#Tales of xillia 2 gameplay series#
#Tales of xillia 2 gameplay tv#

If you’re building a direct sequel to something and setting it in the same world, of course there’s going to be some recycling going on. It’s how the game handles the overall experience that is important are you just retracing your steps from the previous game, or are you doing different things in those environments? Of course you’re going to see some of the same places, meet some of the same people and perhaps even fight some of the same monsters.

If you’re building a direct sequel to something and setting it in the same world, populated with the same characters, of course there’s going to be some recycling going on. But if you think about it, this isn’t altogether surprising. Xillia 2 has a difficult role to fulfil, then: it’s the sequel to a great game, and it needs to follow up all the things that title did well, improve the things it could have done better and provide a very good reason for people to go back into the same world with the same characters.ĭoes it manage this without “reducing, reusing and recycling?”Īlthough much of Xillia 2’s cast returns from the first game, the relationship between Ludger and Elle is new to this installment - and a real highlight, as it happens. Such has been the case for most of the Tales series’ lifespan, bar a few outliers like Tales of Destiny 2 and Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World.

#Tales of xillia 2 gameplay series#

This isn’t to say that developers don’t have a good go at it - Square Enix has done it three times to date with the Final Fantasy series’ X-2, XIII-2 and Lightning Returns installments, for example, and one of the best things about the wonderful Shadow Hearts series is the coherence of its narrative, particularly between the first two games - but often it’s just easier to have games in a series like this be thematically similar rather than directly related to one another.

#Tales of xillia 2 gameplay tv#

This is particularly true in genres where individual installments are sprawling, lengthy affairs with narratives of a length equivalent to your average TV series - such as, say, role-playing games. There’s a reason we don’t see all that many direct sequels in gaming these days: they’re extremely difficult to do effectively.