Tales of Xillia 2 makes no effort to develop these old characters outside of optional side-chapters.
It never seemed as though I were playing anything new - largely because Ludger is joined by the entire gang of playable characters from Xillia 1, as well as two familiar faces that make their debut as full party members. I felt like I had little control over my characters or reasons to experiment with their skill sets, which gave me no reason to stray away from playing as Ludger. It sucked the fun out of gaining new levels. I would set each character with an orb and promptly forget.
The original Tales of Xillia's upgrade system allowed me to choose which abilities or attributes each character would learn next, but Xillia 2's progression is stunted due to the new "Allium Orb." The Allium Orb offers a pre-determined stash of skills to learn or improve on. It's the kind of easy, hands-on experience I appreciated from Xillia when it came to controlling my party - at least, in some aspects. The special mode is only available when playing as Ludger, but the game allows you to swap control between party members with a quick button press. Once full, I could slip into a special transformation and perform a bevy of cool new attacks.
It runs based on a meter that steadily builds over time. With the Chromatus, I was able to push my battle prowess one step further.
Once in a battle, I took control of one character and could perform different attacks and combos at a furious pace. Getting into a fight was always my choice, and the game's combat made it a pleasant one. Enemies appear in the game world rather than attacking randomly. Like the first Xillia, fights are real-time free-for-alls. That ability - called the Chromatus - is a fantastic addition to the game's battles. In its main story, Xillia 2 tasked me with eliminating "fractured dimensions" - basically alternate universes - to protect the integrity of the "prime dimension." Ludger has the ability to warp into these alternate worlds and destroy the source, effectively wiping out the other timeline and all its people. It's also the same world as the first game, so returning players will already be intimately familiar with most of the locales. The main story requires very little exploration. Building off a more linear structure than the first, Tales of Xillia 2 is split into several main chapters, with the option to occasionally branch off on character-driven side chapters. Hero Ludger Kresnik is sucked into a strange conflict by his brother's secrets and a chance meeting with a young girl named Elle. The player can use good old combos or special ones, link with some one of the team (use link attacks, get healed, etc.), and there are different special moves, aka "artes", different weapons, and others.Where the first game felt fantasy-driven, with a story that revolved around spirits, Tales of Xillia 2 takes a decidedly more sci-fi approach: alternate universes. Ludger goes through several battles when seeing a wild monster or a boss, though there are no "Boss Battles", which means a battle against a wild is exactly the same system than an "important battle". However, his road will be full of danger and new meetings. The game is about a boy named Ludger Kresnik, the little brother of a boss of the Spirius Corporation, whose destiny is saving the world and also bringing a weird girl to the magical land of Canaan, a legendary land where, normally, every wish is granted.
Tales of Xillia 2 ( テイルズ オブ エクシリア2, Teiruzu obu Ekushiria Tsū ?) is a role-playing game from the Tales series released for PlayStation 3 in 2012 in Japan and in 2014 in North America and Europe. Please help this article by expanding or finishing it.