This review contains spoilers
A literal fever dream that I had because I was sick when I played through almost all of it. It just never ended.
Tokyo Xanadu Ex+ is one of the biggest bag fumbles in the history of ARPGs. You have the full talent of Falcom and they're delivering a game that's like the food you get from the C-team at a fast food restaurant.
Start with a dash of Ys, a pinch of Trails and a fucking heaping pile of Persona. Sounds like a good time, but the best aspects of those games just don't make an appearance while their worst aspects take center stage.
The gameplay is definitely the standout here. It is fun to play the element matching in a hectic battle and the combo meter gives incentive to set yourself up to combo the entire dungeon. Movesets can be kinda basic but at least the amount of character variety helps keep things from being too stale. The limit to 3 characters is unfortunate as it keeps you from really going all out and I would have liked to just have all of them available at all times. Never really gets more complicated than the basics after the third dungeon except for the addition of platforming segments which I do enjoy.
Where the game falls apart is the story, characters, world, basically anything to interact with in the overworld. There's a reason why Persona sticks to 20-odd social links, as it helps create meaningful and long lasting stories for the supporting cast. Tokyo Xanadu does a half assed version of social links for your main party and this weird friend page which updates as you talk to the supporting NPCs every chapter. Problem... There's like 100+ of them and most are surface level and don't have anything going on with them. A couple of npcs are fun to keep up with but I just felt nothing when talking to the rest of them.
Anyways your party consists of super basic tropes and caricatures that just don't evolve like the game wants you to think that they do. The game thinks it's hot shit with its storytelling but it SUCKSSS. Every party member goes through the same revelations about how fighting with friends is better than alone and every
instance of the characters going through into the bad world is literally because someone they know gets trapped in there. They try to set up basic villains that you think will have a slightly bigger impact than they actually do but every time they end up just getting sucked into the bad. After their friends get trapped, they unlock their soul weapon or some shit and now have the resolve to save the day. It's basic, it's boring and it takes zero risks.
Couple of the characters are carbon copies of persona counterparts but are missing the nuance and sauce that makes them memorable. The worst offender is the main character who is just bland throughout the game. Any bit of backstory and flavour for him comes far too late in the game for you to give a shit about him and his woes have the depth of a puddle. He's not actively a terrible character unlike some of the others, but he's the main character! He should have some sort of personality beyond workaholic slacker.
The world (design and look wise) is pretty good and it does at least hit the nail of being Tokyo. World is littered with interactables and mini games that range from addictive (The fishing Game and Blade, the card game that comes from Falcom's others) to the horrendous skateboarding minigame. Seriously what the fuck was that.
My major problem with the game is that it could have been a 6 or even a 7 if it just ended. The game ends like 4 separate times and it just keeps going on and on and on. The EX additions to the game add like an extra 15 hours of content in the form of side chapters that only have you control your other party members in short scenarios and an after story that literally LITERALLY adds nothing but lasts for 5 hours.
The final thing I want to talk about is how the true ending destroys any semblance of a moral or lesson. One of the things we learn in the final chapter is the childhood friend character died 10 years ago in the big "incident" but was kept alive because of a wish to have her death be a lie that the eclipse granted. You then save the day, but your childhood friend needs to disappear in order to keep bad shit from constantly happening because she should be dead. So the main character is learning to let go and move on and it's a genuinely good scene. Then the true ending comes in and shits all over it by having you save her and bring her back into reality. Defeats the whole point of the original ending.
Anyways, games mid. Go play literally any other Falcom game. 5.5/10
Tokyo Xanadu Ex+ is one of the biggest bag fumbles in the history of ARPGs. You have the full talent of Falcom and they're delivering a game that's like the food you get from the C-team at a fast food restaurant.
Start with a dash of Ys, a pinch of Trails and a fucking heaping pile of Persona. Sounds like a good time, but the best aspects of those games just don't make an appearance while their worst aspects take center stage.
The gameplay is definitely the standout here. It is fun to play the element matching in a hectic battle and the combo meter gives incentive to set yourself up to combo the entire dungeon. Movesets can be kinda basic but at least the amount of character variety helps keep things from being too stale. The limit to 3 characters is unfortunate as it keeps you from really going all out and I would have liked to just have all of them available at all times. Never really gets more complicated than the basics after the third dungeon except for the addition of platforming segments which I do enjoy.
Where the game falls apart is the story, characters, world, basically anything to interact with in the overworld. There's a reason why Persona sticks to 20-odd social links, as it helps create meaningful and long lasting stories for the supporting cast. Tokyo Xanadu does a half assed version of social links for your main party and this weird friend page which updates as you talk to the supporting NPCs every chapter. Problem... There's like 100+ of them and most are surface level and don't have anything going on with them. A couple of npcs are fun to keep up with but I just felt nothing when talking to the rest of them.
Anyways your party consists of super basic tropes and caricatures that just don't evolve like the game wants you to think that they do. The game thinks it's hot shit with its storytelling but it SUCKSSS. Every party member goes through the same revelations about how fighting with friends is better than alone and every
instance of the characters going through into the bad world is literally because someone they know gets trapped in there. They try to set up basic villains that you think will have a slightly bigger impact than they actually do but every time they end up just getting sucked into the bad. After their friends get trapped, they unlock their soul weapon or some shit and now have the resolve to save the day. It's basic, it's boring and it takes zero risks.
Couple of the characters are carbon copies of persona counterparts but are missing the nuance and sauce that makes them memorable. The worst offender is the main character who is just bland throughout the game. Any bit of backstory and flavour for him comes far too late in the game for you to give a shit about him and his woes have the depth of a puddle. He's not actively a terrible character unlike some of the others, but he's the main character! He should have some sort of personality beyond workaholic slacker.
The world (design and look wise) is pretty good and it does at least hit the nail of being Tokyo. World is littered with interactables and mini games that range from addictive (The fishing Game and Blade, the card game that comes from Falcom's others) to the horrendous skateboarding minigame. Seriously what the fuck was that.
My major problem with the game is that it could have been a 6 or even a 7 if it just ended. The game ends like 4 separate times and it just keeps going on and on and on. The EX additions to the game add like an extra 15 hours of content in the form of side chapters that only have you control your other party members in short scenarios and an after story that literally LITERALLY adds nothing but lasts for 5 hours.
The final thing I want to talk about is how the true ending destroys any semblance of a moral or lesson. One of the things we learn in the final chapter is the childhood friend character died 10 years ago in the big "incident" but was kept alive because of a wish to have her death be a lie that the eclipse granted. You then save the day, but your childhood friend needs to disappear in order to keep bad shit from constantly happening because she should be dead. So the main character is learning to let go and move on and it's a genuinely good scene. Then the true ending comes in and shits all over it by having you save her and bring her back into reality. Defeats the whole point of the original ending.
Anyways, games mid. Go play literally any other Falcom game. 5.5/10