If I had to describe Tokyo Xanadu in one sentence, I would say: it's like Persona, only with action segments instead of turn battles. There's a bit more than that to Tokyo Xanadu, but how the game develops is very reminiscent of Atlus' own.
The game starts off in the middle of April, with days divided into three segments: school (morning and early afternoon), free time (afternoon and early evening), and battle (evening and night). Interactions are not as deep as Persona, and the cast seems smaller as well. During school you are only a spectator to various characters interactions, and only once I've been asked to perform something; so far the game hasn't given any hints that there are various stats influenced by what you do or don't, my guess is that it just affects your relationship with characters.
During free time you go around the city, choosing two characters you want to help during that time, and follow how the story unfolds; at this time you can also visit the various shops to buy equipment, items, and ingredients for the various recipes the game offers; food is used to boost stats during battle segments. The city is well laid out, with a lot of locations, and you can jump anywhere thanks to an handy fast travel map; these maps are not just for the city itself but also for complex buildings, like the school. Loading times aren't spectacular, but at least every location has a decent level of detail with a god number of NPCs.
Free time is also when your character goes through an awful lot of part-time jobs to get some money; crystals collected during battle segments can also be exchanged at certain shops for more cash.
The story revolves around Kou Tokisaka, the 2nd year high school student you play as, that one night gets trapped in a nightmarish dimension with Asuka Hiigari; Hiiragi is battling demons and of course Kou summons his own weapon, surprising Asuka. If I'm not mistaken, demons are born from people's fears and uncertainties, whose are then sucked in into this dimension.
Battles take place in fairly standard dungeons; characters go around these dungeon as a party, but you control only one at a time. Each character has his or her own elemental affinity and moveset. It's possible to switch between characters at any time to exploit an enemy's weakness, though you can't do this mid-combo. Combat is relatively slow, with good feedback from your and enemies' attacks; enemies have all their attack windows, and the overall feeling is quite good; I'm still not sure how to lock on an enemy, so there's a lot of fidgeting with the camera to keep enemies inside the field of view. Framerate is limited to 30, but at least it's constant.
Every character can be customised with a series of crystals to enhace some of his/her capabilities, though so far I've only got on for Kou, so I can't tell how deep this system will be. As with school and free time segments, combat doesn't seem particularly complex or deep as other games featuring that kind of stuff, giving the impression that Tokyo Xanadu goes for a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none approach; I hope this pays out in the end, because the game doesn't seem rushed; in fact, it's fairly high production values, with good voice actors (though not every line is spoken), and a lovely graphical side. Characters of course received the highest amount of detail, but environments haven't been forgotten entirely, and show some polygonal detail and decent textures; one thing I particularly appreciate is that the lip syncing is great, and is even applied to portraits in text boxes; the whole effect is far better than, for example, Yoru No Nai Kuni, and Yoru No Nai Kuni used fully-modelled mouths while Tokyo Xanadu relies on textures.
Among my recent purchases Tokyo Xanadu seems the best one, though it might try to be too any things at once.
The game starts off in the middle of April, with days divided into three segments: school (morning and early afternoon), free time (afternoon and early evening), and battle (evening and night). Interactions are not as deep as Persona, and the cast seems smaller as well. During school you are only a spectator to various characters interactions, and only once I've been asked to perform something; so far the game hasn't given any hints that there are various stats influenced by what you do or don't, my guess is that it just affects your relationship with characters.
During free time you go around the city, choosing two characters you want to help during that time, and follow how the story unfolds; at this time you can also visit the various shops to buy equipment, items, and ingredients for the various recipes the game offers; food is used to boost stats during battle segments. The city is well laid out, with a lot of locations, and you can jump anywhere thanks to an handy fast travel map; these maps are not just for the city itself but also for complex buildings, like the school. Loading times aren't spectacular, but at least every location has a decent level of detail with a god number of NPCs.
Free time is also when your character goes through an awful lot of part-time jobs to get some money; crystals collected during battle segments can also be exchanged at certain shops for more cash.
The story revolves around Kou Tokisaka, the 2nd year high school student you play as, that one night gets trapped in a nightmarish dimension with Asuka Hiigari; Hiiragi is battling demons and of course Kou summons his own weapon, surprising Asuka. If I'm not mistaken, demons are born from people's fears and uncertainties, whose are then sucked in into this dimension.
Battles take place in fairly standard dungeons; characters go around these dungeon as a party, but you control only one at a time. Each character has his or her own elemental affinity and moveset. It's possible to switch between characters at any time to exploit an enemy's weakness, though you can't do this mid-combo. Combat is relatively slow, with good feedback from your and enemies' attacks; enemies have all their attack windows, and the overall feeling is quite good; I'm still not sure how to lock on an enemy, so there's a lot of fidgeting with the camera to keep enemies inside the field of view. Framerate is limited to 30, but at least it's constant.
Every character can be customised with a series of crystals to enhace some of his/her capabilities, though so far I've only got on for Kou, so I can't tell how deep this system will be. As with school and free time segments, combat doesn't seem particularly complex or deep as other games featuring that kind of stuff, giving the impression that Tokyo Xanadu goes for a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none approach; I hope this pays out in the end, because the game doesn't seem rushed; in fact, it's fairly high production values, with good voice actors (though not every line is spoken), and a lovely graphical side. Characters of course received the highest amount of detail, but environments haven't been forgotten entirely, and show some polygonal detail and decent textures; one thing I particularly appreciate is that the lip syncing is great, and is even applied to portraits in text boxes; the whole effect is far better than, for example, Yoru No Nai Kuni, and Yoru No Nai Kuni used fully-modelled mouths while Tokyo Xanadu relies on textures.
Among my recent purchases Tokyo Xanadu seems the best one, though it might try to be too any things at once.
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