History YMMV / TokyoXanadu

* SoAverageItsOkay: Divisively, General consensus among the Falcom fandom is that the story is average, the characters are average and the gameplay is stock Action RPG fodder, making it unremarkable if compared to other Falcom franchises like the VideoGame/TrailsSeries and their flagship VideoGame/{{Ys}}. The game coming out right after the highly acclaimed VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel certainly didn't help.

* SoAverageItsOkay: Divisively, General consensus among the Falcom fandom is that the story is average, the characters are average and the gameplay is stock Action RPG fodder, making it unremarkable if compared to other Falcom franchises like the VideoGame/TrailsSeries and their flagship VideoGame/{{Ys}}.

* OvershadowedByControversy: While the core ''Falcom'' fanbase liked the game, it's gained more attention for its subpar localization and [[NoDubForYou lack of a dub]] than for its merits in gameplay and story.

* HolyShitQuotient: The end of Chapter 7. [[spoiler: Kou and company have beaten the root of the Hollow Quakes and the assumed root of all the recent Eclipse appearances, only for a much bigger Hollow Quake to follow. It's then shown that it's done by none other than Shiori, who reveals herself to be a Greed at Acros Tower, and the Eclipse swallows all Morimiya.]]

** The True Ending. [[spoiler: Fans are split on whether the True Ending's better than the Normal Ending. On one hand, Kou gets a chance to bring back Shiori, and he succeeds, which ends off everything on a happy note. On the other hand, though, the retconning of her death is thought to undermine the game's message of having to move on from the great lie that Kou had lived in to the truth. Moreover, the retcon is made possible because of the Nine-Tailed Fox, of whom there were few to no signs in the foregoing chapters, and so he came off as a DeusExMachina that the writers put in to give the story a happy ending that it didn't truly need. Thus, the Normal Ending is seen as bolder in its tone and more consistent with the game's message since Kou is forced to learn to live with the truth.]]

* TheUntwist: Falcom made no attempt to hide the fact that black soldier figure that worked with White Shroud is really [[spoiler: Gorou]]. When the soldier first appears at the end of Chapter 5, [[spoiler: he was wearing the same kinds of shoes and pants that Gorou is usually seen wearing.]] When he met up with White Shroud in side story 5.5, you can also see [[spoiler: he was sporting same kind of sport watch that Gorou usually wears.]] Furthermore, White Shroud addresses him as [[spoiler: "Sensei"]], which is also a hint to the former's own identity. Therefore, while TheReveal in Chapter 7 is a big surprise to the in-game characters, it's not really a surprise to the player.

** A few characters such as Chiaki and Aoi get sucked into the Eclipse, and Kou and company save them, which typically comes with development between the kidnapped character and the related team member. It could have been interesting to see those characters help Kou and company with dealing with the Eclipse and see how knowing the Eclipse's being affects the characters' relationships, but all of it is readily tossed aside with [[LaserGuidedAmnesia memory wiping]]. [[spoiler: It also might have been interesting to see how the Morimiya citizens react to the fact that the Eclipse has been a thing for a long while now, and how everyone knows that Kou and company are heroes for stopping the one behind the incident. But nope, their memories get rewritten, and so they instead think that the Eclipse incident was nothing more than a disastrous earthquake. Only Ryouta is certain to have gotten his memories back after the After Story.]]

* AssPull: The twist that the Epilogue presents. [[spoiler: There is little to no foreshadowing that the Nine-Tailed Fox saved the true Shiori's soul during the Tokyo Twilight Disaster, and so the fact that Kou has another chance to bring back Shiori is a bit too convenient. Not to mention that the Nine-Tailed Fox saved Shiori and not any of the other women who died from the tragedy, such as Futaba, Gorou's dead girlfriend.]]

** The After Story. [[spoiler: Fans unhappy with the True Ending find the After Story to be much better, as it wraps up a few plot points and shows off more of the game's world, as well as a SequelHook at the very end. The After Story allays many of the True Ending's issues, even if not fully.]]

* EndingFatigue: ''Tokyo Xanadu'' suffers from this in regards with how it wants to end its story. Beating the FinalBoss in the Final Chapter only nets you the normal ending, but should you raise Kou's three attributes past a certain threshold, the Final Chapter is then followed up with an Epilogue, which extends the story even further towards the true ending. The ''[[UpdatedRerelease eX+]]'' version then takes it UpToEleven by having an additional After Story after the Epilogue, making the conclusion of the story drag on much longer than it should.

* HilariousInHindsight: Gorou. Almost all of his spoilerrific qualities might remind you of [[VideoGame/Persona5 another Goro(u) from an RPG that was released one year after this game]]. For added hilarity, Gorou's [[spoiler:dead]] girlfriend is named Futaba, like another party member from the same game.

** The Mist Witch, the final boss of chapter 5. Every single boss up to this point has been beatable entirely by getting up close and using melee attacks. This boss, however, spends pretty much the entire fight keeping its distance while throwing one ranged attack after the other at you. During the few moments where you can get close, it'll be surrounded by a spinning wheel which makes standing next to it impossible without taking damage, which pretty much forces you to use ranged attacks only. At some point during the fight it'll start creating up to 2 copies of itself, which all use [[BulletHell exactly the same attacks]]. Playing on Calamity difficulty? It'll create the copies pretty much at the start of the fight. Thankfully [[CatharsisFactor she has the decency to die screaming!]]

* ThatOneLevel: The Pillar of Darkness in the Final Chapter. For starters, almost all of the dungeon is [[SlippySlideyIceWorld covered in ice]], making combat more cumbersome now that ice physics are involved. This is accompanied by the fact that you start the dungeon with only Kou and Asuka in your party, so you're unable to use the third support slot to heal your party members should they take a lot of damage. And half-way through the dungeon, you face a DualBoss battle against both the Glare Phantom (the final boss of Chapter 2) and the Astral Widow (the final boss of Chapter 3) at the same time. If you haven't been saving up your {{Limit Break}}s up to this point, then be prepared for a large DifficultySpike as both bosses attack you all at once with no coordinated pattern. While things do get a little better once Sora and Yuuki rejoin your party, the second half of the dungeon has an egregious platforming section where the ice physics can affect your momentum while jumping, causing you to either overshoot or undershoot the platforms.

* OneTrueThreesome: Kou/Asuka/Shiori due to how Kou's relationships with both Asuka and Shiori being major driving points in the game. Additionally, one of the endings seem to add some canonical potential to this with one of 'After Story' endings having Kou spend time with both of them along with Asuka and Shuori apparently discussing something that they plan on talking to Kou about in the future.

* OneTrueThreesome: Kou/Asuka/Shori due to how Kou's relationships with both Asuka and Shori being major driving points in the game. Additionally, one of the endings seem to add some canonical potential to this with one of 'After Story' endings having Kou spend time with both of them along with Asuka and Shori apparently discussing something that they plan on talking to Kou about in the future.

** Related to the above, despite the different rival organizations, there's never a Wielder versus Wielder MirrorBoss battle. Even when [[spoiler:Gorou and Jun]] are temporary antagonists, they have an Elder Greed fight the party instead. This could have been a good way to make the player deal with their own tricks being used against them and a way to gauge how far the XRC members have come as Wielders. This could have also been a way to explore Wielders potentially misusing their power, requiring other Wielders to stop them.

** Related to the above, despite the different rival organizations, there's never a Wielder versus Wielder MirrorBoss battle. Even when [[spoiler:Gorou and Jun]] are temporary antagonists, they have an Elder Greed fight the party instead. This could have been a good way to make the player deal with their own tricks being used against them and a way to gauge how far the XRC members have come as Wielders.

* EarWorm: A few of the themes definitely stick with you, such as the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP_zsYQvJVc title theme]] and the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTMf3EGMOU0&t=9s normal city theme]].

** Unlike other EX Skills, Asuka and Rion's EX Skills causes a guaranteed stagger as long as it hits the enemy, making it useful for bypassing any [[ThatOneAttack boss attack pattern that's difficult to dodge]].

** Unlike other EX Skills, Asuka's EX Skill causes a guaranteed stagger as long as it hits the enemy, making it useful for bypassing any [[ThatOneAttack boss attack pattern that's difficult to dodge]].

** White Shroud ([[spoiler:aka Jun]]) in ''eX+''. Once he becomes fully available as a playable party member in the After Story, he is ridiculously overpowered even in late-game dungeons. His exclusive element Light is super effective against all elements except Shadow, which mostly takes away the incentive and strategy of switching to other party members to capitalize on enemy weaknesses. Combined with his excellent combat range, damage output, and the ability to heal from landing consecutive hits on enemies, he is an absolute monster on the battlefield when mastered, which can even make getting S-ranks in dungeons entirely trivial.

** The Mist Witch, the final boss of chapter 5. Every single boss up to this point has been beatable entirely by getting up close and using melee attacks. This boss, however, spends pretty much the entire fight keeping its distance while throwing one ranged attack after the other at you. During the few moments where you can get close, it'll be surrounded by a spinning wheel which makes standing next to it impossible without taking damage, which pretty much forces you to use ranged attacks only. At some point during the fight it'll start creating up to 2 copies of itself, which all use [[BulletHell exactly the same attacks]]. Playing on Calamity difficulty? It'll create the copies pretty much at the start of the fight. Have fun.

** Unlike other EX Skills, Asuka's EX Skill causes a guaranteed stagger as long as it hits the enemy, making it useful for bypassing any boss attack pattern that could qualify as ThatOneAttack.

* GameBreaker: White Shroud ([[spoiler:aka Jun]]) in ''eX+''. Once he becomes fully available as a playable party member in the After Story, he is ridiculously overpowered even in late-game dungeons. His exclusive element Light is super effective against all elements except Shadow, which mostly takes away the incentive and strategy of switching to other party members to capitalize on enemy weaknesses. Combined with his excellent combat range, damage output, and the ability to heal from landing consecutive hits on enemies, he is an absolute monster on the battlefield when mastered, which can even make getting S-ranks in dungeons entirely trivial.

* GameBreaker: White Shroud ([[spoiler:aka Jun]]) in ''eX+'', once fully available as a playable party member in the After Story, is ridiculously overpowered even in late-game dungeons. His exclusive element Light is super effective against all elements except Shadow, which mostly takes away the incentive and strategy of switching to other party members to capitalize on enemy weaknesses. Combined with his excellent combat range, damage output, and the ability to heal from landing consecutive hits on enemies, he is an absolute monster on the battlefield when mastered, which can even make getting S-ranks in dungeons entirely trivial.

* ThatOneLevel: The Pillar of Darkness in the Final Chapter. For starters, almost all of the dungeon is [[SlippySlideyIceWorld covered in ice]], making combat more difficult now that ice physics are involved. This is accompanied by the fact that you start the dungeon with only Kou and Asuka in your party, so you're unable to use the third support slot to heal your party members should they take a lot of damage. And half-way through the dungeon, you face a DualBoss battle against both the Glare Phantom (the final boss of Chapter 2) and the Astral Widow (the final boss of Chapter 3) at the same time. If you haven't been saving up your {{Limit Break}}s up to this point, then be prepared for a large DifficultySpike as both bosses attack you all at once with no coordinated pattern. Things get a little better in the second half once Sora and Yuuki rejoin your party, but not by much, and the ice physics are still an issue.

* SuspiciouslySimilarSong: The first few seconds of "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIpdH6t2ivI Raging Rush]]" are very similar to part of the ''Film/{{Ghostbusters}}'' theme.

** The localization being handled by Aksys and how the PlaystationVita version turned out to be a case of BadExportForYou. Some are glad that the game was localized at all, while others are displeased by the quality and hope that ''eX+'' will turn out better (which it did, substantially).

* GameBreaker: White Shroud [[spoiler:aka Jun]] in ''eX+'', once fully available as a playable party member in the After Story, is ridiculously overpowered even in late-game dungeons. His exclusive element Light is super effective against all elements except Shadow, which takes away the incentive and strategy of switching to other party members to capitalize on enemy weaknesses. Combined with his excellent combat range, DPS, and the ability to heal from landing consecutive hits on enemies, he is an absolute monster on the battlefield when mastered, which can even make getting S-ranks in dungeons entirely trivial.

* TearJerker: [[spoiler: Shiori's death. Despite his claim that he's willing to face the truth, and his attempts to save her, Kou has to watch her die and disappear right in his arms, and he can't do anything about it. When you see him a few weeks later, it's clear that he still is broken over it.]]