It's Tales of Xillia 2, Except Now in English

I liked Tales of Symphonia....

This doesn't look like that.

Suppose I should get around to playing the first one.

Love you guys, Giant Bomb, but I really wish you'd either bring somebody on board who cares about these kinds of games or just... stop. You're not the kind of site that posts everything because you have to. Seeing headlines and descriptions like this really bums me out, especially when it's for games that I'm really excited for.

That's quite the cynical tagline you have there.

...? It's true! I don't see what's cynical about pointing out how many RPGs that Namco produces lately.

Patrick is remorsefullessly trampolining on the feelings of Japan Roll Player Game lovers? Because you say Namco is simply a factory, it sounds like you are saying they have no creative gutsy or that their work is somehow inspirationless. It's a persecution, isn't it. For shame on you! FOR A SHAME ON YOU. How many happiness one Namco Factory game bring compared to you for instance? I would bet it's more. Your words bring only pain!!!!

C'mon Patrick. "Factory"? Why not diss EA or Activision the same way?

looks nice, i have no idea what the actual game is like though. time to go look up tales of xillia!

@patrickklepek: well this tagline and the one from the thief video....you're pressing an agenda if nothing else.

People on the internet are weird.

Except for you. This was enjoyable.

@oldenglishc: That's a nicest thing anyone is ever say to me. I won't forget.

I am forgive you Patrick. My heart is been healed now.

The first Xillia, while the battle system was a bit lacking compared to more recent entries like Vesperia and Graces, it easily had one of the most enjoyable stories in the entire series and apparently Xillia 2 is even better so I'm greatly looking forward to it.

Whoa guys, just whoa. Try saying that tagline in a cheery tone. Force a smile on your face if you have to, it helps. Now doesn't that sound better? It all depends on how you are coming into this to begin with. I guess we just have a bunch of "glass-half-empty" kinda peeps on today.

Anyway, I didn't see any gameplay in that, but it looks like an anime I would totally watch!

I loved the first game, and the Tales series in general, so I'm really excited for this.

Oh, and chill out people, it's just a tagline.

@budwyzer: the last 30seconds was gameplay

Namco presented their goal of one new Tales game every year last week, so what in the fuck are you crybabies on about. Get off this site.

Hey even if this isn't this site's cup of tea it's my cup of tea :)

and this"factory" just in fact produces some of the best Tea around!.

Really looking forward to this one. I enjoyed the hell out of Xillia. Need to get around to finishing its new game +.

They have been pretty good though!

I read the video description as "woah i forgot how many rpg's Namco has been putting out, that's impressive", i might be wrong though.
I'm used to Alex taking pokes at games or companies, not used to this.

Also, don't really know what this game is about watching that trailer.

All the RPGs are far from recent. Now, the decision to release them over here somewhat reliably...

Anyway, Xillia was a pretty good Tales game. So I'm kind of excited for this.

JRPG fans with persecution complexes; news at 11.

Oh look, it's a game/series I'm not interested in, better be snide about it!

@meatball: yeah leave the tagline writeing to alex

Xillia was OK, except for Teepo. Burn that abomination back to hell.

My missus is going to get this one. I dropped off the Tales train after the peak of Vesperia, but she really liked Xillia, and is hyped that this is being localized.

@patrickklepek: I guess what gets peoples' goat is that compared to say annualised Assassin's Creed or Mario games, Tales Studio is actually quite infrequent in its release schedule. Would we all prefer they release as infrequently as Elder Scrolls games, and pack a bit more 'wow'? I certainly would.

That is a bad dub, damn.

I think for a lot people factory is a negative word to attach to something like video games, I really doubt patrick meant it negatively though, although in this the factory is of higher quality so it could even be a compliment. Anyways I loved the first one so I am really looking forward to this.

Damn. @patrickklepek is catching a lot of shit for his taglines today.

He didn't state it as a negative. I think any negative connotation you guys are inferring from the tag is just your own projection. And he's not wrong either. At this point, Namco has basically annualized the series.

The great video description "controversy" of 2013 rages on!

@patrickklepek@dudelongcouch I stand corrected. They have annualised the series. This is just from Namco Tales Studio. They really could've skipped Tales of Graces... Oh look, another JRPG set in a school.

While the JPN/ENG releases across years does confuse the mind, it would appear Bamco Nandai is a publicly listed corporation with an objective to make bank.

When all is said and done, I would play most Tales games before most Final Fantasy games. This is one of those series where the localisation is a real highlight (the skits...oh, the skits).

Q:Did 8-4 work on Xillia?

Will purchase eventually. Also, factory does not have to be a negative word. I do not find the description negative.

Tired of snide crap.....less it comes from dave SNIDEr

I couldn't even complete Xillia... it was overall such a boring and utterly mediocre experience for me, and I gave it an awful lot of time to win me over. Despite having similarly mixed opinions about Graces F, I was at least able to complete it thanks to its superb combat. Xillia's, however, just feels flat without much impact.

I think the main problem I had with Xillia is its graphics. I mean its story is dull and the quality of the voice acting is all over the place, but... it's a JRPG so that (more often than not) is just something you have to endure through. The Tales games in particular, however, usually always have beautiful worlds to explore, but Xillia's is so incredibly bland and downright ugly in spots. Its open-world equivalent is nothing but a bunch of plain open spaces, and i just hit a point where I couldn't... look at this game anymore. That and the combat just wasn't drawing me in like it has in the past. The cast at least didn't make me want to rip my eyes out like in Graces, but they were all still--like the rest of the game--really uninteresting.

It sucks because I still to this day really like Symphonia and Vesperia. Vesperia in particular is possibly one of my favourite games of the generation, and despite originally being released in 2008, it still looks a helluva lot better than Xillia does. Xillia was rushed, though, so you could contribute its shoddy appearance and rough technical properties to that. But Xillia 2 looks pretty damn similar, right down to the graphics, so I think this will be the first Tales game that I'm not going to blindly purchase like I have done in the past.

Still looking forward to Tales of Symphonia HD, though!

After Vesperia and Xillia, I'm fine with them releasing all of the JRPGs that they care to. At least some percentage of them are really damn good.

nah this one reads as snark more than cynicism,

some of you people are weird. except for you here, i agree with the other guy, your pretty great.

I wish they'd just released an HD version of Tales of Destiny...

Y'all are getting Scoops wrong. Remember the four-year long dearth after Vesperia? It ain't rocket surgery where the tagline came from...

Anywho, ToX2 fixes everything that disappointed from ToX1, while staying stylish as fuck and fun to play (if trusted sources who played the Japanese release are to be trusted, and they are).

Instead of typing out almost the exact same feelings about the game, but in a much less coherent manner, I'm just going to piggyback on your post. It's still better than Symphonia II, but Vesperia was a definite step backwards for the series.

@oldenglishc: Vesperia was a step backwards?

Did you mean Xillia?

Ooh, more Tales!

Is the battle system the same in this one? The whole link system from the first Xillia made it pretty much unplayable with four people, which was a huge letdown.

Some dislike the changes in the more recent Tales games, but I really enjoyed both Vesperia and Xillia (I just hated most of Graces' cast). Looking forward to this, I'll probably go for the Chinese version again for grorious Japanese VA with English subs.

Edit: I think I'm mixing things up with a different game I played recently. Xillia may have been an undub in stead.

It really is easy to forget. I had forgotten.

I just want to point out that I didn't get any cynicism from that little tagline.

It's easy to forget how much of an RPG factory Namco's has become in recent years

Grammar Patrick!

Couldn't agree more. For some reason, childhood nostalgia keeps forcing me to give Tales games chances. Xilla was genuinely, the worst game I've played this year. Production values, gameplay, story...all of it was mediocre to outright bad. At this point, I honestly can't tell if it's just me or the series. Vesperia was five years ago and maybe if I went back to it now it would be just as bad.

Still, as negative as that was, I'm still stoked for the fanbase; They're getting Tales games left and right.

I wish they would keep the japanese dub plus the english one. English V.O. are terrible...

Xillia was a whole lotta fun, and I actually thought it had the best combat in the series (Graces had such a limited amount of space to bind artes!) and while the story was basically 1-to-1 with Symphonia it was funny to see all the weird ways in which they mirrored each other. I also apprently have terrible taste in voice acting, because I have no major problems with most of the recently localized JRPGs that everyone else seems to hate.

@yummylee: I agree with a lot of what you say about Xillia, though I did force myself to finish it. The most disappointing thing about the game for me was how the big twist in the game was basically just a rehash of Tales of Symphonia's twist. Seeing everything from one of my favorite games of all time done again, but poorly, was offensive to me. What made it all the worse was that I did enjoy the game quite a bit up until that reveal, despite several glaring inconsistencies in the writing and rather bland and repetitive world.