Tales of Xillia 2 got here just yesterday! Yes, a
single day after the release in Japan! FedEx surpised me, this time '_'
So far, I am very impressed with the game. True, the very first enemy you encounter is a palette-swap of an enemy from another Tales game and they seem to have re-used some musics, but this is still incredible. Okay, so we start the game as Ludger in a dream sequence in which we fight our older brother Julius. Our opponent has his upper-body shadowed, but it's obvious it's Julius. It's actually one of those scripted fights that you're supposed to lose, not that you could win anyway, and when you do, Ludger wakes up in his apartment and follows his brother for some kind of test... I think it's to join the same organization his bro is part of, but I'm not sure. Furthermore, I'm not sure if Ludger actually passes the test or not. Anyway, after you kill a few monsters, Julius kindly giving expositary tutorials if you need 'em, some girl gets attacked by an electric tiger (no joke) and you get the choice between swooping in to save the girl by killing the foul beast or letting your brother handle it: It both cases, Julius gets mad at you. After that, you get back to your city and meet Jude accidentally! Jude is awesome, by the way. He's a doctor now and asks for directions to go to the train station, which Ludger leads him to. Along the way, they meet Elle, the lil' girl, who carries a cool-looking handwatch her father gave to her before getting shot several times, and she tags along for the ride.
Naturally, something goes wrong: What I can only assume to be terrorists attack the train and try to kill a beefy, red-coat-wearing, white-haired dude that appears in the opening (Sitting at a desk surrounding by obvious minions). They fail to kill him but they do manage to kill just about everyone else in the train. Once you make it to the end of the train, you meet Julius who seems to be the one orchestrating this attack, not that he seems to believe he's in the wrong at all. Ludger, when powered up by accidentally touching Elle's watch, takes a frightening appearance and
BREAKS HYPERTIME BY THROWING A SPEAR-THING HE MADE FROM THIN AIR!!! And they end up a few minutes earlier, back at the other end of the train. Elle is now quite fearful of Ludger (Rightfully so) but Jude tells her (I assume so, anyway) that it's okay because they know Ludger is a good guy. That's why Jude is so cool!! Anyway, after we make our way back to the other end of the train (Now knowing everything that will happen) Jude and Ludger beat up his big bro and... break hypertime again! Dude, that's twice, now!
This is where it gets confusing: After breaking hypertime a second time in the same train, Jude, Ludger and Elle all wake up in a bar-looking place and some scarlet-clad, very effiminate dude basically gets Ludger to sign a contract stipulating that he owes him 20 000 000 gald, introducing us to the debt system. Basically, any time while you're in a city or in a field, you can press the L2 button on the controller and bring up what I like to call the 'Debt Menu' and there, you can pay your poorly-explained due. The girl that takes care of calculating the debt for us, Nova, is an old school-mate of Julius and has a lot of energy, so it's fun to just bring up the Debt Menu just to hear what crazy stuff she'll say XD So, after clearing the first part of our debt (5000 Gald) we're allowed out of the city and go back to our apartment with Jude and Elle... And that's where I'm at right now! I had to start over, though, because I had saved my game in my US Account while the only way to access Japanese DLC is with a saved game on my Japanese Account, though that wasn't the case for Tales of Xillia 1... The ability to skip cutscenes comes quite in handy, here
The last thing I should address is the 'Decision System' Basically, Ludger barely ever speaks: You choose what he says... Which is a problem for me because I can't read jack in Japanese... But no matter, I just choose at random. Most 'important' decisions (Like the one where you choose either you want to rescue the girl from the electric tiger) come with a save point just before it, so, if you don't like the result, you can just quit the game and start over, choosing the other option
Anyway, things are pretty cool, so far! My favourite part is the battles, though: Ludger is a freakin' beast! His dual-swords are super fast and efficient and control marvelously! Totally enjoying the game!! =D
![[Image: dudehailsignature.jpg]](https://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy281/BaroqueRosso/dudehailsignature.jpg)
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