LogFAQs > #898225100

OliviaTremor posted...

That's an intense reaction to not liking a game. 'I hate this game! Clearly no other completely unrelated games on this system can be good!'

I was going through some big life changes at the time, and I was also broke and really wanted a PS3. Bravely Default was the catalyst that turned the lightbulb on -- go in and trade it in along with the handheld for a PS3 and a few games.

96. Tokyo Xanadu eX+
Original Release: 2017
Developer: Falcom
Platform: PS4

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If you think Falcom can do no wrong when it comes to creating a great, modernized JRPG, I present to you Tokyo Xanadu. It feels like a cheap, "let's squeeze as much as we can from the Cold Steel assets" thing with very few redeemable qualities. As if they didn't reuse enough for Cold Steel II... Everything else about Xanadu was done better in a different game. The school/social link system is actually way more similar (carbon copy actually) to Cold Steel I, except none of the characters or the school were anywhere as cool as Thors (or Gekkoukan, or Inaba, or P5's school for that matter). Like the Trails series, the game wants you to go check up on and talk to everyone after every major story event to fill up character entries in your notebook, but never once did I feel like I was doing this out of pure interest. In CS, Sky, and Zero, I was actually genuinely interested in the world and its inhabitants, but here I felt like I was doing it out of respect for Falcom. Exploring a sector of Tokyo multiple times over every chapter is getting pretty boring in games nowadays.

I guess what kept me going to the very end was because it was Falcom, and I was sort of interested in all the mysteries and revelations presented early on coming to light. Most of these are disappointing, especially the reveals of the main bad guy and the masked white cape guy. Believe me on that last one, the reveal of the White Shroud is embarrassingly stupid. The game even goes full melodrama at the end and has main character Kou deliver heartfelt speeches about the power of friendship and how they'll overcome any barrier. I dropped the game after the epilogue. As far as the extra eX+ content goes, it requires you to do a side story after the end of every chapter. These side stories are extremely disconnected from the main plot and focus on one of your characters going on a picnic and then whoamg an eclipse appears what will happen next? I hated how the main plot often picked up near the end of the chapters and then it forced me to play one of these.

Oh and most of the plot points in the game have already been done before. Chapter 3 starts off with a hacker sitting at a desk full of computers hacking at the mainframe of the city while ordering ramen. The song in the background is the exact same song that plays during pretty much the same exact event from Zero no Kiseki, where a kid hacker is accessing the mainframe of the series except ramen replaces pizza. Falcom straight up ripped off their own game. Later on, there are events alluding or even copying Cold Steel and Sky plot points.

The battle system is alright. You can have only one character participating in battle at a time but your special skills can allow another to join the fray temporarily. From what I hear this is a "beta Ys VIII battle system" and it shows quite clearly. Ys VIII did gameplay a whole lot better. All the dungeons in this game are nothing more than maze-like corridors with occasionally a puzzle or two.

My suggestion: Don't play this game because it's probably Falcom's worst. Do, however, listen to the pretty good soundtrack. All the Trails games on this list are ranked pretty damn high, but Tokyo Xanadu gave me a bitter taste in my mouth.