Originally I wasn't going to beat this version... I only got it so i could get the Limited edition (cause no matter how much I like falcom 200 bucks (cad) is too much for a game I have little to no history with.
Still in the end i'm really glad I did play through it... even if the bulk of why i'm glad is so i can hold Aksys accountable for the things that are off in this game.
This ramble will be spoiler free (though i will mention a few things that happened in my playthrough near the end game... still no spoilers.)
Tokyo Xanadu is the latest in the Xanadu series which is a offshoot of the Dragon slayer series. To date I have only played Xanadu next (which i haven't beaten yet). We follow Kou Tokisaka, a Second year student who seems to be the only part time work available in the entire town. One day after a particularily late shift at a cafe he sees his class present Asuka Hiiragi being followed by some thugs. He follows them to make sure she is okay when suddenly they all get transported to another world.
Luckily Asuka seems more then capable of handling herself and gets them all other of this hellish labyrinth. Wanting to be helpful Kou forces his way into help Asuka on her mission to stop these Gates from appearing and keeping the Greeds inside at bay.
They are joined by some unlikely companions as they try to figure out how to stop another potential disaster.
The combat is fast and fluid, every character feels very different so no matter what you'll find a play style that works with you. Dungeons are very short (longest one I was in too about 18 minutes and it was only that long cause i suck at platforming).
The lag doesn't get too bad until late game where i swear some cut scenes run at 1 frame every few seconds.... luckily only one or two fights was it painful due to lag.
Still if you have a ps4 I would say wait for that version, it most likely will have improvements in both graphics and translation.
SO.... lets talk about the translation shall we? Normally I don't harp on about this cause as long as intent in intact i'm pretty happy.
However there are some things that I will be seriously disappointed if Aksys doesn't patch/fix in time for the next game.
Quality control issues I noticed:
Sometimes characters have random Us at the end of their name. (like in one scene you'll see them be called both their name with and without a U.... i can't say the name sorry)
When you cook for some reason it said CPreperations complete
when you are at a save stone in dungeons is says "Strengthen Greed" when it means "Strengthen Grid"
Also on the save stones there is "Change Element" but it's supposed to be "Exchange element"
Two of the cookbooks you read gives you a completely different recipe then what they say they will give you (don't remember which one)
TYPOS EVERYWHERE
SPACING ISSUES EVERYWHERE
there is an entire scene where after every apostrophe there is a space. ex. i' m going to hope that they' ve fixed these things soon.
one time the word naïve is spelled like na ï ve
Speech bubbles will come out of the wrong characters mouth.
The translation itself seems decent, My japanese isn't the best but there wasn't any point where I felt like they had blatantly changed a line. But seriously the quality control has me so bummed I find it hard to describe. Everything I mentioned could have possibly been fixed with another pass at the script.... like spacing issues are no big deal I know Falcom is kinda notorious for them but spelling errors and inconsistent translations (or just outright miss translations of functions) are just kind of inexcusable.
On the other hand I think It's a testament to this game on how hard it was for me to put down... I wasn't going to play at all but i'm glad I did and I really look forward to playing on ps4 (on a higher difficulty cause why not)
The story was good, the voice acting is really good (though all in japanese so consider that a warning) there are only 3 scenes with no translation (two songs and a bit before the final fight.... I wish companies would remember that just cause there not a space for subtitles doesn't mean we'll suddenly understand) The music (while a little closer to a persona sound then other titles) is still Falcom JDK Sound Team at their finest.
The only thing holding the game back are a few sloppy translations.
Well that and a few bugs.
Maybe I just got unlucky near the end...
First I soft locked the game, I used a smash attack near a curved wall and ended up in the void.... which is solid so I had fun walking around before realizing "uh oh i can't get back in bounds" and having to reset.
Then after beating the final boss the credits started to play with no sound... I don't know how I triggered the sound to stop working (I was just going through the dialogue normally) but yeah it just cut out and I had to watch the credits on youtube cause that final fight is probably the most challenging in the game.... and I didn't want to replay it only to have the same hiccup happen.
I am looking forward to EX+, apparently there are more playable characters, more story and better framerate so already i'm sold (no seriously I bought my ps4 preorder at the same time as the Vita LE preorder) I just seriously hope Aksys does a quick pass, fixes some typos and makes the entire thing cohesive.
I really want this game to do well and I hope that by some miracle we get Tokyo Xanadu 2 sometime in the future (cause there are hints)
I am also looking forward to comparing the two versions... also replaying while knowing what I know now is always a good time.
SO in case it isn't clear I really did love this game, just maybe wait for the ps4 version (unless you only have a vita then get that as it's another excellent title for the ignored handheld)
