gotta say are super minor in comparison to what I'm about to say), I counted a truly wild amount of mistranslations in all the voiced scenes alone, and in a fair amount of unvoiced scenes I had to crosscheck with the JP to make sure the TL wasn't spouting BS at me (it usually was!). Honestly I really regret playing this in English in retrospect, easily the worst Falcom loc I've experienced. Granted, coming from Aksys it's a surprise that it was even comprehensible—their Otome translations are fucking atrocious.
So yeah, was it worth playing? For me, yep, it was fun and I found it pretty great. It doesn't stand out in any area, but it makes for a fun anime game with a lot of Falcom's usual strengths. I'd certainly recommend it to anyone who enjoys anime rpgs that don't pretend to be more than they are, at least once the relocalisation for switch comes out. If I'm to compare it to Trails, which let's be honest is inevitable here, it would probably going around the middle of my rankings for that series—which puts it a good bit above CS1/2.
Also if anyone cares, there's no DLC costume for the guys. Though it's not CS4 level as the girls don't get much either.
C'est un bon jeu, le combat est très fun (heureusement c'est real time), les graphismes sont sympas et notamment mieux que ceux de cold steel 1/2, et l'OST est magnifique avec tellement de bangers (l'opening est incroyable aussi). Le scénario est générique mais bon c'est un JRPG high school alors je crois que c'était évident mdr. Finalement Rion best girl et vive Spika
(C'est bien mieux que cold steel 3 et 4)
(C'est bien mieux que cold steel 3 et 4)
Soundtrack was good, combat was alright although I prefer the combat of ys compared to it, the story and the characters felt eh but the overall experience was enjoyable enough that I managed to finish it
This review contains spoilers
A literal fever dream that I had because I was sick when I played through almost all of it. It just never ended.
Tokyo Xanadu Ex+ is one of the biggest bag fumbles in the history of ARPGs. You have the full talent of Falcom and they're delivering a game that's like the food you get from the C-team at a fast food restaurant.
Start with a dash of Ys, a pinch of Trails and a fucking heaping pile of Persona. Sounds like a good time, but the best aspects of those games just don't make an appearance while their worst aspects take center stage.
The gameplay is definitely the standout here. It is fun to play the element matching in a hectic battle and the combo meter gives incentive to set yourself up to combo the entire dungeon. Movesets can be kinda basic but at least the amount of character variety helps keep things from being too stale. The limit to 3 characters is unfortunate as it keeps you from really going all out and I would have liked to just have all of them available at all times. Never really gets more complicated than the basics after the third dungeon except for the addition of platforming segments which I do enjoy.
Where the game falls apart is the story, characters, world, basically anything to interact with in the overworld. There's a reason why Persona sticks to 20-odd social links, as it helps create meaningful and long lasting stories for the supporting cast. Tokyo Xanadu does a half assed version of social links for your main party and this weird friend page which updates as you talk to the supporting NPCs every chapter. Problem... There's like 100+ of them and most are surface level and don't have anything going on with them. A couple of npcs are fun to keep up with but I just felt nothing when talking to the rest of them.
Anyways your party consists of super basic tropes and caricatures that just don't evolve like the game wants you to think that they do. The game thinks it's hot shit with its storytelling but it SUCKSSS. Every party member goes through the same revelations about how fighting with friends is better than alone and every
instance of the characters going through into the bad world is literally because someone they know gets trapped in there. They try to set up basic villains that you think will have a slightly bigger impact than they actually do but every time they end up just getting sucked into the bad. After their friends get trapped, they unlock their soul weapon or some shit and now have the resolve to save the day. It's basic, it's boring and it takes zero risks.
Couple of the characters are carbon copies of persona counterparts but are missing the nuance and sauce that makes them memorable. The worst offender is the main character who is just bland throughout the game. Any bit of backstory and flavour for him comes far too late in the game for you to give a shit about him and his woes have the depth of a puddle. He's not actively a terrible character unlike some of the others, but he's the main character! He should have some sort of personality beyond workaholic slacker.
The world (design and look wise) is pretty good and it does at least hit the nail of being Tokyo. World is littered with interactables and mini games that range from addictive (The fishing Game and Blade, the card game that comes from Falcom's others) to the horrendous skateboarding minigame. Seriously what the fuck was that.
My major problem with the game is that it could have been a 6 or even a 7 if it just ended. The game ends like 4 separate times and it just keeps going on and on and on. The EX additions to the game add like an extra 15 hours of content in the form of side chapters that only have you control your other party members in short scenarios and an after story that literally LITERALLY adds nothing but lasts for 5 hours.
The final thing I want to talk about is how the true ending destroys any semblance of a moral or lesson. One of the things we learn in the final chapter is the childhood friend character died 10 years ago in the big "incident" but was kept alive because of a wish to have her death be a lie that the eclipse granted. You then save the day, but your childhood friend needs to disappear in order to keep bad shit from constantly happening because she should be dead. So the main character is learning to let go and move on and it's a genuinely good scene. Then the true ending comes in and shits all over it by having you save her and bring her back into reality. Defeats the whole point of the original ending.
Anyways, games mid. Go play literally any other Falcom game. 5.5/10
Tokyo Xanadu Ex+ is one of the biggest bag fumbles in the history of ARPGs. You have the full talent of Falcom and they're delivering a game that's like the food you get from the C-team at a fast food restaurant.
Start with a dash of Ys, a pinch of Trails and a fucking heaping pile of Persona. Sounds like a good time, but the best aspects of those games just don't make an appearance while their worst aspects take center stage.
The gameplay is definitely the standout here. It is fun to play the element matching in a hectic battle and the combo meter gives incentive to set yourself up to combo the entire dungeon. Movesets can be kinda basic but at least the amount of character variety helps keep things from being too stale. The limit to 3 characters is unfortunate as it keeps you from really going all out and I would have liked to just have all of them available at all times. Never really gets more complicated than the basics after the third dungeon except for the addition of platforming segments which I do enjoy.
Where the game falls apart is the story, characters, world, basically anything to interact with in the overworld. There's a reason why Persona sticks to 20-odd social links, as it helps create meaningful and long lasting stories for the supporting cast. Tokyo Xanadu does a half assed version of social links for your main party and this weird friend page which updates as you talk to the supporting NPCs every chapter. Problem... There's like 100+ of them and most are surface level and don't have anything going on with them. A couple of npcs are fun to keep up with but I just felt nothing when talking to the rest of them.
Anyways your party consists of super basic tropes and caricatures that just don't evolve like the game wants you to think that they do. The game thinks it's hot shit with its storytelling but it SUCKSSS. Every party member goes through the same revelations about how fighting with friends is better than alone and every
instance of the characters going through into the bad world is literally because someone they know gets trapped in there. They try to set up basic villains that you think will have a slightly bigger impact than they actually do but every time they end up just getting sucked into the bad. After their friends get trapped, they unlock their soul weapon or some shit and now have the resolve to save the day. It's basic, it's boring and it takes zero risks.
Couple of the characters are carbon copies of persona counterparts but are missing the nuance and sauce that makes them memorable. The worst offender is the main character who is just bland throughout the game. Any bit of backstory and flavour for him comes far too late in the game for you to give a shit about him and his woes have the depth of a puddle. He's not actively a terrible character unlike some of the others, but he's the main character! He should have some sort of personality beyond workaholic slacker.
The world (design and look wise) is pretty good and it does at least hit the nail of being Tokyo. World is littered with interactables and mini games that range from addictive (The fishing Game and Blade, the card game that comes from Falcom's others) to the horrendous skateboarding minigame. Seriously what the fuck was that.
My major problem with the game is that it could have been a 6 or even a 7 if it just ended. The game ends like 4 separate times and it just keeps going on and on and on. The EX additions to the game add like an extra 15 hours of content in the form of side chapters that only have you control your other party members in short scenarios and an after story that literally LITERALLY adds nothing but lasts for 5 hours.
The final thing I want to talk about is how the true ending destroys any semblance of a moral or lesson. One of the things we learn in the final chapter is the childhood friend character died 10 years ago in the big "incident" but was kept alive because of a wish to have her death be a lie that the eclipse granted. You then save the day, but your childhood friend needs to disappear in order to keep bad shit from constantly happening because she should be dead. So the main character is learning to let go and move on and it's a genuinely good scene. Then the true ending comes in and shits all over it by having you save her and bring her back into reality. Defeats the whole point of the original ending.
Anyways, games mid. Go play literally any other Falcom game. 5.5/10