I'm not feeling too great so I'm going to post this up now and go lay down

Speaking of which, we have now reached the top 10, yay!!

Are you excited? You should be! Only a few days left!

10. Tales of Xillia 2 (PlayStation 3)
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Tales of Xillia 2 is the sequel to Tales of Xillia, and I would not at all recommend playing it before completing the first one, unless you want everything spoiled for you. It's been a little while since the conclusion of the first game, and now we have our new her, Ludger, going to do some job related stuff. But things go kind of wonky for him and before you know it the whole gang is reunited and investigating the strange occurrences happening all around.

This game is played similar to the first Tales of Xillia and most of the Tales series. You attack with X and use arts with O, attacking and ending battles will replenish some TP for arts. Two characters can be linked together to give support skills to each other. You can also do combo attacks between characters that are linked together. Our hero Ludger also has a special skill that allows him to switch between several different weapon types and has a sort of rage mode as well. This game also has side chapters for your characters, relationship values, dialogue choices, and a kitty finding sidequest. Oh and tons and tons of debt to pay off. There are 9-10ish playable characters (can't explain without spoiling) and 4 usable in battle at a time. You can choose which character you control in battle.


General impressions:
This was one of my only first day purchases! This game is ranked barely above Xillia and it's hard to say how much it owes to the first game setting the ground work. But I do think there were some great improvements, such as relationship values (although I wish it could be between all characters) and dialogue choices. And finding kitties. But my favourite part was how they added character chapters since characters are my favourite parts and this way you get some extra special time with them. The story is great, the characters are still awesome (and there's more to use now too!), the gameplay is still really fun. Biggest complaints would be how much they push Ludger on you. Like for certain battles it's pretty clear you're supposed to use him instead of a character of your choosing and your stuck having him as your main running around character a lot which is boo. But other than that it's a great game!

Story:
Quite interesting, although the main story wasn't as good as Xillia. But I loved the way it was told and that there was more involvement from the player this time, so you felt more like you were in it rather than just being an observer. I also liked the more character centric plots as I mentioned. It also had some interesting moral dilemma's and there were quite a few moments that shocked me and left me wanting to know what would happen next.


Gameplay:
Just as fun as the last one so see most of my review on that. This game was still fast paced and exciting without being overly complicated. I liked that there were even more playable characters this time around and the weapon switching part was pretty neat. There was one absurdly difficult boss fight but other than that the game was easy, which I liked because I had it set on easy. And the kitty finding was adorable and fun and I loved it. Oh and the little end battle skits were cute as ever.


World:
So I still hate (SPOILER)Elymios although it was somewhat improved. Just so brown everywhere. But Rieze Maxia was as awesome as ever and there were still many beautiful areas to explore. The world was a bit expanded from the last game but overall it was largely the same.


Characters:
Still an incredibly strong cast, still had awesome interactions with each other, and I really don't have any complaints. It was great to see them after everything that happened and finding out what they were up to.

Favourite character: Elize IWisrz2.jpg
Honourable mentions: Leia, Jude YAXZvsU.jpg0xmuOHZ.jpg

No surprises here. It was nice to see Elize gain a bit more confidence in herself and have her school life going on. Leia's new outfit bugged the crap out of me at first but it's grown on me I have to admit. She's still a really sweet woman and I can't help but feel for her. Jude comes back better than ever (with worse hair) becoming more confident and secure and still being an overall good dude.

Overall this was an awesome game and it really did the first game justice. There were some improvements, the characters were still super awesome (now featuring their own chapters!) and you got to find kitties everywhere. Kitties everywhere! A lot of fun to play.