Tokyo Xanadu

(Played on Steam Deck and a Window gaming tablet with Japanese vocal and text. 44 hours, 42 minutes and 42 seconds to unlock New Game Plus according to save file.)

September, 30th, 2015 was a very interesting for Tokyo Xanadu to be released in Japan. A couple of weeks before, Atlus gave people a good look of Persona 5 along with some audio elements for the first time. As an owner of Playstation Vita, yours truly thought “No way in hell would that PS3 game ass PS3 game get a port to Vita!” after viewing. Yet, Nihon Falcon’s timed Vita exclusive past me by. A shame really, for it would have eaten the lunch Atlus’ breakout RPG. And that’s only one of many things that Tokyo Xanadu would have done.

More than meets the eye

In an alternative reality that can be considered high fantasy (Reading in-game lore as Japanese text sure makes this world that kind of familiar yet different.), Tokyo, the capital province of Japan was devasted by a mysterious disaster in the year 2005 Common Era. Rebuilding effort of the ruin led to the establishment of a new city called Morimiya. In 2015, 17 years old Kou Tokisaka is a busy high school Junior living there. His habit of taking late night part-time jobs led him to a path of fending off monsters called Greed and finding out about what caused the calamity a decade prior.

The story of Tokyo Xanadu can scratch more than one itch. There is the “We got ‘Persona 5’ on Vita one year before the real thing” for starters. The final chapter of the game can be seen as Heaven’s Feel route of Fate/Stay Night being adapted into a Legend of Zelda game, completed with collecting the “3 pieces of Tri-force” and the “Seven Sages”. That was 2 years before the first installment of Ufotable’s trilogy released in terms of animating the famed visual novel storyline without any interaction for the audience.

“Run time” aside, Tokyo Xanadu has many other differences than Atlus’ RPG and visual novel hybrid. For one the lad at the center of the ensemble here does not have exclusive access to a Velvet Room like mind palace. The eX+ (Don’t look at me, the developer titled this upscale port as such.) added side story to the ends of the first 7 chapters focusing on all other party members. It ultimately led to the real, real final section of the game all about the leading lad, but the decision sure makes said lad feel less like the center of this universe.

Unlike Persona games, the party members and the usual high-school dramedy crowd are 2 separate groups of people here, not that they do not mingle. It does not give the impression that it’s a regular high-school lad getting dragged into the super natural policing nonsense. Young Mr. Tokisaka is not a player stand-in, rather if this story is told in a non-interactive fashion, the character can be compelling as well.

Much like Persona 5, the episodic putting the team together first half here is all about people pulling the sticks in their asses. But unlike that big too long for its own good epic, it’s not always part of people’s revenge arcs. It’s more about growing from little shits to well-adjust members of society. And it’s a compliment to the story of this game that 2 orphaned lasses (Both have long hair and big tits. Rather funny that talking about breast takes place mostly among girls in this game. Both wear mini-skirts and stockings. Color schemes are different yet their silhouettes can be mistaken with each other without weapons and posing.) in the party can feel very different (One like a police commissioner and the other a mayor) from each other in the game.

Last but not least, the cut scene before a dungeon sure made me look at Mass Effect 3 and think “Why wouldn’t you do a similar segment like this time? You might have avoided some of the ending problem if you do THAT!”

Fast time at Eclipse High

Mechanically speaking, Tokyo Xanadu is an action role-playing game. Combat is in real-time and arenas are not separated from dungeon floor. The default button mapping might take some getting used to, with down face button for basic whack, right bumper for dodge and right face button for jump. Yes, to keep with Falcom’s Xanadu tradition, there is jump and some platforming challenges. The game’s move-set is happily twenty-fifteen, by which I mean double jump and mid-air dodge are enabled at the beginning, no skill tree unlocks required.

The left face button takes on the double duty of relatively long-range attack and heavy whack, tap for the former and hold for the latter. Fancy and high-power attacks come in 2 forms: right trigger for the kind does not come with cut-scenes and left plus right bumpers for the kind that does. The Hunters in RWBY fantasy is alive and well here, completed with G-words as umbrella terms for the preys.

Of course, the game cannot be compared to Persona without the elemental consideration. It’s much simpler here with only six, and monsters’ resistances are built towards whack and shoot. Elements are more like cutting butter with a cold or hot knife. Then there is the visual novel aspect.

Chapters usually have a segment called Free Time when Kou takes on social link like Bonding Episodes and side-quest, the latter being more usual RPG stuff rather than Persona 3 or 5’s more strict lists of rescue or hunts. Bonding Episodes are limited but not by Atlus style time slot. Instead, player has less action points to engage those than there is number of those things. Yours truly, as always, chased skirts while left the lads in the cold here. No romance though, the game just considers high school time too early for er commitment.

This game seems to be in war against the concept of “roll the credits”, especially with the upscale port. After beating a final boss ass final boss, by which I mean they are the only one who just put another life bar out of their ass while other enemies with regenerating health do so in the fair game of healing ability, the game presents a bitter-sweet ending and rolls credits. Save file says 37 hours 47 minutes and 19 seconds by then. Load said save file, and an option to play the Epilogue would present itself.

Said Epilogue took me 97 minutes to get through and gave a happy ending with a more colorful end credits sequence played to a more cheerful tune. Then comes the eX+ edition biggest addition: a 5 hours long Odyssey called After Story, no end credits after this one but one got to get through this if they want New Game Plus. The first key feature on the game’s Steam page says “40+ hours of Action RPG gameplay!”, and it delivers after a fashion. That cut scene before the actual final boss can use some editing though, it’s long in a “We are on console, baby” kind of way. Funny how the gaming lad in the party calls the last boss of numbered chapter “final boss”, shut up about the aforementioned final boss ass final boss, then address the Epilogue and After Story as “secret level” and “hidden level” respectively.

A screen bigger the whole other machine

I guess it’s only fair to play a upscaled Playstation Vita on something portable. Even though a Steam Deck takes up more space than the entirety of Vita machine, it can be still played on the bed, on the lo and during commute. The upside of a Vita game is the long battery life playing it, a fully charged Deck allowed me to play up to 4 hours.

However, I do consider the Playable label on this one fair for some feature missing. As the time of writing some pre-rendered footage in the game just does not agree with Proton and refuses to be played, including this amazing opening movie that really gives the game its anime vibe (It’s played before each numbered chapter title, Epilogue and After Story) and 2 end credits. I switched to a Window gaming tablet with 2 hours battery life paying this game to view those.

“Lost” in time, like products in market

Typing “Tokyo Xanadu” into Youtube and there will be videos calling the game “the best JRPG you have never played”. Those videos are talking to the English speaking crowd since the game seemed like a mild success for Nihon Falcom to consider another Xanadu game (Maybe even a direct sequel to this one) whenever they get out of their Trails and Ys holes.

However, “overlooked gem” is fitting here. The decision to not deal with filth rich producers led SAG would prove wise in the long run, but narrow-minded overlapping crowd of English speakers and console gamers are prone to overlook this Vita game with only Japanese vocals when more famous and more thoroughly localized for them options on “big boy” hardware are available to them. But for me, those more well-known games on more powerful hardware do nag me in some ways, while this little guy addresses such aspects in ways I just prefer that the big lads came after it. And I suppose, some who read this might feel the same.