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A tale where your choices spin the future.note 

"Everything rides upon this one choice. Not just your life... but the fate of the entire world."

Tales of Xillia 2 is the fourteenth mainline entry in the Tales Series, and a direct sequel to Tales of Xillia. The game was released on November 1st, 2012, exclusively on the PlayStation 3. It received an international release on August 19th, 2014 in North America and August 22nd, 2014 in Europe.

One year after the fall of the Schism, the newly unified Rieze Maxia and the country of Elympios are working towards peace and harmony, and research into the newly-developed Spyrite technology promises to one day end Elympios' dependence on the environmentally-degrading Spyrix, allowing the barren land to recover. But not all is well: the terrorist group Exodus continues to stir tensions between the two countries, the denizens of which struggle to accept each other, and a new conflict threatens both worlds...

Ludger Kresnik lives in Trigleph with his older brother Julius, one of the top agents of Spirius Corporation, a company with overwhelming influence over Elympios. After failing to pass the entrance examination and become an agent himself, Ludger finds a new job as a cook at a train station, briefly meeting Jude Mathis on the way there, but is swept up in an Exodus terror attack and finds himself protecting Elle Marta, a little girl seeking the Land of Canaan, a mythical place said to grant wishes. In the ensuing chaos, Elle's father's pocketwatch merges with the identical watch carried by Julius, revealing that Ludger possesses the power of the Chromatus, an ability passed down through the Kresnik clan.

All of the main characters from Xillia return, including some characters that were killed and make appearances in fractured dimensions. The combat system (Cross Double Raid Linear Motion Battle System) lets Ludger swap weapons and fighting styles on the fly, switching between twin blades, twin pistols and a hammer. Link Artes have been split into Unique Artes and Common Artes, the latter of which can be performed between any two characters that have the appropriate move. Furthermore, Ludger now has a special Limit Break gauge that activates his powerful Chromatus form, teleporting the battlefield into a parallel world where he gains incredible power for a short time.

For the first time in a mothership Tales title, Ludger is a silent protagonist, whose spoken dialogue is limited to Dialogue Trees that appear in skits and cutscenes, and decides the game's Multiple Endings.

The game received a shortened but largely faithful manga adaptation by Ryu Naitou, which began serialization in Dengeki Maoh the same month as the game's Japanese release.

Beware of unmarked Late Arrival Spoilers from the prequel.


Tropes associated with Tales of Xillia 2:

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  • Adaptational Context Change: In the Fractured Kijara Seafalls chapter, if Ludger chooses to lure the monster out himself to save Elle, Julius will remark on how far Ludger would go for her before changing his mind about using Elle, instead telling Ludger to protect those that are important to himnote , and giving him the first Waymarker. In the manga, however, Julius is confused by Ludger's desire to protect her, and it's Ludger who delivers that line to Julius, stating that Julius was the one who taught him that, stunning him. When Julius does say the line himself, it's an acceptance of Ludger's beliefs instead.
  • Adaptational Explanation: In the game, Elle being attacked by the Seafall Phantom appears to be completely random. In the manga, it's explained that she cut her finger on a seashell and a drop of her blood fell into the water, drawing the monster to her specifically.
  • Adventure Rebuff: Julius attempts to keep Ludger away from Origin's Trial, constantly telling him he doesn't need to know what's going on, but his efforts can't stop Spirius from roping Ludger in anyway, and he ultimately accepts Ludger's involvement when he sees that he's dedicated to going to Canaan for Elle's sake.
  • Affectionate Gesture to the Head:
    • In the game, if Ludger agrees to hear out Julius' pep talk, he laughs at Julius' attempt and Julius playfully pushes Ludger's head down with his hand, causing Ludger to duck away from him. In the manga, Ludger declines the pep talk, and instead Julius gently pats Ludger on the head before hugging him when Ludger is devastated by the prospect of sacrificing Julius for the Soul Bridge.
    • In the manga, Ludger pats Elle on the head first when he's about to confront the Exodus terrorist on the train, and again when it seems like he's going to follow Rideaux's orders and fight Julius. Both serve to comfort her.
  • Afterlife Welcome: At the end of the manga adaptation, Ludger's final moments has him seeing apparitions of Fractured Milla and Julius standing behind Elle. An ensuing omake is Played for Laughs, Fractured Milla jealously demanding to know who Elle's mother is, prompting Ludger to beg Victor to explain while Julius cries about how much Ludger's grown. The omake is eventually revealed to be an Imagine Spot by Elle, based on Alvin and Muzet's suggestions.
  • Alien Sky: Like in Xillia, the world of Rieze Maxia and Elympios has two moons, one smaller/further away than the other.
  • All for Nothing:
    • Rideaux spends the entire game, and much of his life, trying to impress Bisley and capture Julius so that the latter is sacrificed as a Soul Bridge instead of him. By the time the Soul Bridge is needed, Julius is out of their grasp, meaning Rideaux is sacrificed anyway.
    • The Bad Ending. Ludger refuses to build the Soul Bridge solely to keep Julius from dying and kills the rest of the party to stop them from trying, thus allowing either Chronos or Bisley to win, dooming either humanity or spirits respectively and most certainly resulting in Elle's death. Yet, despite protecting Julius from the party, Julius is still dying from his transformation into a Divergence Catalyst, and the event summary even acknowledges they won't have long together.
      Julius: So this was all in vain...
    • Fractured Dimensions that manage to gather the five Waymarkers will find themselves faced with the revelation that their attempt was pointless, as Canaan only exists in the Prime Dimension. Victor, for one, starts losing it when Bisley's attempt to salvage their efforts is to use Victor's newborn daughter to pass along the Waymarkers to the Prime Dimension and allow them to complete the Trial.
  • All There in the Manual:
    • It's implied in the game if you pay close attention to the appropriate sidequests, but only the supplementary material explains Ludger, Julius, and Bisley's backstories in full. Bisley had Julius with Cornelia Wi Kresnik, the previous Key of Kresnik who lost her life in a fight with Chronos when Julius was eight years old. Her younger sister, Claudia Il Kresnik, became pregnant with Bisley's child after Cornelia's death, and ran away after discovering her unborn child had a Chromatus watch, with the help of her father, Marvin. Five years later, thirteen-year-old Julius found Claudia and her son, Ludger, by accident. Claudia thought he was there to take Ludger back to Bisley, and Julius wound up killing her in self-defence, inflicting Ludger with Trauma-Induced Amnesia. With Marvin's help, Julius adopted Ludger and altered the family registry to hide Ludger's existence from Bisley, taking Ludger's Chromatus watch and using it for himself, with the added intention of using Ludger against Bisley. However, after Ludger hurt himself cooking for Julius when he was seven-years-old, Julius had a change of heart and came to genuinely care for Ludger.
    • At the Spirius building, one of the NPCs will explain that Vera decrypted some files Julius kept secret and eventually reported them to Bisley. It's not fully explained in-game, but the guidebooks elaborate that those files were hiding Ludger's existence from official records. Julius had found out about what Vera had discovered, and his unauthorized presence on the Striborg train was entirely to track down Vera and bribe her to secrecy about Ludger.
    • Not much is explained about the Fractured Julius the party meets on the Striborg train, or why he's the perpetrator of the Exodus attack in that universe. The manga gives some indication that it's due to Ludger getting close to Bisley in some way, but only the Official World Guidance explains the full context: in that world, Ludger admired Bisley, and ignored Julius' warnings to stay away from him, causing the brothers to become estranged, and prompting Julius to intentionally collude with Exodus so he could assassinate Bisley.
    • Elle and her father's story is explained in more depth in the guidebooks. Victor travelled with a purple-eyed version of Elle, completing the same journey that Ludger does in the Prime Dimension, but his version of Elle dies during the acquisition of the final Waymarker, implied by the manga to be due to Victor's use of the Chromatus turning Elle into a Catalyst. He meets Lara, Elle's mother, and falls in love with her, and she gives birth to the green-eyed Elle. However, Bisley convinces the Xillia party, as well as Julius, to convince Victor to turn over the newborn Elle, with the goal of using her abilities as the Key of Kresnik to reach the Prime Dimension, and launches a surprise attack on Victor's family, during which Victor kills Bisley, Julius, and the rest of the human party with the exception of Gaius. Lara witnesses all of this and eventually falls ill from the stress and dies, leaving Victor with Elle.
    • Rideaux and Vera's full names are never stated in game. Character biographies reveal that Rideaux's full name is Rideaux Zek Rugievit, and Vera's full name is shown in an Official World Guidance short story to be Vera Lou Leshynote . Both of their last names refer to Slavic gods, just like Kresnik.
    • The Perfect Guide explains that while other Chromatus users like Rideaux and Julius keep their usual weapons in their transformed states, Ludger and Bisley use lances because of Elle's Key of Kresnik powers.
  • A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: During Muzét's chapters, Ludger wears a special bracelet that lets him hear Muzét's outrageous thoughts. Unfortunately, he wasn't told beforehand that taking it off can kill him, so he's stuck with it and reading Muzét's mind for quite a while at least until the thing releases itself off during her last chapter.
  • Ambiguously Related: The original Kresnik clan two thousand years ago were an unrelated group of spirit channelers led by the Genesis Sage Kresnik, but by the present day, the clan's founder is referred to as the Progenitor Kresnik, with some in the clan calling themselves "Scions of Kresnik". Since the Chromatus and Key of Kresnik abilities are inherited by bloodline, it suggests that every person who has a Chromatus are related to each other. However, it's never stated explicitly that the Bakur, Marta, and Kresnik families, who all possess Chromatus powers, are actually related by blood (as opposed to being separate family lines descended from the original unrelated clan), making it ambiguous if unions between those branches count as incest.
  • Amplifier Artifact: Using someone else's Chromatus watch in addition to one's own temporarily increases the power of their Chromatus by one level, first demonstrated by Julius, who adopted Ludger as a child partially to use his watch and boost his powers to a Level 3 Chromatus. Later, Victor reveals he has a Complete Chromatus via killing Julius and Bisley, and Ludger himself hits Level 3 permanently either through taking Julius' watch in the Bad Ending, or being gifted it by him after Julius turns into a Divergence Catalyst.
  • And Your Reward Is Clothes: Get Ludger's affinity up with the Xillia cast to maximum and some of them will reward the player with a palette swap version of Ludger's clothes, with the color now matching the Xillia character's clothes.
  • Anti-Frustration Features: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise here.
  • Anti-Magic: Rideaux and Spirius Corporation create a portable version of the Lance of Kresnik from Tales of Xillia, which they equip their shocktroopers with like rifles, that can dispel spirit artes.
  • Anyone Can Die: Barring Fractured Dimensions, the entire party can be killed off depending on the ending. Fractured Milla's death in Chapter 11 is unavoidable in all endings, the entire Xillia party dies at Ludger's hand to save Julius in the Bad Ending, Elle dies by becoming a Divergence Catalyst in the Ludger Ending, and Ludger dies to save Elle's life in the Elle Ending. Rollo, who survives every ending, also meets an early death in Victor and Elle's Fractured Dimension.
  • Arbitrary Headcount Limit: For any given chapter, you will only have access to at most four members (including Ludger, who can't leave). If there are more than four in the beginning of the chapter, you can count on them leaving for some arbitrary reason, like splitting up to gather information, or washing dishes. And in the final chapter, when you have all 9 members ready to take on the final boss, miasma blocks your way through, and the Four Great Spirits can only protect, you guessed it, four (and Rollo).
  • Arbitrary Skepticism: Ludger can express doubt in Bisley believing in a mystical land that grants wishes, to which Bisley will ask him if it's anything weirder than Ludger's own superpowered bloodline or the idea of alternate universes.
  • Artificial Brilliance: Using a healing arte with an area of effect will result in characters directly moving into it, and even popping their own little area-of-effect healing arte to make sure everyone's back to full health.
  • Artificial Stupidity: If the AI initiates a Link Arte, there is a 90% chance that they will initiate in a way that will make sure that zero enemies will get hit by it. It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't stop you from using a Link Arte at the same time, potentially screwing up a carefully set-up combo. However, you can change it so that AI-controlled characters don't use linked artes at all.
  • Artistic License – Gun Safety: Despite seemingly having gone under Spirius Agent training, Ivar forgets two rules when giving Ludger the first pair of guns: Never put your finger inside the trigger guard unless ready to shoot and always treat a gun as though if it were loaded, especially when you aren't sure whether or not they are. Then there's the fact that he gave Ludger the guns barrel first after just proving that they were still loaded and not properly cleared.
  • Asskicking Leads to Leadership: It's implied that leadership in Spirius is tied to having a strong Chromatus ability, no matter how young the person is. Bisley became CEO of Spirius at the age of 20 upon his father's death, and along with it inherited the Strongest Chromatus Bearer Waymarker and the title of "Victor", both Julius and Rideaux are high-ranking agents in their 20s for having two of the strongest Chromatus in the department.
  • A-Team Firing: The first Exodus agent Ludger encounters on the Striborg train is armed with a machine gun, but even when he's standing completely still, her shots all miss him.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: Due to just how long it takes to completely charge Ludger's Chromatus, it's easier to just stick to Level 1 or Level 2 transformations unless the fight specifically starts you off with a filled gauge.
  • Awful Truth: In Chapter 12, it's revealed that Fractured Dimensions are not created by Chronos, but instead by Chromatus users, as using their powers will eventually transform them into Divergence Catalysts. It's impossible to stop the transformation beyond delaying it by not using one's Chromatus, and the only reason why Ludger himself isn't transforming into one is because Elle is suffering the transformation in his stead.
  • Babies Ever After: In the Elle Ending, ten years in the future, it's revealed that Rollo has a kitten named Pollo.
  • Back-to-Back Badasses:
    • Jude and Milla in the opening animation stand back-to-back while facing off against a crowd of Exodus terrorists together.
    • In the manga, Ludger and Fractured Milla fight back-to-back while boarding the S.S. Pelune.
  • Badass and Child Duo:
    • Ludger is the "Badass" to Elle during the course of the game, where his driving motivation through the story is to keep Elle safe and fulfil her promise to go to Canaan. Heroic Mime tendencies and Trauma Conga Line aside, Ludger isn't very stoic or jaded, but Victor, his Fractured future self is willing to kill a lot of people to protect Elle.
    • Pre-game Ludger is instead the "Child" to Julius, though this is largely described in supplementary material. Julius is only thirteen when he adopts the five year old Ludger, but he's an experienced assassin and very aloof to everyone, including and especially Ludger, until he realizes how much Ludger cares about him, compelling him to spend the past decade and a half keeping Ludger away from their family curse.
  • Badass Longcoat:
    • Julius and Bisley, as both Crown Agent and CEO of Spirius Corporation respectively, both have one, with Julius' being white and blue and Bisley's being red and black.
    • King Gaius, undercover as playboy aristocrat Erston Outway, dons a black coat with purple accents over his contemporary Elympion suit.
  • Bad Future: Played With, with regards to Chapter 12's Fractured Dimension: ten years into the future, spyrite technology has been perfected, allowing nature to fully recover, and peace has been achieved between Rieze Maxia and Elympios, making it seem like a rather ideal future. Then it's revealed that this world's Ludger, who had gathered the Waymarkers with another Fractured version of Elle but lost her in gaining the final Waymarker, had killed the entire Xillia cast (sans Gaius), Julius, and Bisley, after the latter convinced everyone to use Victor's daughter, Elle, to bargain with the Prime Dimension. He now seeks to kill Prime Ludger so he can complete the Trial and wish to be reborn with Elle, without the fear of their world being destroyed for being Fractured.
  • The Bad Guy Wins:
    • In the Elle Ending, humanity technically fails the Trial like Chronos wanted, but Origin continues soul purification due to being impressed by Ludger's willingness to sacrifice himself for Elle, and Chronos reluctantly admits even he is convinced in humanity's worthiness.
    • Heavily implied in the Bad Ending. Ludger killing the rest of the party and refusing to go to Canaan himself means there is no one to stop Bisley from making his wish to enslave all spirits. And if Bisley doesn't manage to make his wish, the millionth Catalyst will eventually be created and humanity will fail the Trial, unleashing miasma upon the world and turning humans into mindless husks, just as Chronos desired.
  • Bag of Spilling: Xillia 2 is set a year after the events of the first game, but all the original playable characters are weaker than they were before. Justified, as the Lilium Orbs of the first game, which gives ordinary humans the power to fight monsters, lost their power when the Schism was dispelled, and most of the cast are no longer in roles where they're routinely seeing combat.
  • Bait-and-Switch Boss: In Chapter 8/9, Julius is about to fight Ludger to take Elle away from him, only to be sidelined by the Divergence Catalyst that's trying to kill Elle first, compelling him to help the party save her.
  • Barely-Changed Dub Name: The English dub omits Ludger, Julius, and Bisley's middle names, and on occasion does the same to Elle and Lara's middle names.
  • The Battle Didn't Count: You must win against Rideaux in Chapter 7 to progress the story, but the party will nevertheless wind up dragged back to Spirius by force when you do.
  • "Better if Not Born" Plot: One unused Character Episode plot involved Leia finding a Fractured Dimension where she had never been born due to her father being too scared to ask her mother out. The plot of Xillia largely goes unchanged despite her absence, but though Leia is dismayed by this timeline, she takes joy in having existed at all.
  • Better to Die than Be Killed: Justified in Chapter 16, Bisley chooses to commit suicide before his Chromatus kills him instead, as his transformation into a Divergence Catalyst would create the millionth Fractured Dimension and cause humanity to fail Origin's Trial.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: Chronos and Bisley Bakur directly oppose each other, with Chronos attempting to sabotage humanity into failing Origin's Trial to enslave all humanity, while Bisley seeks to complete the trial and use his wish to enslave all spirits, including Origin and Chronos. Since the party composes of both humans and spirits, both of their goals pose an equal threat.
  • Big Brother Is Watching:
    • The Elympion government keeps strict tabs on criminals. After Ludger falls into debt, he's tracked so closely he can't even leave Duval to go home until he pays off enough to regain travel privileges to Trigleph.
    • Then there's Spirius itself, who are spying on Ludger long before he becomes employed by them. An NPC states that Julius is the one who developed the GHS' tracking technology used by both Spirius and the government and thus knows how to evade it. Funnily enough, it's never stated if Ludger's actual big brother is tracking him that way.
  • Big Fancy House: Elle and Victor's house is a large domed house that overlooks Lake Epsilla.
  • Big, Screwed-Up Family: Bisley describes the Kresnik descendants having fought and betrayed each other for generations in order to complete Origin's Trial and be granted their wish. Supplementary material gives more detail on Ludger's immediate family, detailing that Julius' mother Cornelia was the previous Key of Kresnik, who died empowering Bisley's Chromatus, and Ludger's mother was her younger sister, Claudia, with whom Bisley conceived Ludger after Cornelia's death. A short story from fifteen-year-old Julius' perspective reveals he believes his father slept with his mother's sister specifically to birth a child who could be stronger than Julius.
  • Bilingual Bonus: Ludger and Julius live in a place called the 'Frères Apartment'. Frère is French for 'brother'.
  • Bittersweet Ending:
    • The Ludger Ending, Ludger either tries too hard to save Elle at the expense of the world, hesitates in sacrificing his own life, or doesn't care about saving Elle at all, resulting in Elle wishing for all the Fractured Dimensions to be destroyed, sacrificing herself before she can become the millionth Catalyst, and allowing humanity to pass Origin's Trial. Ludger lives on to become CEO of Spirius, eventually meeting Lara Mel Marta, Elle's mother. However, the Elle he knew is still dead, and the ending's subtitle "Fate Repeater", as well as the reward being Victor's suit, heavily imply this version of Ludger will never truly get over losing the first Elle he knew.
    • The Elle Ending, Ludger wishes for all the Fractured Dimensions to be destroyed, but transforms into his Chromatus in order to become the millionth Catalyst and reverse Elle's transformation, causing his death. However, Elle survives and the epilogue reveals the rest of the party are doing well from the news article she's reading on her GHS. Jude got the Howe Prize for his spyrite research, Gaius establishes the first Rieze Maxian National Assembly, and the article itself was published by Leia, who became the Chief Editor. Elle is also still in touch with Alvin and Elize, having been called in for a job.
    • The Bad Ending, occurs in Chapter 15 if Ludger refuses to kill Julius, but in defending him must kill the rest of the party and doom the world. And even though the brothers find solace in each other, Julius is still infected by his divergence catalyst, and Bisley will either complete the Trial, enslaving all spirits, or fail, resulting in miasma flooding the world and turning all humanity into Empty Shells. Either way, Elle will die and one of the two races will suffer immeasurably.
  • Black Eyes of Crazy: People possessed by Divergence Catalysts will have their sclerae turn black, and their irises and pupils turn pink.
  • Bleak Level:
    • Chapter 11. The atmosphere right from the start hammers in that things are about to get very bad. Even the gameplay reflects this, where you're suddenly given a time limit to rescue NPCs who will die if you take too long. Adding to the sense that the chapter is not going to end well is the dungeon itself, which is a replica of the first game's Bleak Level, right down to the background music. The chapter ends with Fractured Mila's death.
    • Chapter 12, especially when that Chapter's fractured dimension is visited. Fractured dimensions are generally shown with a darker filter on colors, but it stands out especially strong in this one and the first information the party obtains in this dimension? Rowen was killed in this dimension a few years ago. The news just gets worse from there and, even after getting back from the dimension, the entire atmosphere is still very low and changes the dynamic between Elle and the rest of the cast.
  • Blessed with Suck: As part of Origin's Trial, Chronos gave the Kresnik clan the Chromatus ability, allowing them incredible physical power that makes them unmatched against humans and spirits alike. However, overusing that power risks turning the user into a Divergence Catalyst, a painful process which will eventually create a Fractured Dimension and progress towards failing the Trial. When Bisley recounts the Chromatus' origins, he begins to say that it was a blessing from the spirits, before correcting himself that it was actually a curse.
  • Bloodier and Gorier: In a significant departure from the usual Tales Series policy of Bloodless Carnage, Xillia 2 includes frequent blood splatters and Blood from the Mouth, mostly when Ludger stabs someone to destroy their divergence catalyst. This was probably a significant factor in the "C" rating* given to the game, as the Japanese rating system is much harsher on visible blood than other territories.
  • Book Ends: The very first and very last Fractured Dimension of the main story both involve Julius as the Divergence Catalyst dying at Ludger's hands.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Invoked in Chapter 7, Ludger and Alvin lie to Milla that Muzet's behavior is because she's been possessed by a Divergence Catalyst. However, subverted in the game proper. While the only Divergence Catalyst that possesses a person who doesn't lash out in violence is Julius in Chapter 15, who fully understands he's a Catalyst and knows he needs to die, several Catalysts are people who have shown violent tendencies even as their normal selves, like Prime Muzet in the first game, and Julius before he Took a Level in Kindness, and others are just fighting back in self-defense, or are troubled by external circumstances.
  • Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: The Kresnik clan is known for backstabbing and exploiting their own family members in order to advance Origin's Trial and be granted their wish. After Julius' father, Bisley Bakur, makes it clear he'll use anyone in his family to complete the Trial, including his wife and their son, Julius sets out to avoid being used as a pawn by using Ludger in turn, stealing his Chromatus pocketwatch to boost his own power, specifically saying that he must do just as the rest of his family has done. However, Ludger's kindness towards him causes Julius to change his mind, and Julius ends up doing everything he can to ensure Ludger is not involved with the rest of the Kresnik clan. His overt support and concern for Ludger inspires Ludger's own Big Brother Instinct towards Elle, and indirectly leads towards Ludger and Elle being able to complete Origin's Trial together, ending the source of their family's strife.
  • Break the Cutie: Elle's able to go through most of the game with a smile on her face despite missing her father, until Chapter 12, "Elle and I", when she actually does find him again. Her mission to Canaan was a cruel plot by him, who's gone absolutely insane. He killed the party members she befriended in their dimension, and lured the party to kill prime Ludger, who was her first friend and a guardian to her. For added trauma, Ludger has to kill Victor for the Waymarker. Her father's behavior also causes her to believe she's a "fake" Elle due to Victor's desire to return to the Prime Dimension.
  • Broken Treasure:
    • In an Ichiban Kuji Drama CD, Elle accidentally breaks Ludger's favorite mug, which had been a gift from Julius, and she endeavors to replace it before Ludger notices. Ludger learns what happened pretty much immediately from Milla, and when Elle comes back, she confesses to what happened and reveals she bought a new, different cup for Ludger as an apology, identical to the mug her father has.
    • In a comic anthology story, Elle accidentally deletes all the photos on Ludger's GHS, prompting her to run off and try and retake them. When she bumps into Julius, she tackles him and forces him to help. Ludger ends up finding out when he catches up to Elle gleefully saying Ludger will never know she accidentally deleted all his photos, though he forgives her and reveals he backed up his data anyway, so nothing was lost.
  • Bullet Catch: The Great Spirit Chronos catches three successive shots between his fingers in his introductory cutscene. Justified as he isn't human and has time manipulation powers.
  • But Thou Must!:
    • In a rather blatant example, early on Ludger gets tricked into an absolutely massive 20 million Gald debt by the Smug Snake Rideaux simply for healing Ludger and Elle is basically held for ransom if he doesn't agree to take out a loan to pay for it. Despite the choice system in the game at no point is the player or anyone else for that matter allowed to tell Rideaux to shove it, or even attempt it.
    • Many of the dialog choices themselves are the same idea expressed two different ways, and very few drastically affect the game, besides missing out on raising Relationship Values or slightly changing a cutscene, even if they're phrased antithetical to each other. For instance, Ludger attempting to force his way past Fractured Milla in Chapter 7 will result in Alvin and Leia refusing to help him fight her and instead follow the same dialogue as if Ludger had chosen to reason with her, and opting to wait out the Exodus agents in Chapter 10 will result in Fractured Milla charging in the same way if Ludger had made the call first. However, in Chapter 15, continuously refusing to sacrifice Julius will eventually turn both dialogue options into the same response, leading to the Bad Ending.
  • Call-Back:
    • One of the first lines Fractured Milla says to Jude is "You really are a do-gooder, aren't you?" and he answers with "Yeah, I get that a lot." That is, word for word, something the Prime Milla said to him in the first game.
    • The ESS Pelune uses the same design, layout, and background music as the ESS Zenethra from the first game. And like the first game, it ends with Fractured Milla sacrificing herself.
    • When Milla returns she quietly shushes Jude with a finger to the lips, just like she did in the first game when they first met and when she came back from the dead.
    • Due to Fractured Dimensions a lot of call-backs refer to events from the past. The scene in which a fractured version of Alvin accidentally shoots Presa mimics the scene from the first game where Alvin shot Leia. He even utters the same My God, What Have I Done? line in the exact same tone. Prime Alvin is well aware of this and chides his past self's actions.
    • In the Bad Ending, Leia is weak to shot-type artes, also a reference to Alvin shooting her in Xillia, and Alvin himself warns Ludger against "making the same mistakes I did", that is, betraying his friends to protect his family.
  • Call-Forward:
    • In the Genesis Sage Kresnik's Official World Guidance short story, Lara Lalla Travis, Kresnik's grandson's fiancée in a Fractured Dimension where the Schism was never created, is either the same or related to the same person who in the Prime Dimension founded the House of Travis in Rieze Maxia, whose descendants retain the middle initial "L." in all their names.
    • At the start of the Scenario Book short story, a child Ludger asks Julius if he thinks cats that are fat can still be considered cute. Ten years later, they adopt Rollo, who grows to be a really fat cat and whom they both find adorable nevertheless.
  • Calling the Old Man Out: After six chapters of Julius being on the run with zero contact to Ludger and Ludger being suspected as an accomplice, Julius finally shows up when Chronos attacks the party and the brothers are eventually reunited in the Fractured Nia Khera. While Julius is clearly glad Ludger is safe, he's barely said more than two lines before telling Ludger to hand over the pocketwatch that activates his Chromatus, and one of Ludger's dialogue choices will trigger this:
    Julius: I'm taking that pocketwatch.
    Ludger: Really? That's the first thing you say to me?!
    Jude: Ludger has been worried sick about you this entire time, Julius. He's public enemy number one, He had to sign on with Spirius.
  • The Cameo:
    • The Tales cameo costume DLC from Xillia can be carried over to this game as well, and there's naturally new ones. There's a (formerly) preorder set for Jude, Ludger and Milla that gives them costumes, accessories and haircuts based off of Yuri Lowell (including his Blastia), Emil Castagnier (complete with haircut and sword prop) and Asbel Lhant. Naturally, Gaius and Muzét get a costume each as well, based off of Dymlos Timber and Sheena Fujibayashi respectively, and Ludger has a second cameo costume based off of Ruca Milda, complete with sword AND changing his Chromatus form to Asras. Completing the Bonus Dungeon gets you Jude and Milla's formerly preorder Cless and Stahn costumes from Xillia as well.
    • Along with that is a set of DLC attachments as well. One set features plushie versions of Quickie, Mieu, Tokunaga and Repede while another set is a collection of hats worn by previous Tales series characters, which includes Rassius Luine's feathered hat, Spada Belforma's beret, Patty Fleur's tricorne and Beryl Benito's customized witch hat.
  • Cannot Kill Their Loved Ones: At the start of the game, Ludger comes across who he believes is his brother, Julius, but is actually a version of Julius from Fractured Dimension, who has hijacked the Striborg train and murdered all the passengers on it. When given the order to kill him, Ludger's default option is to say he can't kill him, prompting Julius to remark on his kindness, then murder Nova and her boss and try to kill Ludger himself.
  • Can't Take Anything with You: Chromatus users by themselves can't move anyone between worlds besides themselves, and cannot leave a Fractured Dimension without destroying it first, but those who are Keys of Kresnik can. However, even the Keys have limitations, it's impossible to bring a Fractured item or person if the Prime equivalent is already in the Prime Dimension, and if a Fractured counterpart enters the Prime Dimension while the Prime equivalent is absent, the Prime cannot return.
  • The Cavalry: In Chapter 7, the party are cornered by Chronos, the Great Spirit of Time, only for Julius to block one of his attacks and ask Ludger for his pocketwatch. If Ludger agrees, Julius manages to deflect Chronos' attack long enough to get Ludger out of danger. If Ludger refuses, the trope is subverted, as Julius will be knocked back by the blast and Ludger will have to save everyone instead.
  • Cement Shoes: If Ludger hasn't made a payment on his debt in a while, Nova will call him saying that the bank has a bag of cement, and are asking for both of their shoe sizes.
  • Changed My Jumper: The party are clearly dressed like Elympions, but routinely venture into Fractured versions of Rieze Maxia, some where the Schism hasn't even been dissolved yet, and no one bats an eye at it. Alvin even manages to fool a Fractured version of Presa into thinking he's the same Alvin as the one from the first game's timeline, with nothing more than a passing comment from Presa that he's changed his clothes.
  • Chekhov's Gun: In Chapter 1, Elle's father's pocketwatch appears to merge with Ludger's watch. In Chapter 16, that watch returns, having been ejected from the Prime Dimension upon coming in contact with its Prime equivalent, but returning due to Ludger's watch being destroyed by Bisley.
  • Civilians Are Irrelevant: The fate of completing Origin's Trial and saving humanity is solely dependent on the Kresnik clan who are Chromatus bearers. Not even either incarnations of the Great Spirit Maxwell can do anything about it.
  • The Clan:
    • The original Kresnik clan were a group of Elympions who believed in spirits and sought coexistence with them instead of using spyrix selfishly, lead by the Genesis Sage, Milla Kresnik. After the infighting caused by undertaking Origin's Trial, a faction of them left with Maxwell to Rieze Maxia, covering up their history in Elympios and becoming the ancestors of the Nia Khera villagers. Records held by the Six Ruling Houses, who also claim to be descendants of this clan, indicates they rejected the Trial.
    • The Kresnik clan as Elympios knows of it are the faction of the original clan who remained in Elympios and have continued working towards completing Origin's Trial. After two thousand years, the clan has broken off into numerous branches, including the Bakurs and the Martas, and the Kresnik name itself has become commonplace.
  • Clone Angst: When Elle finds out that she is a resident of a fractured dimension, she starts seeing herself as a "fake", in part due to her father sharing the same impression that the only way for them to live is if they're in the Prime Dimension. An interesting take in that the Prime Elle hasn't been born yet, meaning she sees herself as a copy of someone who doesn't even exist and possibly never will.
  • Companion-Specific Sidequest: The game's Character Episodes center on one specific party member, accompanied by Ludger and another character, handling some of personal subplot. Jude's focuses on his spyrite research, Alvin with his business endeavours, Leia with her desire to become a reporter, Elize's grapples with her own childish idealism while trying to act as an Cool Big Sis to Elle, Rowen's tackles his duties as Prime Minister, Fractured Milla wishes to become a better cook than Ludger, Gaius' struggles with whether or not he can have friendships while being king, Muzét's involves her trying to win the rest of the party over after her actions from the first game, and Prime Milla's seek the origins of Milla Kresnik. These sidequests don't have a direct impact on the main story and can be skipped, but playing them through nets additional bonus scenes during main story cutscenes, such as Rowen and Gaius' Character Episodes resulting in seeing the ratification of the peace treaty in the aftermath of Chapter 11.
  • Combat Parkour: Ludger, unarmed, defends himself from the Exodus agent on the Striborg train by jumping and flipping over the train seats to dodge her machine gun fire. The terrorist herself also shows off a fair bit of gymnastics while trying to pin him down.
  • Comically Missing the Point: In a skit, Elle addresses Gaius as "His Highness", prompting Leia to whisper to her that she's not supposed to call him that, since Gaius is currently masquerading as "the prodigal son" Erston Outway. Elle proceeds to call him "His Prodigal Highness", making Gaius laugh.
  • Compressed Adaptation: The manga doesn't feature any of the Character Episode sidequests, shortening the story considerably and demoting a lot of the original Xillia cast. It also omits two of the required Waymarkers, thereby skipping the section of Chapter 8/9 with Gaius, as well as Chapter 10's Fractured Dimension featuring the Ark of Time. In addition, Elle steals the Waymarkers for Bisley, and the fight with Chronos that occurs after setting up the Waymarkers in Chapter 13 never happens.
  • Continuity Nod: When escaping from Chronos through the Dimensional Breach, Alvin grabs Elle and carries her through it similar to how he carried Elize in the first game. The way he holds her (around the middle, under his arm) is also reminiscent to how he carried Jude, also in the first game.
  • Conveniently Interrupted Document: In the Japanese version, 11-year-old Julius signs off on his mission records with "Julius Wi—", obfuscating the reveal that his name at that age was "Julius Wi Bakur". The interruption is omitted in English.
  • Convenient Terminal Illness: In Chapter 15, Julius uses his imminent transformation into a Divergence Catalyst as a reason to kill him in order to create the Soul Bridge needed to save the world, since he's dying already.
    Julius: Don't feel too bad for me. I'm a dead man either way. At least this way my death will mean something to someone.
  • Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind: On the hijacked Striborg train, after Ludger successfully dispatches a terrorist, he and Elle are startled by another appearing behind Ludger. Before Ludger can defend himself, the terrorist is knocked out from behind by Jude using his gauntlets. The same scenario is repeated when the three of them are sent into a Fractured Dimension, only with Nova knocking a guy out with a baton and saving them instead.
  • The Cover Changes the Meaning: The Hymn of Proof is presented as a charming familial lullaby hummed by Julius and Victor about longing to see someone. The Bonus Episode reveals it was neither that deep nor strictly platonic, but a rather silly song composed by Milla Kresnik demanding to meet with Maxwell, including a line about threatening to pull on his beard.
  • Cruelty Is the Only Option: What's that? You want the Platinum Trophy? Be prepared to have to kill off the entire gang from Xillia if you want it that badly.
  • Crush Filter: Played for Laughs in the Ichiban Kuji manga story, where Nova sees Julius complete with Bishie Sparkles, giving her a charming smile, and enthusiastically engages with him in conversation about studying with Ludger, only for him to assume they're busy and abruptly lock himself in his room.
  • Crush the Keepsake: In the final chapter of the manga, Bisley stomps on Ludger's pocketwatch in order to prevent him from using his Chromatus. He then attempts to do the same to Julius' watch, which had been gifted to Ludger after Julius' death, causing Ludger to throw his body over it and take the blow instead.
  • Cutscene Power to the Max: Despite not using his Chromatus for much of the game, Bisley manages to dodge Julius' attacks on the train without breaking a sweat, and towards the end of the game, he Flash Steps to protect Elle when facing down Chronos, goes toe-to-toe with the Great Spirit Chronos with nothing more than his fists, and dodges and blocks all of Ludger's attacks, including a gunshot, again with nothing more than his bare fists.
  • Cutting Off the Branches: The manga adaptation, naturally, can only adapt specific dialogue choices and one of the endings, often the kinder choices and often the ones that will raise affinity with Elle, all of which ultimately lead to the Elle Ending, where Ludger sacrifices himself instead of Elle.
  • Darker and Edgier: Xillia 2 is much less optimistic than contemporary titles in the Tales Series, leaning more towards a Half-Empty Crapsaccharine World, topped off by every single canon ending being a Bittersweet Ending.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Zig-Zagged with Chromatus users, whose color palettes skew towards black armor with colored accents, but whose powers are not inherently evil besides having the ability to destroy Divergence Catalysts. However, of the four depicted users, Bisley will do anything in order to protect humanity, including raising his own son as a child soldier and potential human sacrifice, Rideaux is simply unrepentant and mean-spirited to everyone, and while Julius ultimately turns out to be an Anti-Hero, he had quite the penchant for violence until his Heel–Face Turn, and even in the present day he's still willing to use Elle to complete the Trial. Finally, Ludger is The Hero but has the possibility of committing mass murder to protect someone he loves... twice.
  • Deadly Euphemism: Spirius and the party refer to Divergence Catalysts and Fractured Dimensions as being "destroyed" or "eliminated" instead of killed.
  • Declaration of Protection: Once the player is locked into the Bad Ending, Ludger screams that he'll protect Julius from being sacrificed and proceeds to make good on this promise by killing the rest of the party, all by himself.
  • Decoy Damsel: Ludger's entrance exam is interrupted by a monster appearing to attack a girl. If Ludger saves her and successfully fights off the monster, she holds him at knifepoint when he goes to help her up, and Julius lampshades that Ludger should have wondered why a girl showed up out of nowhere.
  • Demonic Possession: In the Illusionary Darkness post-game sidequest, Nova and Vera are possessed by the Great Spirits Verius and Shadow respectively, encouraging the party to head to Drellin for a bonus dungeon. Upon clearing it, the Spirits relinquish control of Nova and Vera, satisfied with Ludger's resolve.
  • Demoted to Extra: The characters introduced in the first Xillia game are given much less focus in the main story, with the exception of Jude and Prime Milla. They largely serve to interchangeably comment on the events in Ludger's stead.
  • Deus Exit Machina: Julius is renowned as Spirius' top agent, and causes a lot of trouble to other agents off-screen. However, in the two chapters when he accompanies the party, he always ends up conveniently incapacitated by his wounded arm or knocked out by the enemy before he can help Ludger. This is averted in the manga adaptation, where the plot simply advances too fast for him to do anything.
  • Diabolus ex Machina: In the Bad Ending, despite not using his Chromatus at the time, Julius' transformation into a Catalyst suddenly accelerates exclusively to hammer home how futile Ludger's efforts at saving him were.
  • Died in Your Arms Tonight: A Fractured Presa dies in Alvin's arms during one of his Character Episodes, after Fractured Alvin accidentally shoots her.
  • Dimensional Traveler:
    • People who are born with a Chromatus watch are able to travel to Fractured Dimensions, which are offshoots of the original Prime Dimension, caused by a Divergence Catalyst. Spirius Corporation has an entire department dedicated to finding those with this ability and tracking these Fractured Dimensions, known as the Department of Dimensional Affairs, of which Julius, and later Rideaux, is director. Unfortunately, while Chromatus users can enter Fractured Dimensions freely, they can't leave until they kill or destroy the Divergence Catalyst, which will subsequently destroy the universe itself. In addition, it's later revealed that Fractured Dimensions are created by Chromatus users who overuse their powers.
    • Keys of Kresnik have all the abilities of a Chromatus user, plus can move objects and people between dimensions, as well as leave Fractured Dimensions without the need to destroy them.
  • Don't Call Me "Sir":
    • In Chapter 10.5 of the manga adaptation, Julius asks Marvin, his grandfather and once-servant to the Bakur family, which included Julius, not to address him as Julius-sama. Marvin insists, however.
    • In an Official World Guidance short story, Julius keeps telling Rideaux to stop addressing him as onzoushi (used to refer to the son of a distinguished family or noble), referring to Julius being the son of Spirius' CEO. Rideaux keeps doing it specifically to annoy him.
      Julius: How many times do I have to tell you? Don't call me that.
      Rideaux: My bad, onzoushi.
  • Door-Closes Ending: The Ludger Ending ends on a shot of Ludger meeting Lara Mel Marta in the CEO of Spirius office, and the door closing on the two of them.
  • Dragged into Drag: A Drama CD subjects Ludger to dressing as a girl in order to go unnoticed in a Fractured version of Spirius, where his counterpart is extremely famous. Leia, Elle, and Elize are all delighted by the prospect, but it's Rowen who actually helps him pull it off with his skills at disguise. Ludger's very much not amused when, after the dimension is destroyed, the rest of the party are still interested in seeing him crossdress again.
  • Dream Intro: The game opens with Ludger having a dream about his older brother Julius fighting him in a dream while lecturing him on Origin's Trial. It's a Hopeless Boss Fight and will end with Julius unleashing his Mystic Arte and apparently killing Ludger, waking him up. The dream ends up coming true, as a Duel Boss fight in Chapter 15, but ends with Ludger unleashing his own Mystic Arte and killing Julius instead.
  • Dual Wielding: Ludger, Julius, and Victor, all dual wield swords. Julius is implied to have taught Ludger that style, and Victor is a Fractured version of Ludger.
  • Dub-Induced Plot Hole:
    • A minor one occurs at the start of the J-code side quest, which involves finding mission logs a younger Julius left scattered around the world map. In the English version, 11-year-old Julius simply signs off as "Julius Kresnik", while in the Japanese version, the sign-off message is cut off at "Julius Wi--" in order to hide that his birth name is "Julius Wi Bakur", which he changed to "Julius Will Kresnik" at 13-years-old after killing Claudia Il Kresnik and adopting her son, Ludger.
    • In the English localisation, a Fractured version of Julius recognizes Alvin as a child he used to babysit, even addressing him as "Alfie", referring to Alvin's birth name. Prime Julius never brings this up, but Prime Alvin recalls that "this older kid used to babysit us [and] was always humming that song", and implies it's possible they also met in the Prime Dimension and simply forgot about it. Except that Julius is only one year older than Alvin, and would have have been seven years old at the most before Alvin disappeared through the Schism. In the original Japanese, the term "babysitter" is never used.
  • Dub Name Change:
    • Ludger's cat's name was changed from "Lulu" to "Rollo" in the English release.
    • The old man who owns Julius Catstantine the Third had his name changed from Marcus (or Markus or Marx) to Marvin, possibly because there was already a main story NPC called Marcus (whose Japanese name was Marco).
    • The items the party members use to link together was renamed from "Arousal Orb" to "Allium Orb" in the English release.
  • Dub Personality Change: Downplayed, Julius's dialogue and temperament is slightly altered in English from Japanese, with him teasing Ludger more in the opening scene of Ludger's first day at work, and while he's still just as cryptic about keeping Ludger away from Spirius, he tends to be a lot more vague in Japanese, like in Chapter 8/9 he directly states he's doing so because he cares about Ludger, as opposed to Japanese where the line cuts off before he can explain.
  • Dub Text: Upon reaching maximum affinity with Muzet, the event log (written from Ludger's perspective in the style of a journal) has a message that sounds a lot like Muzet has written an entry while pretending to be Ludger, where "he" admits he has a crush on Muzet. This is completely absent from the Japanese version.
  • Duel Boss:
    • The very beginning of the game opens with one between Ludger and Julius in a nightmare Ludger has. It comes true in Chapter 15 when Ludger agrees to sacrifice Julius to create the Soul Bridge to Canaan.
    • Ivar has two with Ludger upon giving him his twin pistols and his hammer. After the fight, he'll hobble off with Amusing Injuries.
  • Dug Too Deep: The fractured dimension in Chapter 2 of Jude's story features a monster that was infected with a Divergence Catalyst and began killing workers after a mining effort disturbed it.
  • The Dulcinea Effect: After Elle frames him for kidnapping, Ludger nevertheless rushes to her aid in the middle of a terrorist attack and risks his life protecting her. Justified, naturally, since she's eight years old.

    Tropes E-N 
  • Earn Your Bad Ending: In Chapter 15, if Ludger absolutely refuses to let Julius die to create the Soul Bridge, he has to fight the entire party to stop them from trying, resulting in an 8-on-1 Final Boss fight, four characters at a time. Made worse in that Xillia's token battle mechanic is based on linking your character with one of the other party members to unleash your more powerful artes. So while your opponents are linked up to do extra damage against you, you're stuck flying solo with only basic attacks, no Overlimit, no Linked Artes, and no Mystic Artes. Even your Chromatus is of little use because the time it takes for it to charge is more than enough to get yourself killed, and it doesn't charge while you're trying to free-run your way to safety.
  • Easter Egg: Playing around with the camera on the Striborg train will reveal Julius standing in the front car in Level 3 Chromatus, exactly how he first appears in the ensuing cutscene. The same occurs with his Fractured version.
  • 11th-Hour Superpower: At the very end of the Final Boss fight of the Elle or Ludger route, Ludger permanently unlocks a Level 4 Chromatus, along with a new Mystic Arte to finish off Bisley with.
  • Empathic Environment: When confronting Julius on the Striborg line the second time, the train will conveniently go through a tunnel, something that didn't happen the first time, plunging the scene into darkness as it's revealed he's not quite Julius.
  • Engineered Heroics: In the final episode of Muzét's Character Quest, Muzét schemes to set up a surprise attack against the party under the rationale that after she swoops in to save the day, everyone will like her. Unsurprisingly it goes terribly wrong when the monster is far more powerful than she expected. While she does get chewed out for it, it does make everyone realise how ostracised she feels and leads to them making more of an effort to befriend her.
  • Eternal English: Like Xillia prior, Elympions Ludger and Elle have no trouble understanding the Rieze Maxian language, despite two thousand years of separation. They can even blend in perfectly with Rieze Maxians, including worlds where the Schism hasn't been dissolved.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Downplayed. In a short story in the Scenario Book, sixteen-year-old Rideaux and fifteen-year-old Julius are cornered by an anti-Spirius terrorist group in a Fractured Dimension. After killing one member, Julius notes the pins the terrorists wear to certify their allegiance, he takes it off the dead body, then suggests making a game of who can "collect" the most pins before the universe is destroyed. Rideaux agrees, but even he is surprised by Julius' nonchalance, and casually tells Julius he really does look evil.
  • Everybody's Dead, Dave: The Bad Ending. Ludger decides not to kill Julius. The party, and Julius himself, try their hardest to convince him otherwise, and eventually Gaius decides that their best course of action is to go through Ludger and kill Julius themselves, since they must get to Canaan and save the world. Surprisingly, Ludger snaps and goes into full protective mode, snatching Julius' pocketwatch, and uses it to hit his third Chromatus form. What follows is an epic cutscene where the entire party tries to fend off Ludger, which ultimately leads into the final battle of the Bad Ending... The ENTIRE PARTY. Gameplay-wise, this could easily turn into Curb-Stomp Battle, but after the battle, we see Julius in absolute shock and horror, then we cut to a shot of Ludger looking at Canaan with bloody swords and blood smears on his cheek. The party is nowhere to be seen. That's right. Everyone you knew and loved from the first game, who had hopes and dreams and good futures ahead of them, all dead. Murdered by you. Of course, since Bisley is going to sacrifice Elle to save the world, and you decided not to help, she'll eventually die too.
  • Expendable Alternate Universe: The game acknowledges that Fractured Dimensions are reality to those who inhabit it, and that Fractured Milla is a real person in her own right, especially to Elle and Ludger, who have never met Prime Milla, and thus to them Fractured Milla is the "real" Milla. They're both quite upset when she is sacrificed to save Prime Milla, especially Ludger in the manga adaptation, where he breaks down in tears over it. And this point is underscored by The Reveal that Elle herself is from one of these parallel worlds. Her father's view of the two of them being "not real" causes her to believe she's just a fake version of Elle, and that Ludger will prefer the "real" Elle he's meant to father over her, leading her to sacrifice herself instead. However, this is ultimately Double Subverted, as either Ludger or Elle will wish for the destruction of all Fractured Dimensions.
  • Extradimensional Emergency Exit:
    • Julius escapes into Fractured Dimensions in the aftermath of the Oscore attack, though Spirius is still tracking his movements.
    • Done unintentionally in Duval, when the party are threatened by anti-Rieze Maxian criminals and accidentally end up transported into a Fractured Dimension. When they return, the criminals are confused since they simply disappeared for a few minutes, and assume it's some sort of spirit arte.
    • Played for Laughs and subverted in the "Eating Omelette In A Fractured Dimension" Drama CD. Julius secretly checks up on Rollo in Ludger's apartment after Chapter 9. When Ludger and the party suddenly return, he hides inside a giant mascot costume in the kitchen and is eventually suspected when Rollo begins meowing at the costume. He jumps into a Fractured Dimension before he can be unmasked, but due to a Key of Kresnik (Elle) being present, the effect extends to the entire party, dragging everyone else with him and blowing his cover anyway.
  • Evil Chancellor: Discussed by Elle, who assumes Rowen is such a character because of the evil chancellors in fairy tales. Rowen then parodies it for amusement, alarming Elle before she realizes he's joking.
  • Evil-Detecting Dog: The very first sign that something isn't quite right with the Julius you confront the second time on the Striborg train is that Rollo, his pet cat, hisses at him.
  • The Exit Is That Way: After being frightened by thunder while exploring the Helioburg Institute, Elle denies that she's afraid and tries to storm off to the party's next destination, only to be informed that she's going the wrong way. She huffs and insists she knew that already.
  • Face Death with Dignity: If Ludger doesn't hesitate to kill his Fractured counterpart on the Striborg train, Julius will resign himself to his fate rather quickly and simply close his eyes before the final blow, a sharp contrast to if Ludger refuses to kill him, and Julius instead kills Nova, her boss, and then tries to kill Ludger himself.
  • Face-Revealing Turn:
    • Inverted the first time Ludger finds Julius on the Striborg train, Julius is transformed into his Chromatus, but he transforms back before he turns around, and he's actually killing the Exodus terrorists who've hijacked the train.
    • Played straight the second time, where Julius isn't transformed, but turning around gives a brief glimpse of his true form as a Divergence Catalyst before he tries to kill Ludger.
  • Fake Kill Scare: Supplementary material reveals that Elle's father set up his ambush by Spirius agents at the start of the game in order to traumatize Elle into activating her Key of Kresnik powers and send her away.
  • Fake Longevity: The main story is quite short, only half the length of the first Xillia's main story, but is drawn out by Ludger's 20 million gald debt which prevents the player from progressing until he pays off a set amount, requiring completing requests and character episodes.
  • Family Eye Resemblance:
    • Ludger shares the same green eyes with a ring of yellow as Elle, who's the daughter of one of Ludger's Fractured counterparts. According to Julius, Ludger himself inherited those eyes from his mother, Claudia.
    • Julius shares the same grey-blue eyes as his and Ludger's father, Bisley Bakur.
    • A different Fractured version of Elle, who travelled with Ludger's Fractured counterpart, Victor, has her mother Lara Mel Marta's purple eyes. However, when her counterpart is born in Victor's dimension, she inherits Victor's green eyes instead.
  • Fantastic Naming Convention: In Elympios, middle names signify some attribute the parent wishes for their child to have, and children are occasionally given middle names shared with someone else in their family. Elle and her mother Lara have the same middle name "Mel", which means "hope", and before he changed it, Julius had the same middle name as his mother, Cornelia Wi Bakur. This detail is obfuscated in the English localization, which omits the names for most characters.
  • Fantastic Racism: A fair amount of the two different world's citizens don't feel fondly for one another, which only serves to make things more complicated considering that Elympios is dying and Exodus' actions have made hostilities worse.
  • Fear of Thunder:
    • Elle is normally a happy and determined little girl who braves through dangerous situations without hesitation, but she's frightened by thunderstorms. The party assure her that the thunder is harmless, but it turns out it actually upsets her because it reminds of when her father was gunned down in front of her at the start of the game.
    • Ludger used to have a fear of thunderstorms when he was a child, and Julius would comfort him by covering his ears. When Elle's frightened by the storm, he does the same gesture for her.
  • Fearful Symmetry: In Chapter 12, when Ludger faces off with Victor, they match each other's moves perfectly, switching between their three weapons sets in complete sync. They're in such synchronization that their bullets cancel each other out.
  • Fighting Your Friend:
    • In Chapter 14, depending on how Ludger reacts to the plan to stop Bisley from enslaving all spirits and save Elle, either Jude or Prime Milla will challenge Ludger to a fight in order to convince him not to give up.
    • The EX Tag Arena also pits you against one of your party members teamed with any of a number of different bosses for its last opponents.
    • Played for Drama in the game's Bad Ending, Ludger turns against his friends to prevent them from sacrificing his brother to save the world. This results in a boss battle where he fights solo against the other eight party members, four at a time, and his victory results in their deaths.
  • Fish out of Temporal Water: It's revealed in Chapter 12 that Elle is actually Ludger's daughter from a Fractured Dimension ten years in the future, but neither Elle herself nor anyone in the party actually realizes she's from another world until late in the game.
  • Fission Mailed: During the Spirius entrance examination, getting knocked out in the boss battle will net the same result as if Ludger had successfully won the fight and saved the girl. That is, Julius will still fail him.
  • Fling a Light into the Future: Over ninety thousand years ago, a society of Advanced Ancient Humans used highly sophisticated technology that doesn't run on spyrix or spirit artes to digitize themselves and save themselves from an unknown calamity, becoming known as the Ark of Time. The AI guardian, Odin, hopes that one day they'll be rediscovered and it will be possible to restore them. Unfortunately, the ruins containing the Ark collapsed in the Prime Dimension, and while it survives in the Fractured Dimension of Chapter 10, the party is forced to destroy that world in order to take the Waymarker.
  • Foil: Fractured Milla and Prime Milla, naturally. This is shown in their drastically different personalities, their status in the world, their abilities, and their relationship with the rest of the party. Fractured Milla is more abrasive and Tsundere, but having already destroyed Exodus as a child, she has little left to do in Nia Khera besides besides worshipped by the villagers, and already knows she isn't the real Maxwell. She also had an actual sisterly relationship with Muzet before Muzet lost her mind from being abandoned by Maxwell, unlike Prime Milla, who never met Muzet until the events of Xillia and who continued to face the threat of Exodus and eventually became the real Maxwell. Their victory quotes are often mirror images, but slightly different. Both their victory quotes with Ludger feature them crossing swords, however Fractured Milla is back-to-back with him, whereas Prime Milla stands opposite, further away, marking that while Fractured Milla ends up being emotionally closer to Ludger (at the expense of the rest of Xillia party), Prime Milla is more distant to Ludger and is closer to party members she already knows.
  • Forgotten First Meeting:
    • One of Alvin's Character Episodes reveal he and Julius met as children in Elympios, though only the Julius of a Fractured Dimension remembers or brings it up.
    • In addition to Victor changing his appearance to prevent Elle from realizing he and Ludger are the same person, Elle unintentionally renames Rollo to Tatty when she's even younger, due to his tatty fur as he gets older. He dies, and though Elle remembers her father used to have a cat, she doesn't recognize that Rollo is the same one.
    • When Ludger meets Marvin, the old man who owns Julius Catstantine the Third and sponsors Leia's newspaper, neither of them recognize each other, though Marvin eventually realizes he's Julius's brother. Marvin is actually Ludger and Julius' maternal grandfather, and Ludger met him fifteen years ago after Julius killed Ludger's mother, and it was with Marvin's help that Julius took custody of him.
  • For Want Of A Nail: The game initially implies that Fractured Dimensions diverge from the Prime Dimension when one event changes, such as Fractured Milla's world being one where Gilland and Alvin weren't on the Zenethra and Fractured Muzet was sent to Nia Khera with Milla, causing Exodus to be easily defeated before they became militant, and another world where Jude's father was never on the Zenethra and remained in Elympios, so Jude was never born. However, it's eventually revealed to be a subversion, Fractured Dimensions are created when a Chromatus user overuses their powers, transforming them into a Divergence Catalyst and creating a world based on what they wanted most, allowing anything from Milla Kresnik seeing a world where Maxwell still believed in her and her clan didn't devolve into infighting, to Julius' Fractured Dimension being outright impossible.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • With a surprisingly awful dash of Call-Back. Chapter 11's premise is nearly identical to the S.S. Zenethra level from Tales of Xillia. Exodus has taken over a ship and, at least partially at King Gaius's behest, you infiltrate the ship to stop them. The music is the same, and the characters even point out that the two ships have the same design. It's no surprise, then, that the whole chapter ends once again with Milla's Heroic Sacrifice.
    • Victor's single-handed massacre of the Xillia party and his blood family to protect Elle, despite their motivations of trying to save the world, can be repeated by Ludger to protect Julius in the Bad Ending.
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: At the start of the Exodus attack on the train, when Ludger finds Elle passed out after a terrorist shoots up the car, it's possible to see her pocketwatch has blocked a bullet, suggesting she was dazed from the impact.
  • Funny Background Event:
    • While Bisley's telling Ludger how he's wanted by the police for being a potential accomplice in Julius' alleged terrorism, Ivar can be seen pinning up the brothers' poorly-drawn wanted posters on the apartment wall and admiring his handiwork.
    • At the end of the Bonus Episode, Ivar does a dramatic pose pointing at himself and declares that he's saved the day. Jude and Milla ignore him to talk about spyrite and spirits, but Ludger can be seen in the background mimicking Ivar's pose, complete with the same goofy grin.
  • Future Me Scares Me: Ludger is horrified to find out that Victor, who murdered the entire Xillia party in a fractured dimension, as well Bisley and Julius, is that dimension's version of himself.
  • Game Face: If they come into close contact with a Chromatus user from another dimension, or if they become sufficiently enraged in their presence, Divergence Catalysts will reveal themselves with their skin and hair going black and their eyes turning red/pink.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation:
    • Unlike the first game, when you leave a town, your party remains the same and you can't change it unless you return to town despite the characters being there and commenting on events.
    • Almost all of the Character Episodes can be done independent of the progression in the main story, though the events are scripted to occur as soon as they're available, leading to some contradictions between the main and side story:
      • Fractured Milla comments in the main story that she wants to see Ludger destroy a Fractured Dimension, even though she may have already been taken along in someone else's Character Episode.
      • It's entirely possible to do Alvin's Character Episode where the party meet a Fractured Julius, after Prime Julius dies in Chapter 15. The event unfolds as though it's happened earlier in the game.
      • At the end of Chapter 11, it's impossible to cross dimensions due to Milla disrupting the dimensional abyss when she created her physical form using its mana, and so Ludger is prevented from progressing in the main story until it settles. However, Character Episodes that feature the characters entering Fractured Dimensions can still occur.
  • Generation Xerox:
    • Downplayed. The relationship between Julius and pre-game Ludger is paralleled to Ludger and Elle. Both have a relationship akin to parent and child despite their age difference being slightly over or under ten years, with several of the things Julius does for Ludger, Ludger ends up doing for Elle, most notably passing on the Hymn of Proof as a lullaby. And then it's revealed that Ludger's watch was used by Julius to amplify his Chromatus, in a similar way that Elle has been used to power Ludger's Chromatus, though unlike Julius, Ludger had no idea he was even doing it. This extends to the Elle Ending, where after Julius sacrifices himself to save Ludger, Ludger sacrifices himself to save Elle.
    • The manga is even more overt with the parallels. Ludger attempting to keep Elle away from danger culminates in realizing (with Milla's help) that he's just done to Elle what Julius has been doing to him, and he explicitly highlights that his protection of Elle is something he learned from Julius. In the final battle he throws himself over Julius' pocketwatch to protect it from Bisley, in the exact same way that Elle does when Julius tries to take her father's watch.
    • Victor himself, has a darker parallel to Julius, being a Fractured version of Ludger. Like Julius took Ludger in to use his pocketwatch and later to protect him from Bisley, Victor protects Elle from Bisley and later has the intention of using her powers. Also like Julius in the main story, Victor keeps Elle Locked Out of the Loop about his plan to complete Origin's Trial, although he goes a step further by actively endangering Elle to accomplish it.
  • God Is Evil: Bisley suggests that Origin brokered the pact between the Three Primordial Spirits and the Kresnik clan because the spirits delighted in humanity's suffering. Jude initially objects, but recalls how apathetic the Maxwell of the first game was to using Milla as a decoy and manipulating her into believing that she was actually Maxwell. Although the end of the game reveals that the strongest spirit, Origin, does truly love humanity, Bisley nevertheless dies believing that the Trial was simply a game to the Primordial Spirits.
  • Golden Ending: While nevertheless a Bittersweet Ending, the Elle Ending neatly wraps up the end of the Trial, explains that the impurity of human souls is in fact necessary because it's what drives humanity, has Chronos reluctantly concede defeat to humanity, and properly shows Muzet and Milla returning to the spirit world. Conversely, the Ludger Ending doesn't address any of this, with Elle simply dying and Chronos ominously suggesting that Origin's Trial is not yet over.
  • Gotta Catch 'Em All: The cat sidequest, which involves you finding and adopting several stray cats (many of which bear a resemblance to certain Tales Series characters), then forming your own cat army to scavenge the streets for items and funny hats. (There is no part of the preceding sentence that is inaccurate.)
  • Groupie Brigade:
    • In Trigleph, you can find fangirls of Julius and Rideaux arguing over which top agent is better. After Julius is framed for the Oscore attack, Julius' fangirls will express shock, while Rideaux's will feel vindicated in their choice of favorite. In the Japanese text of an early-game sidequest, Ludger's landlady will reminisce that Julius' fangirls used to hang around Frères Apartments, and in Chapter 15 she can be found complaining about them stalking the apartment in the latter's Fractured Dimension.
    • In a comic anthology story, Ludger himself gains a group of fangirls and fanboys. Alvin capitalizes on this, literally, by making merchandise of Ludger, but eventually he gets so popular they start rivalling Julius' own and affecting Ludger's day-to-day life. Leia eventually returns things to normal by writing a slanderous article "revealing" Ludger's shady behavior and killing his fame.
  • Happy Ending Override: Xillia 2 introduces a new End of the World as We Know It plot to surpass the previous game's threat of spyrix killing all the spirits and rendering the Earth uninhabitable for humans, in a way that indirectly downplays the party's efforts in the first game.
  • Healthcare Motivation: After getting caught up in the Oscore attack, Ludger and Elle are given medical treatment by Doctor Rideaux, but it incurs a massive bill that forces Ludger to work to pay it off and eventually gets him coerced into working for Bisley.
  • The Hero Dies: In the Elle Ending, Ludger intentionally turns himself into a Divergence Catalyst in order to save Elle.
  • Heroic RRoD: Overusing one's Chromatus will eventually cause them to transform into a Divergence Catalyst, manifesting in a part of their body turning black, and turning their eyes red if it reaches their face, the same way Catalysts that have possessed people do. The already corrupted parts of their body also seem to cause them pain. Though it's possible to stop the transformation by ceasing to use the Chromatus, as Bisley does, it's implied with Julius and Victor that once a transformation gets too far, it becomes irreversible, and the user will eventually die and create a Fractured Dimension.
  • Heroic Sacrifice:
    • In Chapter 11, if you refuse to let go of her hand when she is being sucked into the summoning portal, and her Relationship Values with Ludger are high enough, then she tells Ludger to let her go so he can save Elle. Ludger eventually lets go, and Milla's last words plead to him to take care of Elle.
    • In the Elle Ending, Ludger lets himself become the millionth Divergence Catalyst to reset the the counter and undo Elle's own transformation into one.
    • In the Ludger Ending, if Ludger asks Origin to save Elle at the cost of the world or hesitates to sacrifice himself, then Elle will step in and ask that the world be saved instead, even knowing that it will cause her own death, because she doesn't want Ludger to die and believes he'll meet the "real" Elle anyway.
  • Heroism Equals Job Qualification: In Chapter 14, Ludger is promoted to Vice President of Spirius and is given control of the company while Bisley is away completing the Trial, despite having no qualifications to manage anything and having a reputation outside of the Department of Dimensional Affairs as an indebted possible terrorist.
  • His Story Repeats Itself:
    • The Ludger Ending, which is literally subtitled as "Fate Repeater", where after losing Elle, Ludger becomes CEO of Spirius and eventually meets Lara Mel Marta, with whom it's implied he'll have his dimension's version of Elle, just like Victor did.
    • The Bad Ending, where like Victor, Ludger turns against the rest of the party in order to protect a beloved family member. Unlike Victor, he's protecting Julius at Elle's expense instead of the other way around, and also unlike Victor, Ludger succeeds at killing everyone in the party including Gaius.
  • Humanity on Trial: Origin's Trial was set up two thousand years ago by the Three Primordial Spirits to test whether humans were inherently selfish or selfless. Unfortunately, because one of them really hates humanity, the test is unfairly stacked against humanity's success.
  • Hypocritical Humor: After seeing Ludger's surprised expression about suddenly having 15 Million Gald debt to Rideaux for medical bills, Rideaux asks if Ludger can honestly put a price on a person's life. When Rideaux obviously just put a price on a person's life.
  • I Regret Nothing: In Ludger's summary of the Bad Ending, specifically the Japanese version, after murdering the rest of the party, dooming Elle and leaving the fate of humanity to either Bisley or Chronos, Ludger tells Julius not to worry, because he'll destroy the world and his friendships just to stay with him for what time they have left together.
  • Impersonation-Exclusive Character: Some characters only appear in Fractured Dimensions and never in the Prime Dimension. The Great Spirit of Light, Aska, only appears in Chapter 7 of the main story and another time in Milla's Character Episode. Both times he's been captured by humans, but he has drastically different personalities. Aska of the main story is serious and resents Elympios for capturing him, and if Ludger tries to capture him again, berates Ludger for betraying the Genesis Sage's wishes for spirits and humanity to coexist. Aska of the side story is suspiciously close to Jude, speaks in an extremely flamboyant way, and is instead dismissive of the Genesis Sage, calling her disrespectful for just how friendly she was with Maxwell. Neither give any indication of what Aska is like in the Prime Dimension.
  • Improbable Age:
    • It's only been a year since the first game, and not only is Jude a full-fledged medical doctor, he's seen as the leading researcher on spyrite technology, with no one, not even those from Elympios (where the age of majority is implied by manga Ludger's narration to be 18), raising eyebrows at the fact that he's 16 years old.
    • Spirius doesn't seem to care much about age or qualifications when recruiting talent, Chromatus users or not. Julius has been destroying Fractured Dimensions since he was 11, and became Director of the Department of Dimensional Affairs at only 20, Bisley became CEO at the age of 20, and Ludger does the same after Bisley's death in the Ludger Ending, and is otherwise still assigned to Vice President at the same age, and Vera may be Younger Than They Look, but she is also only 20 years old and yet has immediate access to details concerning Fractured Dimensions as Bisley's head secretary.
  • Incest Subtext: Played for Laughs in the "Destroy the Popular Suit" Drama CD. Ludger, who's crossdressing as a girl, draws the attention of both Julius and Bisley, who both repeatedly call him a pretty young lady. The latter in particular appears very interested in Ludger, offering to escort "her" away from the crowd of fangirls in Julius' stead, insisting he doesn't mind helping her personally since he wants to know more about her, and lamenting that he would have attended the Rieze Maxian diplomacy party if he knew she was there. Dramatic Irony is in full effect, since Ludger has no idea Bisley is his father, but he has other reasons to be freaked out.
  • In Spite of a Nail: Despite the Fractured Dimension having been created a long time ago, the Fractured Dimension featured in Chapter 12 is identical to the Prime Dimension. Or at least, it was ten years ago. The Ludger of that world even went on an identical journey as Prime Ludger, only with a different version of Elle, but was faced with a choice that didn't happen in the Prime Dimension and resulted in that Elle's death.
  • Interface Spoiler:
    • In the Epsilla Ruins, Rollo wanders off for a little bit before Elle finds him again. However, he doesn't appear on the title screen or kitty dispatch menu, which happens whenever he's not traveling with the party, spoiling that it's actually a fractured Rollo.
    • The "Xillia Encyclopedia" entry on Kresnik the Genesis Sage refers to them using female pronouns, despite their gender not being mentioned in the previous game. So it's obvious their gender is going to be a plot point in this one... This could be blamed on Lost in Translation though.
  • Interquel: The manga spin-off Soukyoku no Crossroad starts after Xillia and before Xillia 2, featuring Jude and Alvin dealing with Exodus in the year between the games. It details Jude's new outfit and hairstyle, as well as showing what Ludger and Julius were up to in that time. However, it eventually begins adapting the start of the latter game, including the Striborg attack, albeit strictly from Jude and Alvin's perspectives.
  • Internal Retcon: In Xillia, Kresnik was merely a notable follower of Maxwell who joined him in Rieze Maxia and became the ancestor of the Nia Khera villagers. Xillia 2 establishes she was a woman and was important to Maxwell, but she actually refused to leave Elympios in order to lead her clan in completing Origin's Trial and that this information was intentionally purged from history. This is due to part of the Kresnik clan leaving Elympios with Maxwell to save the spirits.
  • Interrupted Suicide: If Ludger hesitates to go to Marksburg in Chapter 15, Julius will attempt to slit his own throat and commit a Heroic Suicide to create the Soul Bridge. Ludger shows up screaming and pulls the blade away. Unfortunately, subverted in the non-Bad Ending route, as Julius will still convince Ludger to kill him.
  • Interspecies Romance:
    • The original Maxwell is implied to have had a relationship with a human, the Genesis Sage, Milla Kresnik, especially since two thousand years after she died, he still cared enough to give her name to Milla Maxwell.
    • Dr. Howe, the man who developed spirit artes, turns out to have done so because of his attempts to woo Celsius. This discovery gives Jude the epiphany he needs to perfect spyrite technology, as it turns out the issue involves communication between spirits and humans, similar to how spirit artes involves forging pacts with spirits.
    • Also applies to Jude and Milla if Milla's feelings towards Jude are interpreted romantically, since she is now a full spirit.
    • There's also Ship Tease between Gaius and Muzét.
  • Irony:
    • There's a skit in the first game where you find out that almost everyone in the party prefers dogs to cats note . Guess what kind of animal serves as the mascot for this game, and guess what species of animal you have to track down 100 of in order to help you complete a sidequest and utilize a game mechanic based around the animal? (hint: they're not dogs).
    • Despite Ludger's Supreme Chef skills being plot-significant and defining several of his relationships through the story, the game lacks the series' staple cooking mechanic and all the food is obtained through buying them at inns or finding them in dungeons.
  • It's All My Fault: Fractured Milla defends her sister's abuse of her because she blames herself for Muzet going blind when she protected Milla in a battle with Exodus.
  • I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: A familial variation for all parties. Julius is the (or at least one of the) first to realize what Elle is, and openly states his intent to take her away from Ludger in order to use her. They nearly come to blows over this, only for Elle to wind up in mortal danger and for Julius to see just how much Ludger cares about her, causing him to change his mind and tell Ludger to protect her instead.
  • I Want My Jetpack: Leia is disappointed by the Fractured Rieze Maxia they enter in Chapter 7, saying it looks identical to their own and she'd hoped they'd have more advanced technology.
    Leia: Yeah, what a bummer. I was hoping they'd have, like, flying trains and stuff.
  • Kick the Dog: Ludger has several opportunities, thanks to the multiple choice system, to be an asshole to his friends. For example, immediately dropping Milla into the summoning portal, yelling at Nova after an inappropriately-timed compliment, or not even bothering to try and save Elle when she's becoming a Catalyst.
  • Kick Them While They're Down:
    • At Nia Khera in Chapter 7, if Ludger obeys Rideaux's order to fight and capture Julius instead of trusting him, Rideaux will step on Julius' face after his defeat.
    • Played for Laughs at the start of Chapter 8/9, where according to Ivar, Rideaux is wearing sunglasses because while escaping from Spirius, Julius succeeded in stomping his face in. This happens regardless of if Rideaux did it first.
    • In Chapter 14, after Rideaux makes suggestive comments about harming Milla, Ivar objects and Rideaux knocks him to the floor, then kicks him for speaking out against a superior.
  • Killing Your Alternate Self: Due to the laws preventing Fractured entities from existing in the Prime Dimension while their Prime counterpart is already present, a Fractured version of Ludger, calling himself Victor, needs to kill his Prime counterpart in order to enter the Prime Dimension, and sends his daughter, Elle, to lure Ludger back to their home dimension. He ultimately fails, however.
  • Kissing Cousins: Chromatus powers only appear within blood relatives of the Kresnik clan, however, their common ancestor lived two thousand years ago, making unions between offshoot branches such as Bisley Bakur and Cornelia Kresnik, as well as Ludger and Lara Mel Marta extremely downplayed examples of incest.
  • Knight Templar Big Brother:
    • Julius towards Ludger, his entire goal through the game is to stop Ludger from partaking in Origin's Trial, to the point that when Bisley finds out about Ludger's existence, Julius' immediate instinct is to try and murder him.
    • Exaggerated with his Fractured counterpart during the Striborg hijacking, who reveals Julius' prior Ax-Crazy tendencies. He reacts to Ludger getting close to Bisley and admiring him by trying to assassinate Bisley and kill Ludger.
    • Inverted with Ludger if, after being told that Julius needs (and wants to, as he's already dying) to sacrifice his life to create the Soul Bridge the party needs to save the world, Ludger refuses to let him die. Gaius proceeds to state that he'll do the deed himself, and get ugly from there.
  • Knight Templar Parent: Victor, Elle's father, turns out to have killed Bisley for trying to use Elle to pass the Waymarkers into the Prime Dimension and save their own from being destroyed. He then killed Julius, Jude, Rowen, Alvin, Leia, and Elize for having sided with Bisley, though Gaius survived with significant injuries.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: After Nova tells the party embarrassing stories about her sister, Vera calls Ludger and offers to divulge some of Nova's own embarrassing tales. If Ludger encourages her to, Vera does so, but in a way that burns Ludger. Specifically, she reveals that a gift Nova had given Ludger in high school, which made him think she had feelings for him, was actually intended for Julius.
  • Last Chance Hit Point: Unlike other boss fights, Julius' Mystic Arte in Chapter 15 will always leave Ludger with 1 HP if the attack would have otherwise KO'd him. In-universe, it's because both Julius and Ludger intend the fight to end with Julius dying to create the Soul Bridge.
  • Last-Second Ending Choice: The game's Multiple Endings are strictly decided by the dialogue choices made in that specific cutscene, revolving around Ludger's affection for the party, Elle, and Julius. However, they do not take into account Ludger's previous dialogue choices or his Relationship Values with the cast, meaning Ludger can be a total jerk to someone and still obtain an ending that shows he loves them, and vice versa:
    • It's possible for Ludger to have a very high affinity with everyone except Julius, then still decide to kill all his friends and allow Elle to die for Julius' sake.
    • Ludger can spend the entire game adoring Elle, and still deliberately let her die at the end of the game, without making any effort to save her.
    • Ludger can be utterly apathetic to Elle the entire game, and still sacrifice his life to save hers.
  • A Lesson Learned Too Well: Played for Laughs in a Yonkoma. Julius lectures Ludger on falling for deceptive appearances after Ludger fails his entrance exam by getting attacked by a girl he thought he was saving. Ludger then becomes paranoid that every friendly or helpless neighbour is secretly out to get him, eventually refusing to leave his room at all, while Julius tries to convince him that the outside world isn't actually that scary.
  • Licking the Blade: Implied, if, in the Fractured Dimension on the Striborg train, Ludger chooses to trust Julius instead of asking what's going on, Fractured Julius will stab a nearby corpse and then appear to lick his sword afterwards.
  • Like an Old Married Couple: Ludger has a dialogue option where he describes Jude and Leia as such, causing Leia to blush.
  • Light Is Not Good: The player must fight the great spirit of Light, Aska, in two separate fractured dimensions, though only one is required. Afterwards, Aska admits that he is inclined to agree with Chronos (if the player choose to re-capture the spirit rather than set him free).
  • Load-Bearing Boss: If a Chromatus user from the Prime Dimension destroys a Divergence Catalyst, it will also destroy the Fractured Dimension that Catalyst created. Justified, since Catalysts sustain the Fractured Dimension around them, and if the current host dies in any other way, such as being murdered by someone else in their own dimension, the Catalyst will simply move to the next most divergent person or object.
  • Locked Out of the Loop: Nova is oblivious to most of the game's story, with neither her sister nor Ludger ever informing her on anything they're involved in. She's still left unaware even when Ludger is leaving to kill Julius, or leaving to try and stop the party from killing Julius.
  • Lost in Translation:
    • The first dialogue choice where Ludger has to choose between calling Julius by his name or "brother" seems like nothing more than a throwaway interaction in the international version of the game. However, in the original Japanese, this dialogue choice actually decides how Ludger refers to Julius for the entire game, either as "nii-san" or "Julius", including alternate voice clips for both forms of address in dialogue options. This distinction is omitted in the English dub, making Ludger calling Julius "brother" a one-off occurrence.
    • In the English localization of the Frères Apartment landlady's sidequest, she offhandedly mentions that Julius used to bring girls back to the apartment. However, her original line in Japanese is actually her saying that Julius' fan club used to stalk the building, which is why in Chapter 15 a Fractured neighbour can be heard complaining about the exact same thing.
    • Jude is a lot more distant to Fractured Milla in Japanese, marked by his referral of her as Milla-san instead of simply Milla, which is how he refers to Prime Milla.
    • In Chapter 11, one of Ludger's lines to Fractured Milla before she sacrifices herself is "Hang on! Elle needs you", to which Milla apologizes and says she'll "leave the rest to you". In Japanese, Ludger instead tells her to hold on because Milla promised to make a soup for Elle, with Milla saying he'll have to make it instead, making it more obvious what her ensuing muted lines are referring to.
    • The GHS stands for "Gin Handy-phone System", referencing the real-life PHS that preceded modern cellphones in Japan, with "Gin" being the word that was localized in English as "spyrix". The localization kept the original Japanese name, however, leaving the meaning of its initials unclear to international audiences.
  • Love Makes You Evil:
    • Victor's love for his daughter, Elle. He's a Fractured version of Ludger, whose dimension runs ten years ahead of the Prime. He murdered Julius, Bisley, and the entire human party (except for Gaius) to protect Elle, and then uses Elle to lure the Prime Dimension Ludger into their Fractured one, where he intends to kill Ludger and complete Origin's Trial in the Prime Dimension, using his wish to request he and Elle be reincarnated again.
    • In the Bad Ending, Ludger's refusal to let Julius be sacrificed for the Soul Bridge results in him killing all his friends and dooming the world, even though Julius is already dying. The event summary makes it clear he doesn't regret it.
    • Chronos' motivations to sabotage humanity in Origin's Trial is exclusively because he can see how much purifying souls is hurting Origin. Origin notes that Chronos' protective intentions are the most human thing about him.
  • Luck-Based Mission:
    • The items collected via Kitty Dispatch are random, so any job that asks for a rare item that can only be obtained through kitty dispatch requires sending them out again and again until they happen to find it, though the get-rate for rare items increases the more cats you have. There are also some cats that can only be found through Kitty Dispatch.
    • The poker mini-game, obviously.
  • Luminescent Blush:
    • During his later Character Episodes, Jude has a tendency to blush around Milla, especially after Ship Tease moments like when he falls on top of her protecting her from a monster's arte, and later when she fusses over his injuries in a way that looks rather intimate, and Balan walks in on them. In both cases, Jude gets back up with a blush on his face while resuming conversation with Ludger.
    • Fractured Aska in one of Jude's Character Episodes, blushes through his feathers... Yes, Aska. It goes with his inexplicably Camp Gay mannerisms and extreme affection towards Jude.
  • Ma'am Shock:
    • Elle's nickname for Julius in Japanese is "uncle with the glasses", though in this case "uncle" is a common Japanese term for any middle-aged adult man one isn't related to. Julius objects to this naming, saying he's still in his twenties and not that old, but also he actually is her biological uncle, and it's implied at the time of this skit that he's already figured out Elle is Ludger's Kid from the Future. The English dub, naturally, does away with the age marker and just has her call him "glasses guy", which he objects to as an Embarrassing Nickname.
    • In the manga adaptation, Elle instead addresses Ludger as though he were an older adult while passing him her father's swords, leading to him taking down an Exodus terrorist while retorting that he's only 20 years old.
    • In the "Destroy the Popular Suit" Drama CD, Elle addresses a young Spirius agent as "oji-san", causing the agent to do a double take before humoring her.
  • MacGuffin Super-Person: The Key of Kresnik is a person born every few generations in the Kresnik clan, who possesses the power to move matter from the Fractured Dimensions into the Prime Dimension, as well as channel Origin's Power of the Void. The last Key of Kresnik in the Prime Dimension was Cornelia Wi Bakur, Bisley's late wife, Julius' mother, and Ludger's aunt, who died in a fight with Chronos twenty-one years ago. During the course of the game, Bisley and Chronos both believe the Key of Kresnik is Ludger, but it's actually Elle, a Key from a future Fractured Dimension.
  • The Man Behind the Man: Spirius are retroactively revealed to be the main supporter of the Otherworld Reactor Project from the first game. However, it's heavily implied in-game and confirmed in supplementary material that they only wanted the Schism dispelled to reach the Waymarkers that were isolated on Rieze Maxia, rather than using the country to resolve the energy crisis; once Jude and Milla took down the Schism themselves, Spirius abandoned the project entirely and instead pushed for peace between the countries.
  • Mark of the Beast: In addition to their hair and skin turning pitch black, Divergence Catalysts have swirling marks on their necks and faces, most easily seen on Fractured Muzét, whose more revealing outfit demonstrates that the markings on her torso pulsate.
  • Martial Arts for Mundane Purposes: When Julius tries cooking for the first time in the Scenario Book short stories, he considers that knives and swords are much the same, and he's actually quite good at cutting and preparing food as a result. Less so with actually cooking, though.
  • Maybe Ever After: In the Ludger Ending he meets Lara, Elle's mother, and it's implied they'll get together like Victor and Lara did.
  • MegaCorp: Spirius Corporation. They're such a powerful, influential and omnipresent organisation in Elympios that they may as well be considered its de facto rulers. Having a private army helps in that regard.
  • Mistaken for Pedophile: Invoked and exploited by Elle towards Ludger. She tells the station manager Ludger tried to lure her out of the station, and Ludger's protests to the contrary distracts security, allowing Elle to board the train without paying fare. She does apologize for doing it, though.
  • Mistaken for Related: When they first meet, Leia assumes the eight-year-old Elle is Ludger's younger sister. Elle adamantly denies this, then follows up by saying they have "a purely monetary relationship", referring to Ludger paying off their medical debt. Ludger panics at her wording.
  • Moment of Silence: At the end of Chapter 15, after Ludger stabs Julius, Ludger is visibly screaming in grief, but everything is muted except for Julius humming the Hymn of Proof.
  • Mood Whiplash:
    • At the Fractured Kijara Seafalls in Chapter 8/9, Julius cues his presence by humming the Hymn of Proof, before either giving exposition on Ludger's history with the song or otherwise reminding Ludger of Julius' Big Brother Instinct. He then tells Ludger he can keep the pocketwatch he's been trying to get Ludger to return, because he wants Elle instead, and is entirely willing to fight Ludger and take her with him by force.
    • In Chapter 15, if Ludger agrees to head to Marksburg immediately to sacrifice Julius, the party will be interrupted by Nova cheerily telling everyone she's brought food to celebrate Ludger being released from his debt, complete with quirky whimsical music. Though she immediately realizes that the party's mood is dampened, the music continues until she mentions buying tomatoes for Julius, at which point Ludger runs out on her, causing Nova to wonder what she said. This is subverted if Ludger hesitates to sacrifice Julius and the party secretly leaves to kill him instead, in which case Nova shows up, but she's much more subdued and quietly asks if Ludger's all right, tipping him off about the party's plans.
    • In the manga, Ludger has a nightmare about having killed Julius. He wakes up screaming and jolts awake, accidentally headbutting Elle in the face. She yells at him for hitting her when she was just trying to wake him up, then immediately demands he brush her hair for him, giving Ludger little time to linger on his dream.
  • More Hero than Thou: In the manga adaptation, Ludger attempts to become the Soul Bridge instead of Julius, so that Julius and Elle can live, but he's talked out of it by Julius.
  • Moveset Clone: Julius' artes derive from the same movepool as Ludger's, since Julius taught Ludger his dual swords style, and Victor is a Fractured version of Ludger from the future, armed with the same additional weapons, Chromatus, and Mystic Artes. The only arte they both have that Ludger cannot access in normal gameplay is "Twin Lotus".
  • Multiple Endings: There are five endings, including two gag endings.
    • The Bad Ending, also called the Julius Ending: Ludger chooses to sacrifice the world to save his brother, resulting in him killing the rest of the party and giving up any chance of saving Elle.
    • The Ludger Ending, the world is saved, but Elle has to sacrifice herself in the process. Humanity technically passes Origin's trial, but on a bittersweet note because of Elle's sacrifice, and Ludger eventually lives to meet her mother, Lara.
    • The Elle Ending, the world is saved, but Ludger sacrifices himself in place of Elle so that she can live. Humanity technically fails Origin's trial, but Origin allows them to pass anyway because Ludger's selflessness proves the point the trial was meant to test. Elle grows up with peace between Elympios and Reize Maxia, and nature is healing with help Jude's spyrite research.
    • If you choose to pay off your debt in its entirety, you unlock a Hot Springs Episode.
    • Completing the cameo boss fights and job requests nets you a joke ending where the cameo characters use the Eternal Sword to go up to Canaan, beat up the Final Boss and rescue Elle for you.
  • Mundane Utility: In the manga, Fractured Milla cooks in Ludger's kitchen by setting his spyrix-powered stove on fire with a spirit arte instead of using it normally. Ludger freaks out that she's going to start a fire in the apartment, but Milla says she can control the fire better via spirit channeling.
  • My God, What Have I Done?:
    • In Chapter 11, when Jude tells Fractured Milla that his father was once a member of Exodus, Milla is horrified to realize that she must have killed her dimension's Jude when he was an infant.
    • Julius' letter to Ludger in his third sidequest reveals that he was originally very neglectful of his little brother, leaving him all alone when he was working as a Spirius agent. Then seven-year-old Ludger tried making Julius dinner all by himself and injured his hands, which caused Julius to have a change of heart.
  • Mythology Gag: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise here.
  • Nerf: Several skills had their SP cost raised and/or their effects weakened. HP/TP Surge for example, used to completely fill their respective meters upon a resurrection. Now they only add 30% more health to whatever you were going to get.
  • Never the Selves Shall Meet: Characters from Fractured Dimensions can be brought back into the Prime "real" world, but if their Prime equivalent already exists, the Fractured version will be ejected from that universe, demonstrated in-game in Chapter 10 when the party accidentally brings back a Fractured version of Rollo, who fades away when meeting the Prime version. However, if the Prime version is destroyed or killed, the Fractured version will return and take its place, which is what happens in the final chapter, when Ludger and Julius' pocketwatches are destroyed, disabling Ludger's Chromatus, before Victor's pocketwatch appears, having been displaced by Ludger's watch in Chapter 1.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Julius' impromptu assassination attempt on Bisley after the latter discovers Ludger's existence directly leads to Julius being scapegoated for the Exodus attack, tarnishing both his and Ludger's reputations, and putting Ludger directly under Bisley's control, precisely what he was trying to avoid.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: At the end of the game, Bisley destroys Ludger's pocketwatch, rendering him unable to transform into his Chromatus. This causes Victor's to return after being ejected from the Prime Dimension, which Ludger uses to transform into a complete Chromatus and finish off Bisley.
  • Nigh-Invulnerability: Implied for Chromatus users, as Victor shrugs off multiple bullet wounds by transforming, Julius also does the same if he ends up protecting Elle on the train, and in the manga, Ludger also survives lethal doses of poison while transformed. This is translated into gameplay as Ludger won't take damage while in Chromatus.
  • No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: In Chapter 12, Victor invites Ludger and the party into his home to serve them dinner. After a pleasant evening together, he then puts Elle to bed and directs the group outside where he reveals he knows they're from the Prime Dimension, that Elle is in fact Fractured, and then tries to kill Ludger.
  • Not in This for Your Revolution: In the manga, Ludger admits to Jude that he finds saving the world to be a little too large-scale, and he mostly just wants to help Julius. After Bisley informs him on the Waymarkers and misidentifies him as the Key of Kresnik, Ludger shows disinterest in order to try and protect Elle, who he knows is the real Key, causing Bisley to yell at him that he must care or the world will end.
  • "Not So Different" Remark:
    • In the manga, when Ludger realizes that Elle is the Key of Kresnik, he suggests she should stop accompanying him to protect her. She storms away from him for it, and Milla gives him a lecture to actually listen to Elle instead of thinking about himself. Ludger realizes he's doing to Elle exactly what Julius has been doing to him.
    • In the Final Boss battle, Jude argues that Bisley's plan of enslaving all the spirits to serve humans is no different than Chronos' plan of letting the miasma turn humanity into mindless husks for producing mana for spirits. If Jude's Character Episodes were not yet completed, Bisley will retort that the difference between himself and Chronos is that Bisley won. If the episodes were completed, he'll instead ask Jude if Jude's own plans for spyrite won't also turn the spirits into tools, to which Jude admits it almost did, but he realised the method to perfect spyrite relies on cooperating willingly with spirits. Bisley just replies that stripping spirits of their will will make things easier for Jude then.
    • Chronos seeks to destroy humanity because purifying their souls is harming Origin, to which Origin states that motivation is a very human thing, and is precisely why Origin loves humans.
  • NPC Random Encounter Immunity: The Lilium Orbs from the first game don't work anymore, so they've been converted into Allium Orbs, which are functionally similar.

    Tropes O-Z 
  • Oddly Small Organization: NPC dialogue reveals that due to lack of viable Chromatus users, there are in fact only around thirty DODA agents active by the time Ludger signs on.
  • Ode to Family: The Hymn of Proof, a song passed down through the Kresnik clan, is stated by Julius to be a song about "longing to see someone", which he hums for Ludger, causing Victor to hum it for Elle. It's implied by an Official World Guidance short story that Julius himself learned the song from either his mother, Cornelia, or his aunt, Claudia, since a Fractured version of Claudia taught it to Ludger. Possibly subverted, however, due to the implied Interspecies Romance between Milla Kresnik, who created the song and presented it to Maxwell, who himself admits the Hymn of Proof could also be called a love song.
  • Offhand Backhand: At the end of the game, Ludger defeats Bisley by unlocking his Complete Chromatus. Bisley still manages to get to his feet and staggers over to the two of them, attempting to attack Ludger while his back is turned hugging Elle. Ludger stops Bisley by transforming again and reversing the grip on his lance, allowing him to hold Bisley at blade-point without turning around or letting go of Elle. Bisley finally concedes defeat and backs down.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
    • In Chapter 6, Julius is outnumbered by ten Spirius agents, but manages to escape, and between Chapter 7 and Chapter 8, he escapes Spirius custody and delivers some much deserved payback to Rideaux on the way. It's also mentioned that he destroyed hundreds of fractured dimensions in his time as an agent, many when he wasn't even a teenager.
    • Victor's killing of the party, Julius, and Bisley isn't shown onscreen. The last one is notable because it means Victor had to solo both Final Bosses of the game proper.
  • Olympus Mons: If you complete all of the Character Episodes, then you unlock an Bonus Episode where Jude manages to turn Maxwell into a Spyrite, gaining control over one of the three most powerful Spirits in all of creation.
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten: Jude and his tethering with spirits. Muzét brings it up a few times, especially in skits, and one of the fractured dimensions has a Camp Gay Aska imply that he and Jude had been tethering a few times and acting jealous when Jude and Milla appear to be tethering instead.
  • One Degree of Separation: Jude's father is the doctor who implanted Rideaux's aspyrix organs, Alvin apparently met Julius when they were both children in Elympios though neither of them remember, and Ludger, Julius, and every Chromatus user is a descendant of the Sage of Kresnik, who turns out to be the human Milla who was named after.
  • One Nation Under Copyright: Downplayed. The Spirius Corporation officially works in the weapons, medicine, and technology fields, but also hold an immense influence over the Elympion government and populace, to the point that their agents are given authority to act like police, are requested for international rescue operations as though they're military, and when the authorities suspect Ludger of being complicit in the Oscore attack and want him arrested, the CEO hiring him is apparently enough to put him under the company's "protection". The party discusses in a skit that Spirius' CEO has enough power to topple the Elympios government entirely or start a war if he so desired. It's also stated that they were key proponents of the Otherworld Reactor Plan from the first game, and withdrawing that support and instead backing the peace-seeking Chancellor Marcia is largely why the plan has been abandoned as far as the government is concerned.
  • One-Time Dungeon: Each Fractured Dimension can only be visited once and never again once it is destroyed, and the Oscore Plant, the Epsilla Ruins, and the Temporal Crossroads no longer exist in the Prime Dimension.
  • Only a Flesh Wound:
    • Depending on if Ludger chooses to protect Bisley or Elle from the Exodus agent on the Striborg train, Julius will either have his pocketwatch shot out of his right hand and into the air by accident, or he'll take a shot to the right arm while protecting Elle, causing him to drop it. Neither cause him lasting harm, and he's still Dual Wielding his swords without issue.
    • Ivar gets bashed with a hammer or outright shot while giving Ludger a tutorial battle on his new weapons, but only gets away with Amusing Injuries.
    • If Ludger chooses to capture Fractured Aska in the Oscore plant, Gilland—who in this Fractured Dimension, was never trapped in Rieze Maxia—will see Rowen and Elize using spirit artes and freak out, calling them demons and shooting Rowen in the arm before fleeing the scene. Justified, however, as Rowen is still incapacitated until Elize can heal him.
  • Only One Me Allowed Right Now: If a Fractured person or object manages to be brought into the Prime Dimension while their Prime equivalent is absent, their Prime counterpart cannot return until the Fractured version is killed or destroyed, evidenced when Fractured Milla's presence prevents Prime Milla from returning to her dimension after being banished by Chronos.
  • Orphan's Plot Trinket: Elle isn't actually an orphan, but her father gave her his pocketwatch before sending her away, and she treasures it deeply. It seems to power Ludger's Chromatus after merging with the identical watch that Julius was carrying. This is because it's actually the same watch, the one she views as her father's was actually ejected from the Prime Dimension due to being Fractured.
  • Paint It Black: The divergence catalysts turn the skin of the infected person black, and their eyes red.
  • Painting the Medium: When Ludger is presented with a specific dialogue choice to kill his brother, Julius, if the player continues to refuse, the dialogue choices will become identical, showing just how unwilling Ludger is to let that happen and locking you into the Bad Ending. There's even a timer ticking down to emphasize how immediate the danger is, but letting it elapse just automatically picks one of the identical responses, leading into a fight against the rest of the party.
    Choice 1: Stop! Please, just stop!
    Choice 2: Stop! Please, just stop!
    Gaius: It has to be this way. For the sake of this world, we must reach the Land of Canaan.
    Choice 1: Then I'll protect Julius myself!
    Choice 2: Then I'll protect Julius myself!
  • "Pan Up to the Sky" Ending: The Elle Ending ends featuring an adult Elle walking off humming the Hymn of Proof with Pollo following her, silhouetted by the bright blue sky.
  • Parental Abandonment:
    • In a skit with Elize, Ludger can tell her he's also an orphan, though he never personally elaborates on what happened to his or Julius' parents. Supplementary materials reveal he doesn't know the details himself. Their father is Bisley, who married Julius' mother, the previous Key of Kresnik who perished empowering Bisley's Chromatus, and her sister became pregnant with Ludger and ran away to keep his Chromatus out of Bisley's hands, and died when she attacked a teenaged Julius and he killed her in self-defense, causing Ludger's Trauma-Induced Amnesia.
    • Inverted with Julius himself, he cut ties with Bisley after killing his aunt and moves out to Frères Apartments at thirteen with Ludger.
    • Supplementary material reveals that Rideaux was abandoned by his parents after his medical bills put them in debt. He was eventually found by Bisley due to his Chromatus abilities and became an agent.
  • Parental Neglect: In the Scenario Book, Julius states that, as a child, he was looked after by his aunt Claudia rather than either of his parents, presumably due to Cornelia and Bisley being caught up in Origin's Trial. As a result, he has very little to say about Cornelia, his actual mother, but much to say about Bisley and Claudia.
  • Parrying Bullets: Ludger wields twin blades against Exodus agents armed with guns, and manages to block their bullets with the flat of his swords.
  • Permanently Missable Content:
    • Every Fractured Dimension is only visited once, and becomes permanently inaccessible upon its destruction, rendering all collectible items within it lost until the next playthrough.
    • If you don't do Marvin's job request to catch Julius Catstantine the Third before Julius (the person) dies in Chapter 15, it becomes impossible to collect him at all, locking you out of collecting all 100 cats without another playthrough.
  • Plot-Based Photograph Obfuscation: Subverted. The photo of Elle and her family conveniently obscures both her parents' faces, but the full image reveals Victor as he has already appeared to the party, and her mother's appearance is irrelevant to the plot.
  • Plot-Based Voice Cancellation:
    • If Ludger has completed Fractured Milla's Character Episodes before Chapter 11 Fractured Milla tells Ludger something just before a Heroic Sacrifice, though the lines are muted. The English version of the game doesn't make it very clear what she's talking about, but the manga reveals she was telling him the recipe to the soup she wanted to make for Elle, which aligns with the dialogue choice in Japanese where Ludger is specifically telling her to hold on because she promised to make a soup for Elle.
    • In Chapter 13, Bisley says something unheard by the rest of the party or the audience, when explaining what must be done in order to reach the Land of Canaan. Elle, however, does hear what he says and is horrified, adamantly refusing to go to Canaan anymore and later pleading with Bisley not to let Ludger disappear. In Chapter 15, it's revealed that what Bisley has said was that reaching Canaan required "the life of a Kresnik", and Elle had left to avoid Ludger becoming the sacrifice.
  • Plot Coupon: The Waymarkers of Canaan, which can be harvested from certain divergence catalysts. When all of them are gathered, the road to Canaan opens. But to actually get there, you need a "Soul Bridge", which can only be harvested from someone of Kresnik blood.
  • Power Dyes Your Hair: Zig-Zagged with the Chromatus transformations. Julius' light brown hair becomes a desaturated blond, but Rideaux's bleached hair tips go from white to red, leaving the rest of his black hair the same, and then Ludger's dyed black fringe turns back to his natural silver.
  • Powered by a Forsaken Child: Elle is (accidentally) used as a conduit for Ludger's Chromatus, which means that she will suffer the consequence of turning into a divergence catalyst instead of him. Subverted in the Elle/Ludger Ending when Ludger makes a proper contract with the watches that empower Chromatus, unleashing the full power of his Chromatus and freeing Elle from the equation.
  • Powers in the First Episode: Subverted, while Ludger transforms into his Chromatus early on in the story and inadvertently uses it during cutscenes, it's not usable in battle until Chapter 7.
  • Pre-Final Boss: In Chapter 16, Chronos is fought first to complete the Trial, and is ultimately defeated by Bisley, who stabs him with a lance powered by the Key of Kresnik. However, Bisley insists upon his true wish to enslave all spirits, and becomes the actual final boss of the game.
  • Prenatal Possessions: According to supplementary material, the pocket watches of Chromatus users and Keys of Kresnik are created while they're still in the womb. Ludger's mother, Claudia was able to identify her unborn child as a Chromatus user due to an ultrasound showing the watch.
  • Previous Player-Character Cameo: Making up for the previous game's lack of cameo battle, Xillia 2 features a cameo battle that is in essence a multi parter. There are two jobs post game that are posted by none other than Mint Adnade and Rutee Katrea, and you actually meet them in person when the jobs are complete. Furthermore the final boss battle of the game's bonus dungeon is against what are obviously shadowed out copies of Cless Alvein and Stahn Aileron. After doing all of that, next time you clear the Xian Du coliseum's Elite Team mode, the cameo team shows up comprising of the real Cless and Stahn along with Mint and Rutee. Beating them even gets you an alternate ending to the game if you feel like it! Furthermore, there's transformation items that change any character's appearance to story NPCs along with the Chimeriad, Cline Sharil from the previous game, and yes, the cameo bosses...and Brusier Khang for some reason.
  • Prime Timeline: The game is set in the "Prime Dimension", from which alternate dimensions called "Fractured Dimensions" branch off from, though Fractured Dimensions themselves can still create offshoots. However, all Fractured Dimensions believe that they're the Prime Dimension, and the only way for them to know they aren't is if someone from the Prime Dimension (or even another Fractured Dimension) enters their world to destroy it, or if they fail to summon the Land of Canaan, which only exists in the Prime Dimension.
  • Punny Name: The cats collected for Miss Kitty Cat, especially noticeable in the Japanese version. The cat that was translated as Natalina is Natalinya in Japanese, with Nya as the sound of a cat's meow.
  • Puppy-Dog Eyes: A Yonkoma features Elle convincing Ludger to let her carry his watch by giving him a cute pleading expression, to which Ludger admits to himself that he can't resist the look. Jude and Alvin comment that only a little girl could pull that off and it'd just be strange if a guy tried it... only for Ludger himself to ask Julius the exact same question with the exact same expression. Julius caves instantly and Jude muses that the three of them are probably a special case.
  • Puzzle Boss: Routinely failing to stop Chronos from rewinding time in the Land of Canaan will have the game suggest you check Julius's watch, which hints at using a lance, specifically, Ludger' Chromatus lance, allowing the player to finally win the battle.
  • Pyrrhic Victory:
    • Chapter 10 features the Epsilla Ruins and the divergence catalyst, Odin. One which knows it's in a Fractured Dimension, due to having defeated all attempts to destroy it. It has been waiting for over 90,000 years so that the people who have been digitized in its data banks can be revived. Before you fight it, Odin asks you to talk to some of the recorded memories before events force the fight. After it, the everyone feels just how hollow the victory was, and the price of it.
    • Chapter 12 sees the retrieval of the final Waymarker that will grant them access to Canaan, but while they ultimately succeed, Ludger has to kill Victor, his Alternate Self and Elle's father. The events traumatize Elle and Ludger both, and Elle decides that going to Canaan isn't worth it because her father manipulated her.
    • The Official World Guidance short story featuring a teenaged Rideaux and Julius has two instances of a hollow victory. Their Fractured Dimension mission is one, the other is Rideaux's drive to revive Julius' penchant for violence, which he's been gradually suppressing due to Ludger's influence. Unfortunately, the Divergence Catalyst is a child Ludger, who wasn't discovered by Julius like he was in the Prime Dimension, and who is protected by his mother. Although Rideaux succeeds in proving that Julius is still just as capable of violence as Rideaux is, Julius killing the Catalyst sends him into a Heroic BSoD. While Rideaux mocks Julius for his desire for forgiveness, saying that they're the ones who should be apologized to for having to bear the fate of the Trial, Rideaux himself is crying, too.
  • Recurring Dreams: The manga states that Ludger's nightmare of Julius killing him is one he continues having ever since he failed the Spirius entrance examination a year prior. He wonders if it's because he's simply jealous of his brother.
  • Red Herring Shirt: Nova's first appearance is in a Fractured Dimension on the Striborg train, where she has the potential of getting murdered by Julius if Ludger hesitates to kill him. However, her Prime counterpart is properly introduced afterwards and she becomes a recurring character thereafter.
  • Red Sky, Take Warning: Inverted. Once the Land of Canaan appears at Marksburg, the sky turns dark purple around the fetus-shaped orb in the sky. However, this actually signifies that the Kresnik Clan has successfully collected the five Waymarkers of Canaan, and are on their path to completing the Trial and saving humanity.
  • Relationship Values:
    • Completing their Character Episodes and selecting certain dialogue options will strengthen Ludger's friendship with his party members. This unlocks additional scenes with these characters during the main story, and eventually their Link Mystic Arte with Ludger. In the final chapter of the game, the character with the highest affinity with Ludger will speak up against the Big Bad and warn Ludger when he's in danger.
    • There also exists values for Elle, Julius, and Bisley, boosted solely through dialogue choices. Maxing those out gives Ludger special weapons just before the endgame, as well as a short letter from each character. Unlike the party members', these values are hidden and the dialogue choices won't tell you if you've picked the right one. Also, it's impossible to max out Elle's values without a second playthrough.
  • The Remnant: Upon the loss of their leader in the first game and the fall of the Schism, Exodus is now without leadership and has fragmented into separate factions united by a general hatred of Rieze Maxia and dissastisfaction with the Elympion government that supports the peace treaty.
  • Retcon:
    • Most notably Rieze Maxia's spirit climes (such as the eternal night in Fenmont), which were shown in Xillia's ending to have been caused by the Schism and faded when it fell. A bonus scene with the Four indicates they have also forgotten that plot point.
    • The Bonus Character Episode, however, has dialogue implying that dispelling the schism wrecked havoc with the spirit climes, rather than simply removing them.
    • In the first game, Exodus' dealings and the Otherworld Reactor Project are exclusively tied to the Elympion military and government, with absolutely no mention of Spirius by Alvin or any of the Elympion residents. In the sequel, Spirius is a household name, with so much influence that they're deferred to by civilians as an authority the same way the government and police are.
    • Nothing about the second game's plot with Origin's Trial is alluded to in the first game, where Maxwell appears to be the only Great Spirit of his power level. Their retroactive existence changes Maxwell's motivations to create Rieze Maxia as well, adding that in addition to the threat of spyrix, he wanted to get away from Origin's Trial, since he could handle soul purification himself instead of Origin.
    • The first game, as well its respective supplementary materials and comic anthologies, presented Gaius and the Chimeriad as rather friendly with each other. The sequel instead says that Gaius was detached from them and he didn't consider them his friends, as part of his Companion-Specific Sidequest to make real friends.
  • Riddle for the Ages:
    • There is never an explanation for Ludger's nightmare of Julius lecturing him about Origin's Trial.
    • Supplementary material confirms that since Keys of Kresnik are also Chromatus users, and thus have their own pocketwatches, Elle was born with a Chromatus watch too. The Perfect Guide acknowledges it is unknown what happened to it, or to the one that belonged to Victor's first Elle.
  • Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: A variation concerning Fractured Dimensions, the Chromatus bearer who creates that world will forget their life in their original world, even if they had been murdered there, believing their new idealized life without question. However, when Julius becomes a Divergence Catalyst and creates a Fractured Dimension, he remembers everything about the Prime Dimension upon seeing Prime Ludger. Supplementary material also reveals that as Milla Kresnik dies in the first Fractured Dimension, she remembers the true Prime Dimension and realizes her efforts to collect the Waymarkers were in vain.
  • Sadistic Choice:
    • In Chapter 15 Ludger has to kill Julius to save the world. Refusing to do so causes the Bad Ending, where the entire party and Elle will die, and either humanity will be doomed by miasma or spirits will become enslaved by Bisley.
    • In Chapter 16, Ludger has to decide between saving Elle or saving the world by wishing away all Fractured Dimensions. If he chooses to save Elle (or otherwise hesitates to sacrifice himself first), Elle will refuse to be saved and wish to save the world instead so that Ludger can live and meet who she considers the "real" Elle. If he chooses to save the world, he'll have to save Elle by becoming a Catalyst before she can, killing him.
  • Same Surname Means Related: Zig-Zagged. When meeting Ludger in Chapter 1, Bisley will wonder if he's related to Julius upon hearing Ludger's last name, with Vera confirming so. However, it's later revealed that Kresnik is a common last name in Elympios, and several characters who don't have that last name are still distantly related to those who do.
  • Seemingly Hopeless Boss Fight: In the very final boss fight, Bisley will activate his Mystic Arte and punch Ludger out of the battle, resulting in a cutscene where he destroys Ludger's pocketwatch. However, Victor's watch will reappear, allowing Ludger to transform with it directly and reach full Chromatus and finish off Bisley for good.
  • Sequel Reset: Very little about the plot of Xillia 2 is ever alluded to in Xillia, now suddenly, there are two more Great Spirits who actually surpass Maxwell's power, and another world-ending crisis that has even greater repercussions than that of spyrix.
  • Shared Family Quirks:
    • Julius and Ludger share a love for tomatoes, and they share a love for cats with Marvin, their grandfather, and Elle, Ludger's Kid from the Future.
    • An Official World Guidance short story reveals that Elle's mother is just as clumsy as she is.
    • A Scenario Book short story has child Julius reflect that Ludger's mother is a great cook, much like Ludger himself would turn out to be.
  • Sharp-Dressed Man:
    • Befitting Elympios' more contemporary society, where most working characters are in dress shirts and ties, Leia, Alvin, Gaius, and Rowen trade in their more fantastical Rieze Maxian outfits for simpler conventional Elympion suits.
    • Every Spirius employee is dressed to the nines, with their typical uniform being a black and red three-piece suit. Naturally, their CEO Bisley Bakur, and top agents Julius and Rideaux, also qualify, with the former two including opened Badass Longcoats.
    • Ludger's default outfit is a rather casually done dress shirt and tie, but his Vice President of Spirius and CEO of Spirius outfits gives him a more formal blue suit.
    • Elle's father, Victor, wears a sharp all-black suit with a cravat, adding to the mystique of his Cool Mask.
  • She's All Grown Up: In the epilogue of the Elle Ending, Elle is now eighteen years old and wears an outfit similar to Ludger's, but with shorts and a Navel Window.
  • Ship Tease:
    • Ludger's dialogue options during cutscenes or skits are ripe with these, with the skits themselves teasing as good as any pairing that can come up in the party. Particularly when Muzét's in the skit or talking about tethering-up with another.
    • Fractured Milla and Ludger, due to the two of them being the main Parental Substitutes to Elle, and her last words to Ludger if their affinity is high enough has her asking him to take care of Elle. The manga highlights more of their interactions due to demoting the first game's cast even further, leaving Fractured Milla to be Ludger's most significant relationship that isn't familial. When Ludger turns down her cooking challenge because he can tell she made her soup with love, he tells her that he thinks she's actually a good person because of her efforts, causing Milla to blush and chastise him for saying embarrassing things.
  • Sibling Murder:
    • Ludger dreams of Julius killing him at the start of the game. Telling Julius about the nightmare will elicit a rather nonchalant joke from him.
      Julius: "You dreamed that I killed you? Well if you keep demolishing my stash of tomato cupcakes, that may well happen. [Beat] Kidding."
    • In the first Fractured Dimension, Ludger is given the order to kill a version of Julius who has just murdered everyone on the train. Refusing to kill him will lead to him killing Nova and her boss, until Ludger stabs him in self-defence.
    • In Chapter 15, Julius fights Ludger to test his resolve in undertaking Origin's Trial, as a direct callback to the nightmare at the start of the game. Julius becomes a Divergence Catalyst before Ludger can kill him, forcing Ludger to enter Julius' idyllic Fractured Dimension and kill him in their apartment.
    • Supplementary material state that Julius once found a Fractured Dimension where Ludger's mother had survived (instead of being killed by Julius in self-defence), and Ludger was the Divergence Catalyst, meaning Julius must have killed an alternate version of his brother at least once.
  • Sibling Triangle: In a skit, Vera can reveal that Ludger, Nova, and Julius were subject to one, though neither Ludger nor Julius even knew it was happening. Nova had a crush on Julius when she was still Ludger's classmate, but when going to confess her love to him, Ludger answered the door and Nova panicked, giving him the gift instead and making him think she had a crush on him, explaining why Nova later rejected him when Ludger asked her out.
  • Significant Name Overlap:
    • The party discovers the Genesis Sage Kresnik's given name is Milla, due to Maxwell naming Milla Maxwell after her.
    • In the Official World Guidance short story, Milla Kresnik's would-be granddaughter-in-law is named Lara Lalla Travis, referencing the Travis family of Rieze Maxia's Six Ruling Houses, who retained the middle name as an initial and claim to be descendants of the Sage Kresnik. Her first name, Lara, as well as her appearance, also reference Lara Mel Marta, Elle's mother who was herself a descendant of the Kresnik clan.
  • Situational Sword: Ludger's Chromatus lance can be used as an ordinary weapon by others, like when Fractured Muzét knocks it out of his hand and Milla stabs her with it instead, but it cannot destroy the Divergence Catalyst unless wielded by him.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: The entire game kicks off due to a different Fractured version of Elle getting lost in Victor's Fractured Dimension while seeking the Land of Canaan. Had these two never met, Victor wouldn't have been as traumatized by his loss of her on his own journey to collect the Waymarkers and become so obsessed with being reborn with Elle in the "real" world, and wouldn't have sent his Elle to the Prime Dimension, meaning Ludger would not have met Elle, would not have gotten on the Striborg train, would not have met Bisley and caused Julius to try and assassinate him, and would not have gotten involved with Spirius.
  • Social Circle Filler: Justified. Ludger's interactions with Nova imply that he didn't really stay in touch with anyone from school after graduating, leaving him reliant on Jude and the original Xillia cast for friendship after Julius goes missing. And while Nova tries her hardest to be present despite being Locked Out of the Loop, his only other named classmate, Aaron, states in a sidequest that he doesn't want to associate with him due to his brother being branded a terrorist and Ludger himself a suspect.
  • Social Services Does Not Exist: No one really keeps tabs on the eight year old girl who just survived a terrorist attack and just lets a total stranger take care of her instead. Nor does anyone try tracking down her father through the official channels.
  • Someone Has to Die: At the end of Chapter 14, it's revealed that in order to create a portal to reach the Land of Canaan, a powerful member of the Kresnik family line has to die. Dialogue of a Spirius NPC specifies it must be someone with a Level 2 Chromatus or higher, and by this point in the story, the only available candidates are Ludger and Julius, who offers his life since he's already dying from overextending his Chromatus abilities. Ludger can defy this by murdering the rest of the party and abandoning any hope of reaching Canaan himself, whereas in the manga, he attempts to offer his own life for the Bridge first, so that Julius and Elle can both live, but he's still talked out of it by Julius.
  • So Proud of You: Bisley says he's proud of Ludger at the end of Chapter 13, after Ludger's successfully collected the Waymarkers and summoned the Land of Canaan. Ludger can either accept or ignore the compliment in favor of Elle. Of course, he is actually Ludger's biological father, though it's unlikely Ludger himself is aware of it at this point in the game.
  • Spoiler Cover: The second volume of the manga adaptation spoils Ludger, Fractured Milla, and Victor's deaths by depicting them as angels watching over Elle on the table of contents. In addition, the front cover inside the book flap spoils adult Elle's design, and the back cover features an omake that spoils the above deaths and Julius' death and the reveal that Elle is Ludger's daughter.
  • Spoiler Opening: The opening spoils Julius' and Ludger's Level 3 Chromatus form, foreshadowing their duel much later in the game, and that there are two versions of Milla who do not share scenes together.
  • Strolling Through the Chaos: In the front car of the Striborg train in Chapter 1, Spirius CEO Bisley will casually turn and walk away from the Exodus agent's gunfire, while Julius and Ludger are both scrambling to get themselves and Elle out of the way.
  • Super Cell Reception:
  • Super Powerful Genetics: The power of the Chromatus runs through the Kresnik family blood, though not every descendant has it. The pocket watches that they're born with serve as keys to triggering the ability. It's implied in-game and confirmed in supplementary materials that the ability of a Key of Kresnik is also hereditary, as the only other mentioned Key of Kresnik is Cornelia, Elle's great-aunt through Ludger.
  • Supreme Chef: Ludger, Fractured Milla, as well as Elle's father, Victor, who is a fractured version of Ludger. Elle ranks her father as the best of the three, and Fractured Milla's Character Episode largely revolves around trying to cook something that will impress Elle enough to rank her higher than third place.
  • Take Your Time: In addition to the typical plot events that would seem time-sensitive and aren't, the final chapter of the game takes it to the extreme. Despite all the urgency in the penultimate chapter about killing Julius as quickly as possible to get to Canaan and save Elle, there are several sidequests that open up between this time, and even more in the post-game, some of which even allow you to travel to other Fractured Dimensions despite the much more pressing matters. There's even a Bonus Episode with a rampaging golem that the party finds time to tackle in the midst of all this. Then the Official World Guidance speculates that Julius' Fractured Dimension is indeed the 999,999th one. Cutting it close indeed.
  • Taking the Bullet:
    • If Ludger chooses to protect Bisley instead of Elle when an Exodus agent attacks them on the train, Julius will take a shot to his right arm while protecting Elle. He doesn't seem too hurt by it though.
    • In the manga adaptation, Ludger is delivering a Curb-Stomp Battle to the team of Spirius agents sent to capture Julius, so Rideaux attacks Elle with poisoned knives. Ludger takes the hit instead, and only survives due to his Chromatus.
    • In one of Alvin's Character Episodes, a Fractured Presa gets shot by a Fractured Alvin after she throws herself in front of Prime Alvin to protect him.
  • Tangled Family Tree: Downplayed. Ludger and Julius, who share the same father, had mothers who were sisters, making the two of them cousins in addition to half-brothers; the technical term for their relationship is three-quarters siblings. By extension, Elle is both Julius' niece and first cousin once-removed. Add that the Kresnik clan has branches that have intermarried—Bisley himself married the Key of Kresnik from a long-lost branch of the family, and Elle's mother was from the known Marta branch and married a Fractured version of Ludger—and you end up with every immediate relation of Ludger's being related to each other in at least two different ways, albeit some more distantly than others.
  • Tap on the Head: Alvin smacks the barrel of his gun onto Gilland's head in a fractured dimension and he instantly goes down. He wakes up shortly after, catching up to the party, though.
  • Teacher/Student Romance: Implied, as Bisley and his future wife Cornelia Wi Bakur, Julius' mother and Ludger's aunt had their first child together when he was only 15 and she was a 22 year old tutor working for his family.
  • Team Pet: Rollo, Ludger's extremely fat cat, who's mostly usurped the role of cute mascot from Teepo. He accompanies him almost everywhere, only staying behind for the final battle due to Ludger's concern for his safety. Even then, he shows up in the aftermath.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Fractured Milla doesn't get along well with those from the first game, and especially not with Gaius. While Gaius and Milla Maxwell weren't so different, and were Foils to each other, both determined to save the world even at a cost to themselves, Fractured Milla gets on his nerves due to her reluctance to sacrifice herself for the greater good.
  • Terms of Endangerment: If Ludger doesn't question Fractured Julius, Julius will smile and call him a "good boy". No other version of Julius ever addresses Ludger with that sort of pet name, and Julius follows it up by stabbing a nearby corpse, licking the blood off his sword and trying to murder him.
  • Thanks for the Mammary: When Jude, Elle, Ludger, and Milla go through a volcano, Milla trips and nearly falls in. Ludger can save her after a dialogue choice... which results in him catching her with his hand on her chest. Naturally, Milla slaps him for it.
  • Theme Music Power-Up: In the final chapter, when Ludger saves Elle and unlocks his full Chromatus using Victor's watch, a remix of the opening theme "Song 4 U" plays through the ensuing cutscene and boss fight.
  • Theme Naming:
    • Elympion characters have last names related to Slavic mythology. From the previous game, Kresnik comes from the name of a fire and sun god, and Svent is derived from Sventovit, a god of abundance and war. Rugievit (Rideaux's last name) is a god depicted with eight swords, and Leshy (Vera's last name) is a pagan plant god, though both names are only listed in supplementary short stories. The corrupt businessman who attacks Leia in the Before Episode short story is named Domovoy, after the Slavic house spirit.
    • The place names also direct Japanese transliterations from Slavic mythology and history, though these are somewhat obfuscated in the English localization. Trigleph derives from "Triglav", a three-headed god, Duval (Dovuoru) derives from "Dvorovoi" a Slavic spirit, the Oscore Plant (Asukorudo) and the town of Drellin (Diru) derive from Askold and Dir, Norse rulers of Kyiv, and the Striborg Line derives from the god Stribog.
  • Throwing Your Sword Always Works:
    • Fractured Julius kills Fractured Nova and her boss by throwing his sword at them, with enough force to run through both of them at once and land in the wall behind them.
    • If Ludger offers himself as bait to lure out the Seafall Phantom, Julius intercepts the monster's first attack on Ludger by throwing his sword at it, buying them enough time to hand over the first Waymarker.
  • Time Travel for Fun and Profit:
    • It's implied in-game and confirmed in supplementary materials that Rideaux has been plagiarizing his "new" medical discoveries by taking them from Fractured Dimensions where they've already been researched. His apparent genius despite his young age earns him a lot of credibility, but some Spirius employees and fans see him as shady for that exact reason.
    • Spirius itself is heavily implied to be using their access to Fractured Dimensions in order to predict the future in the Prime Dimension, with Vera passing along analysis of whether or not the peace between Rieze Maxia and Elympios will be affected by Rowen's death (it won't), and a Spirius NPC remarks that it sometimes feels like Spirius' CEO can literally see into the future.
  • Tomato in the Mirror: People in Fractured Dimensions usually don't know they're from one.
    • One way for the Kresnik clan to discover they're Fractured is if they successfully gather all the Waymarkers and attempt to reach Canaan, as they will be denied entry because Canaan is only in the Prime Dimension. An alternate version of Ludger is particularly traumatized when he loses his version of Elle completing the Trial, only to find out it was all pointless.
    • In a Drama CD, Julius has already guessed that he's in a Fractured Dimension because Ivar of all people became CEO of Spirius, and he's actually relieved to know he's not beholden to Origin's Trial.
    • Supplementary materials reveal that the Genesis Sage was the very first Divergence Catalyst, creating a world where Maxwell still believed in her and the Kresnik clan didn't devolve into infighting. Unfortunately, when Chronos asked for proof of their pact, Lara Lalla Travis, having just been forced to kill her fiancée, who was also Milla Kresnik's grandson, in order to retrieve the final Waymarker, angrily assumed he meant yet another human sacrifice, and killed Milla. Chronos stopped time, and Milla realized while dying that she was a Divergence Catalyst and had been living decades in a Fractured Dimension. However, she accepts the circumstances and dies believing that one day, someone in her clan will complete the Trial.
  • Tragic Keepsake:
    • In Chapter 15, Julius gives Ludger his silver pocketwatch before Ludger kills him, allowing Ludger permanent access to a Level 3 Chromatus, along with a engraved hint on how to stop Chronos from rewinding time. In the manga, he uses it in combination with Victor's pocketwatch to reach a full Chromatus.
    • In the Elle Ending, the adult Elle carries her father's pocketwatch that Ludger uses to sacrifice his life, and hums the Hymn of Proof that Ludger and Victor sang to her.
  • Transferred Transformation: In Chapter 12, it's revealed that using a Chromatus for too long will eventually turn the user into a Divergence Catalyst, killing them and creating a Fractured Dimension. However, Ludger isn't transforming into one himself because he was holding onto Elle when he first activated his Chromatus, and her Key of Kresnik abilities allowed her to take on the transformation in Ludger's stead.
  • Transformation Trinket: The pocketwatches Chromatus users are born with are needed to trigger their transformation, though it is possible to use someone else's, either to boost one's Chromatus level, or as a replacement for one's own missing watch, as demonstrated by Victor, whom a Spirius NPC notes that he was using someone else's watch to transform instead of his own, and supplementary material reveals it's the watch that belonged to a Fractured version of Bisley, who Victor had killed.
  • Trauma Conga Line: The start of the game already pits Ludger through a lot, between getting caught up in a terrorist attack, facing off with an Ax-Crazy version of his brother and needing to kill him, then finding out his real brother was framed for said terrorism, and being coerced into helping track his brother down while saddled with a 20 million Gald debt and having both their reputations dragged through the mud. But Chapter 11 is when things really start going south for him, failing to stop Fractured Milla from being sacrificed, learning that Elle is his Alternate Self's Kid from the Future and needing to kill Victor, realizing he has been unknowingly turning her into a Catalyst through the use of his Chromatus, then Elle runs off to help Bisley against Chronos, and by the time he learns his brother needs to die for the party to stop Bisley and Chronos, he can well and truly lose it.
  • Traveling at the Speed of Plot: The party tends to have urgent needs too go to places far away, but will always make it before it's too late. Jude, for example, will tell Ludger that he has to get to Helioborg quickly and that there's no time to explain... while he's in Hamil, which is practically on the other side of the planet.
  • Trouble Entendre: Bisley's first interaction with Julius is already suspicious, but once you have the full context of their backstories, that Julius has been hiding Ludger's existence from their father to keep his brother safe and uninvolved in the Trial, it becomes a lot more evident why Bisley hits Julius' Berserk Button.
    Bisley: Who would have known you had such a talented little brother? Aren't you the model sibling. You've protected him well.
  • A Twinkle in the Sky: The Linked Mystic Arte "Earthcracker/The Ludgernaut" ends with Leia and Ludger knocking an enemy into the sky with their staff/hammer respectively, causing the target to disappear into the distance with a twinkle of light.
  • Two-Faced: In Chapter 16, Elle's face is hidden while Bisley fights off Chronos, until Ludger appears and the camera reveals that the right half of her face has been corrupted by her transformation into a Divergence Catalyst from Bisley using her Key of Kresnik powers, turning the skin there black and her right eye red.
  • Unexplained Recovery: During Chapter 13, Julius disappears after tackling Chronos into a portal. He resurfaces in Chapter 14 with no explanation as to what happened.
  • Unrequited Love Switcheroo: Overlapping with Sibling Triangle, Vera reveals that Nova had a crush on Julius, but accidentally gave a gift meant for him to Ludger, which caused Ludger to assume she had a crush on him. Ludger later asked Nova out and got rejected, but the two of them end up becoming friends and by the time of the events of the game, Nova clearly has a crush on Ludger, who has unfortunately moved on since.
  • Unusual Eyebrows: Ludger's are different colors, Julius has a bald spot in one of his due to a faded scar, and Bisley's are shaped like the letter Z.
  • Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Most of the time, Muzét's appearance isn't commented on outside of the party, not in the Prime nor Fractured Dimensions. The most it comes up is in Gaius' first character episode, where the Trigleph police are baffled by her ability to fly.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: According to supplementary materials, Vera was the one who found out about Ludger's falsified records when she decrypted data Julius had kept secret, which is why Julius was on the Striborg train at all in an attempt to bribe her to secrecy. Unfortunately, due to the Exodus attack, Bisley ends up meeting Ludger anyway, with Vera confirming that they were half-brothers, tipping him off that he had another son, and provoking Julius to try and assassinate Bisley, resulting in him being accused for the train attack.
  • Unwitting Pawn: In Chapter 12, it's revealed that Elle was sent to the Prime Dimension by Victor so that she could eventually lead Ludger Prime back to her world, where his Alternate Self Victor could kill and replace him.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: While Ludger cannot lose affinity with any characters, no matter how high your affinity already is, you're allowed to choose the blatantly apathetic and dismissive dialogue options, such as immediately turning Julius in to Rideaux, denying that the rest of the party are his friends, or letting Fractured Milla fall to her death instead of trying to save her.
  • Villainous Breakdown: in Chapter 12, after Elle refuses to be reincarnated, because she doesn't want to lose her memories of her current life, she pushes Victor away, giving Ludger the opening to grab Elle and carry her away to safety. Victor briefly falters. And then, he completely loses it.
    Victor: Elle... is mine!
  • Villain's Dying Grace: In Chapter 12, once Victor's about to become a Divergence Catalyst, he'll either let Ludger kill him or if the latter hesitates, grab his counterpart's spear to kill himself. He does this because he knows that he won't live long enough to enact his plan, and Elle is already becoming a Divergence Catalyst, meaning helping prime Ludger collect the last Waymarker to reach Canaan is his best chance at saving his daughter.
  • Void Between the Worlds: The Dimensional Abyss is the space between dimensions. In Chapter 7, Chronos reveals he threw Milla from the first game into it, and she remains trapped there while Fractured Milla exists in the Prime Dimension. Supplementary material also explains that this is where Fractured entities go when they're ejected from the Prime Dimension by their Prime counterparts.
  • Wake-Up Call Boss:
    • The Great Spirit Volt, who has quite a chunk of HP at this early point of the game and has an AoE attack that could easily kill your entire party in one go, if they are too close together. The player really needs to know how some Link abilities work and how to make use of the Weakness system to not have too much difficulty with this guy.
    • There's also Muzét (Fractured) about halfway through the game. This boss is already tough on their own, but is also the first boss to use a Mystic Arte, so the player knows that any subsequent (human) boss fight will most likely involve this being a potential danger now.
    • The first Chronos fight. Your group consists of Alvin, Jude, and Leia so already you have no offensive spellcasters and only one semi good healer. Chronos is a Magic Knight who deals AOE attacks more than anything, and since everyone uses physical attacks, you have to go up and attack him. Leia is a single target based healer, which means you can't get a consistent amount of heals on characters. His attacks rip through both the party, and Corpse Shell Ludger. The one character who would of made the fight easier, Rowen, is injured and this without his Magic Barrier passive, Chronos' spells hit like a truck. Really he's there to show you that unless you master timing Corpse Shell with Link Artes, you can't win the game.
    • If you're doing the character stories as early as possible, Alvin's first chapter has a very unpleasant surprise in the form of Ivar, who, in addition to being his usual surprisingly dangerous self, has much higher stats than you're expected to be fighting at this point in the game.
  • We ARE Struggling Together: The Kresnik clan has been so kneecapped fighting each other over the wish that completing Origin's Trial will grant them that they've made no progress on actually collecting the Waymarkers for the past two thousand years, just as Chronos predicted.
  • Weapon Stomp:
    • In Chapter 11, Elle attempts to stop Rideaux from sacrificing Fractured Milla by hitting him with Fractured Milla's sword. It's no use against his Chromatus and he kicks her aside, then steps on her hand to stop her from grabbing Milla's sword again.
    • In Chapter 13, Chronos impales Julius' hand with the sharpened point of his leg to stop him from grabbing his Chromatus watch.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist:
    • In a rare protagonist example, the party and the Spirius Corporation are willing to wipe out every fractured dimension (and their inhabitants) in order to survive Origin's trial. Though Bisley takes the extremism up a notch by trying to enslave spiritkind, putting him at odds with the party.
    • Chronos stacks the odds against humanity in Origin's trial, but he's merely doing so because he knows that the soul purification process causes immense pain to Origin and wants to make it so Origin won't have to suffer anymore.
  • We Named the Monkey "Jack": Julius Catstantine the Third, a cat styled exactly like the human Julius is, right down to the bolo tie and one of his front paws being black. It turns out his owner, an old man named Marvin, is a long-time friend of Julius'. And as a matter of fact, he's Julius and Ludger's grandfather.
  • Wham Line: Multiple ones, all courtesy of Victor in Chapter 12.
    Victor: "Yes, I'm this Elle's father."
    Victor: "You perfected spyrite technology eight years ago. But then I killed you."
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: The introduction mentions that Ludger was on his way to the train station, where he was starting a new job as a cook. Then the train hijacking begins and nothing is ever really mentioned about Ludger's intended job anymore, not even a small mention of him being fired. Julius asks about it in a Chapter 7 skit, but due to Ludger's Heroic Mime effect, we don't hear an explanation for it.
  • Wishing for More Wishes: At the end of the game, it's revealed Bisley's true plan is to take advantage of the fact that Origin must grant any wish to force spirits into servitude, allowing him to destroy all Fractured Dimensions in addition to being able to use the spirits' powers however he wants.
  • Would Hurt a Child: In Chapter 12, when recounting his slaughter of the Xillia party, Bisley, and Julius, Victor puts an emphasis on having "even [killed] Elize". In a Official World Guidance short story, Lara singles out Elize among the casaulties, without referring to any other of Victor's former friends.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: At the end of Chapter 13, Bisley informs Ludger that he has no further need for his Chromatus, to which Muzét will remark on if Ludger has outlived his usefulness, only for Bisley to clarify that Ludger has simply completed his duties.
  • Your Heart's Desire:
    • It's eventually revealed that Divergence Catalysts and their Fractured Dimensions are created by Chromatus users who abuse their powers, with some taking form of that user's idealized world.
    • In Chapter 15, Julius' Fractured Dimension shows that his greatest desire is to live peacefully with Ludger like they did prior to the game. A comic anthology story further references this with Julius coming across a Divergence Catalyst in the form of a cursed pendant that is said lead its wearer astray. Just as he's about to destroy it, he's distracted by that world's Ludger, who drags him shopping. The two spend a peaceful and fun afternoon together, but Julius eventually realizes he's fallen under the pendant's effects after he admits he'd like to stay in this world.
  • Zero-Effort Boss: The boss fight of Gaius' first character episode involves the party defending themselves from anti-Rieze Maxian Elympions. They have consistent reinforcements, but they do very little damage and each of them goes down almost instantly. The only way to lose at all is to disable the party's AI and wait for the enemy units to very slowly deplete your HP.

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