YMMV / Tales of Xillia 2

Alternative Character Interpretation | And The Fandom Rejoiced | Awesome Bosses | Broken Base | Complete Monster | Die For Our Ship | Game Breaker | Moral Event Horizon | Narm | Player Punch | Rescued From The Scrappy Heap | Scrappy Mechanic | That One Achievement | That One Attack | That One Boss | That One Level | That One Sidequest | The Scrappy | The Woobie

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• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Nova, being the character associated with the debt mechanic, is extremely cheery and Innocently Insensitive, often saying things that are intended to be complimentary and optimistic and just end up grating. Ludger, and the player, have several opportunities to show annoyance with her, including outright yelling at her for asking for a debt payment after Ludger kills his Alternate Self Victor, but she really is only concerned for Ludger's wellbeing and freaks out when she thinks Ludger is talking about killing himself. By Chapter 15, she catches on to her own poor timing and gives a self-deprecating remark about it when her cheer is met with gloom, or she'll try and gently suggest that she, Ludger, and Julius have dinner together. Unfortunately, this is right after Ludger has learned that Julius intends to die for the Soul Bridge, and her mention of Julius has Ludger rushing out the door without anyone explaining to Nova why.
  Nova: What did I say this time?
• Alternate Self Shipping: Due to the canonical existence of Fractured Dimensions, some fans ship their counterparts together, such as Ludger and Victor or the two Millas.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise here.
• Angst Aversion: The game's constant tragedy, character deaths, and lack of any definitively happy ending can make it hard to get into the game, especially as a follow-up to Xillia, whose hopeful ending was diminished in order to Retcon in a new bigger threat for the sequel.
• Angst Dissonance: At the end of Chapter 14, it's revealed a powerful Chromatus user needs to die in order to reach Canaan, with Julius offering his own life since he's already dying from becoming a Divergence Catalyst. The cutscenes make it clear that Ludger is reluctant to follow through with this and is deeply aggrieved for it. However, Julius has barely made any appearances in the game, and his relationship with Ludger goes largely understated compared to the dozens of main and side story chapters where Ludger is visibly bonding with Elle and the rest of the party. Made even worse that just two chapters earlier, Ludger shows no concern for Julius after the latter is beat up by Chronos and teleported away with him, and if one already isn't convinced here, then the Bad Ending where Ludger picks Julius over the party can feel downright nonsensical.
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • Ludger's Heroic Mime mechanic means he can only speak when prompted to by the rest of the cast, and so if they don't, he simply doesn't say anything, even if there's a plot development he should have emotional investment in or be curious about. As a result, he seems jarringly detached from stuff concerning Julius, and doesn't really react to what should be major revelations about his own past like the J-code sidequests suggesting Julius had adopted him for his watch, Rideaux hinting to him that Julius was Bisley's son, or Vera's sidequest revealing that Bisley's wife's surname was Kresnik.
  • The party doesn't seem all that bothered by Ludger routinely killing millions of people, and Ludger himself doesn't really have an opinion on it either. Especially poignant since the first game was all about trying to save both Rieze Maxia and Elympios, rather than allowing one to die for the sake of the other, but here, while Leia expresses concern about all the innocent people they'll kill, the conclusion remains that it's what's necessary to preserve the Prime Dimension, and that since these Fractured worlds aren't meant to exist in the first place, they're just making things right. Even when Fractured Milla is used to deconstruct an Expendable Alternate Universe, the impact of her death is solely that she was important to Elle, and the game never wavers from the goal that all Fractured Dimensions must be destroyed.
  • In the Ludger Ending, absolutely no one in the party reacts to Elle dying in front of them except for Ludger.
• Ass Pull: The reveal that Divergence Catalysts are created by Chromatus users who overuse their powers seems fine in premise, except the worlds that those users create are specifically tailored to their ideal world rather than one event diverging in the past, which has been exemplified for most of the game. It seems the only reason why it's established is to justify Julius' Fractured Dimension being tragically, impossibly perfect.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Fractured Milla. Some find her Tsundere quirks make her more flawed and nuanced than Prime Milla, or she's annoying and grating specifically because she isn't like Prime Milla.
  • Ludger is either an overpowered new character who overshadows the original Xillia cast while having minimal personality, or he's badass and tragic with Hidden Depths behind his silent protagonist status.
  • Elle is either a sad and adorable child with a depressing backstory or an annoying little pest whose sacrifice is highly preferable to Ludger's in the end depending on who you talk to.
• Breather Boss:
  • The first fight with Rideaux comes off as this, especially after the brutally hard boss fights against Chronos and Catalyst Muzét immediately beforehand. He's utterly pathetic in comparison to those two, but it's probably intentional, as finally getting to smash his Jerkass face in is a huge Catharsis Factor, with the only possible challenge being a fairly high damage output, speed and frequently causing Bleed status which can be easily circumvented.
• Broken Aesop:
  • In the first Xillia, a major conflict is between saving Rieze Maxia or Elympios by indirectly destroying the other, and the party ultimately decide to Save Both Worlds. However, in the sequel, while there's some objection to Ludger murdering millions of people with every destroyed Fractured Dimension, the original party concludes that while it's horrible, they still have to destroy worlds for the sake of protecting their own, directly contradicting the goal of the first game by sacrificing other worlds to save the one the protagonists live in.
  • In Rowen's Character Episodes, he is seemingly willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of peace between countries, and Elize and Ludger object that it's not right. Similarly, in a Chapter 12 skit, it's contemplated that a specific character's death is needed to improve the world when Jude is murdered in a timeline where he perfected spyrite and resolved Elympios' energy problems, but Prime Milla and Elle both object as the benefits would not be worth the loss of that character. In both cases, the potential sacrifice admits they're right. Come the main story, however, Fractured Milla, Julius, and Elle all end up sacrificed in the process of saving the world, only Elle and Ludger seriously object to these deaths and argue for not letting the sacrificed person die, whereas the rest of the party treat it as tragic but ultimately necessary to save their world.
  • Several of the Character Episode bosses also count as they're not as hard as the main story bosses.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Elle being Ludger's (future) daughter is made very obvious from the beginning, but is not actually revealed to the party, until very late into the game.
• Character Tiers: Due to having an expanded roster of party members, there is somewhat of a tier list for how useful the party members are. Ludger is the sole exception because he is required pretty much the entire game. For specifics:
  • At the top is Gaius, Muzet, and Elize. Gaius is the hardest hitting physical fighter with a strong Linked skill, Muzet is a good Red Mage type character and a strong spell caster, and Elize is the best healer and her Dark element focus makes her stick out more so than anyone else. The former two also work well as link partners for Ludger.
  • At mid tier is Milla, Rowen, and Alvin. All three of them are good but are overshadowed by Gaius and Muzet in terms of physical and magic power, and Elize is too good of a healer to consider passing her over for one of them.
  • At the lowest tier is Fractured Milla, Jude, and Leia. Fractured Milla is Milla without her ability to summon Spirits, leaving her weaker and unable to provide any extra power by comparison. Both Jude and Leia are Combat Medic characters but were given nerfs from the first game; Jude being clunky and slow as opposed to his faster playstyle from the first game, and Leia not having much of a defined role anymore. Both also lost the best thing they had going for them in the first game, their ability to heal, since in the first game Jude, Elize, and Leia were the only characters with reliable healing. Now everyone has at least one healing arte, leaving them both useless compared to the others.
• Contested Sequel: Is it a good sequel that is Darker and Edgier while addressing many complaints about the first game and thus is a better game for it or a lazily designed game with a story that suffers from too many bleak turns? A smaller group exist that like the changes, but dislike that the game is a full priced game, when it comes across as basically an expansion pack.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • Due to the sheer difficulty of the game, you are more or less required to use Elize for her multi group healing. Muzet is a secondary option, but Elize is favored over her usually.
  • Also, despite bosses having weaknesses, you'll more often or not rely on Ludger's hammer due to the combo potential of it compared to the other weapons he can use.
  • By far the quickest way to defeat the Final Boss of the Bad Ending is to learn to chain together aerial combos, allowing you to chip away at one enemy while preventing the rest on the ground from reaching you.
• Creepy Awesome: Victor. Not only is he a Faux Affably Evil Alternate Self of Ludger who murdered his father, brother, and almost everyone in the party, all on his own, his ultimate goal is to Kill and Replace Prime Ludger to reach Canaan with Elle, where he'll wish for the two of them to be reincarnated in a peaceful life. When Elle is horrified and refuses to go along with what amounts to suicide, siding with Prime Ludger instead of him, he goes completely off the rails, screaming that she's his and revealing his complete Chromatus form.
• Die for Our Ship: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise here.
• Disappointing Last Level: The Land of Canaan, while technically not very long, is incredibly obnoxious to navigate, forcing the player to go through a maze of disappearing platforms and walkways that all look nearly identical on top of being so thin that fighting the montsers there is almost unavoidable. The battles themselves aren't all that hard, but it gets annoying very fast.
• Dry Docked Ship: Some fan works infer that Rideaux and Julius dated at one point when they were teenagers/younger adults, but have since broken up.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Rollo. Lots of people love the fat cat. The fact that Rollo is part of a Link arte takes this even further.
• Fan Nickname: The Fractured version of Milla is often called "Tsundere Milla" or "Tsun-Milla" for her drastically different personality compared to the original Milla.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Those who dislike the worldbuilding and character Ret Cons the sequel inflicts upon the first game (as well as demoting a large number of the first game's cast to extra) tend to ignore Xillia 2's story and simply go off of the first Xillia's lore instead.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: This is an inevitable occurrence for Ludger, since his canon Love Interest, Lara Mel Marta, Elle's mother, is The Ghost for the entire game, only making a single appearance in the Ludger Ending. Thus, the most popular ship for Ludger is Ludger/Julius, due to Julius' driving motivation largely revolving around protecting Ludger, and the Bad Ending where Ludger kills all his friends and dooms the world to protect Julius. However, in Western fandom, it's a much closer call between Ludger/Julius and Ludger/Jude, with the former just barely beating out the latter in popularity.
• Fridge Logic: See the Fridge Logic page here.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • In a small sidequest, Gaius names Leia's mother as the only person on his list of people he hopes to never have to fight. He really should have included Ludger in that list. To make things worse, he's terrified of Sonia Rolando because she describes how she would break him physically. In Elle's fractured dimension he's bedridden and can't even stand, and it's heavily implied to have been caused by that dimension's Ludger.
  • Teepo remarking that Muzet used to be a psychopath was funny at first, but becomes much less so as her character quests show how isolated she feels because the rest of the party still doesn't trust her.
  • As if the violently protective behavior of Victor, and prime Ludger if you choose wasn't scary and tragic enough, the World Guidance book reveals that Ludger's mother Claudia, who was trying to hide Ludger's existence from Spirius, tried to kill a thirteen year-old Julius when he discovered them by pure chance and she mistakenly thought he was going to take Ludger from her. What makes this sadder is that when Julius came to care for Ludger, he was inadvertently upholding Claudia's wishes that her son wouldn't be involved in the Origin Trial like her late sister, who was Julius' mother.
  • Ludger's Chew Toy status throughout the game is a great source of amusement for players, even to those who don't like him as the Heroic Mime. Make no mistake though: the burdens, putdowns, and awful truths he has to take on do take a toll on him. On following playthroughs of the game, especially when the Ludger's Voice option is enabled, it's much easier to notice the clues that his mental stability is falling apart in a nonhumorous and downright tragic fashion, especially in later chapters. Some of the drastic choices he's able to makes (choosing Julius/Elle over saving the world, or sacrificing his life to what may be a Fate Worse than Death) make a lot more sense.
  • Nova's cheerful attitude towards the matter of Ludger's debt and her attempts to keep things light start to make a lot of sense once you hear one of the NPCs in Duval mention how common suicides by train are because a lot of them couldn't handle the pressure that came with having so much debt. If Ludger yells at her for asking for a debt payment after killing Victor, Nova will freak out thinking that he intends to kill himself, making it clear she does fear this happening to him.
  • Julius' rather glib reaction to Ludger telling him he had a dream where Julius killed him. He cracks a joke about it rather quickly, but then the supplementary material reveals there was indeed, at least one Fractured Dimension where Ludger was the Divergence Catalyst and Julius had to kill him personally.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Gaius' voice actor in both games, Travis Willingham, has a well known story about him drinking too many tequila shots at a convention and how unprepared he was, getting extremely drunk and trying to interact with fans, to his embarrassment. In this game, one skit has Gaius drink some alcohol and gets drunk from it almost right away, making it funnier with that knowledge in mind.
  • Carrying over from the previous game, one NPC, Catt, is a needy cat-lover with 100 pet cats, and acts almost exactly the same way Rowen described cat-lovers in the previous game.
• Ho Yay: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise here.
• Jerkass Woobie: Fractured Milla is very abrasive to most of the party, but the fact remains that her entire world was destroyed, no one seems to be bothered by it, and she's surrounded by people who she believes see her as a cheap substitute for the Milla they know, and she's right to a degree, at least at first. In the end, she's either abandoned so Elle can be saved and the "real" Milla brought back, or she willingly sacrifices herself for those same reasons.
• Just Here for Godzilla: For some, the game is only notable for the ending where Ludger can turn against the party and take them all on solo for the Final Boss fight.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Ludger, helped by the party's Relationship Values system giving him some significant interactions with all the playable characters.
• Magnificent Bastard: Bisley Karcsi Bakur, CEO of Spirius Corporation, orchestrated the events of the plot to guide Elle into the land of Canaan and use her unique abilities to use his Chromatus to enslave spiritkind and prevent Chronos from killing all humans. Pragmatic, affable, and holding humanity's best interests at heart, Bisley provides Ludger with a window of opportunity to repay his debt and evade arrest as a suspect for Julius's "murder" while subtly manipulating and exploiting Elle for her abilities to reach the Land of Canaan. When the millionth distortion is set to form, Bisley fools Chronos into thinking Ludger is the Key of Kresnik instead of Ell and uses the chance to bind the Great Spirit of Time to finally attain his revenge against him for murdering Bisley's lover. Soon running the risk of becoming a distortion catalyst, Bisley chooses to sacrifice himself so Ludger and Elle have a fighting chance, refusing to contribute to the Origin's trial.
• Misaimed Fandom: Some fans dislike Fractured Milla because she isn't anything like Prime Milla from the first game, which is the entire point, since they're different people with different life experiences.
• Narm:
  • That small, incredibly corny-looking spinning jump Rideaux does before his first boss fight. It almost completely ruins any chance of taking ensuing battle seriously. Not helped by the loading period just before a game transitions into battle sometimes taking just a little too long and allowing you to stare at Rideaux frozen in mid-air for several seconds.
  • During a scene before the final boss, if Muzét is in your party, her breasts will bounce during a rather serious line.
  • Bisley's Chromatus transformation looks oddly in-character for Sailor Moon, due to being identical to Ludger's transformation at the start of the game.
  • Any scene with Julius as a combatant and either failing to pose a threat or being conveniently incapacitated. Especially in the Nia Khera fight with Rideaux, where he gets knocked down twice in succession with a very anti-climatic flop to the ground.
• Player Punch: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise here.
• Play the Game, Skip the Story: For many of the game's story criticisms, its battle system is praised for its versatility and combo-ing potential, especially with Ludger's three weapons. Unfortunately, the debt system and Dialogue Trees prevent players from simply rushing through the cutscenes.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: If a character was disliked in Xillia, there's a good chance they were redeemed in the eyes of at least some players.
  • Jude for his Milla obsession being mostly toned down and actually having a story arc dedicated to him that doesn't reduce him to a Satellite Character.
  • Milla for not being shilled as much and her conflict with Elle. It helped that she looked much better compared to the Fractured Milla and that the voice direction for Milla was handled much better well. For starters, the slight lisp that she had in the first game is completely gone now.
  • Alvin for his sincere attempts to atone for his previous behavior as well as being an extremely funny gadfly.
  • Gaius and Muzet both for taking a major level in kindness and being much more developed in addition to being made playable.
  • Ivar, who has gone from Milla's handmaid to an employee of the Spirius Corporation. He's a lot more relaxed in this game and some fans actually wished he was playable.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: In Jude's character arc, the fourth and fifth Chapter are really, really heavy on the shipping with Milla, including stammering, blushing, falling over each other in compromising positions, and overall scenes that one would expect to see in a romance harem manga. It comes off very suddenly and takes over what was his arc: a way to make Spyrite technology work. While he does advance in that aspect, the fact that one has to go through Ship Tease takes away Jude's development for players that don't like their romance. Exacerbating things is that Ludger is very awkwardly present for these scenes as a third-wheel, with literally no meaningful input on his end, not even being required to destroy a Divergence Catalyst in the last chapter.
• Rooting for the Empire: Some people sympathize with Exodus's attacks against the government considering the government is allying with the country ruled by Gaius.
• Strangled by the Red String: In the Ludger Ending, Ludger and Lara Mel Marta. It feels like the only reason those two will end up together, is to have Elle.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Fractured Milla joins your party during the half-point of the game. Fractured Milla comes from a world where she completed her mission years ago and worked alongside Muzét, which could leave some amazing banter between Fractured Milla and the prime dimension's Muzét, maybe even go into detail how she managed her mission so early and wondering whether she could have done the same as prime dimension's Milla, when learning about the schism being dispelled and the two worlds living together. But aside from some short banter in one skit or a one-off mention of not liking how the two worlds interact, Fractured Milla does not do much beyond being angry over her world disappearing. The only purpose she ends up serving is to sacrifice herself in the final third of the game, to bring Prime Milla into your party and leaving a minor, but quickly forgotten tension between Elle and Milla.
  • Ludger himself, due to being a Heroic Mime who isn't meant to be stoic, mute, or apathetic, leaving a lot of his character unstated and at odds with the game mechanics. Ludger can't talk unless another character prompts him for a dialogue choice, which almost never has him talking about himself, and he can't give an exposition dump either, so Ludger simply spends many Character Episodes learning about his new friends and allies, but then barely tells them anything about his own life. Not helping matters further is that all the media where he does talk and have a fully fleshed out character is Japanese-only, barring the very short-lived English version of Tales Of The Rays.
  • Julius, whose relationship to Ludger is meant to parallel Ludger's own relationship with Elle, and who has a Dark and Troubled Past only ever implied in sidequests and supplementary materials. Due to Ludger's Heroic Mime status, he's barely mentioned when he isn't present in the story, and when he is present, it's only for four out of sixteen chapters of the story, three of which where he's mostly conveniently unable to help the party or refusing to tell Ludger anything. After acquiring the Kijara Seafalls Waymarker, he basically disappears for the rest of the game, only coming back to be killed off.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Chapter 10 introduces the ruins of a hyper-advanced ancient civilization and its Obliviously Evil AI protector, essentially confirms each dimension has its own version of Spirius that destroys other dimensions because they believe theirs is the Prime one, hints that there are alternate versions of the party on the exact same quest as the prime one, and shows there may be a way of saving people whose dimensions are destroyed (by storing them as data). Absolutely none of this is ever brought up again, leaving most of the chapter to feel like a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment. The most it's mentioned is in Origin's Scenario Book chapter, where he states that he, Chronos, Maxwell, spirits, and humankind have all died and been reborn in numerous cycles.
  • Details on Ludger and Julius' backstory are limited to very missable, very optional sidequests and equally transient NPC chatter, with no actual Reveal between the two over Bisley being their father, Julius killing Ludger's mother in self-defence, or Ludger's Trauma-Induced Amnesia. The only time Ludger intentionally acknowledges his own backstory is in Elize's Character Episode where he states he's an orphan, but he never shows any sign of wondering about if Julius' Promotion to Parent is connected to his work as a Spirius agent, and his reaction in the sidequests are especially limited and have no impact on the story itself.
  • Chapter 1, as well as the event summary, imply that Ludger has only ever seen (or remembers) the kinder side of Julius' Sugar-and-Ice Personality, and while Ludger can get plenty upset with him, it's more about Julius refusing to tell him anything about Origin's Trial than Julius' distinctive personality change, and Ludger's Heroic Mime limitations prevent the game from fleshing out Ludger's perception of Julius' character, leaving their familial conflict rather underutilized and their relationship poorly grounded.
  • Alvin is an Elympion raised in Rieze Maxia, whose entire motivations in the first game was desiring to return home with his mother, only for his mother to die and for him to admit doesn't really belong with the Svent family anyway. Where he could have offered further insights on the differences between Rieze Maxia and Elympios, especially since Ludger is a Heroic Mime, and Elle is a child, his Character Episodes instead focus on moneymaking schemes.
  • Leia and Alvin are paired off for their respective Character Episodes, yet little is ever addressed about their tenuous relationship from the first game, when Alvin shot her by accident. Leia is even present for when Fractured Alvin shoots Presa in the exact same way and still doesn't have much to comment on it.
  • Fractured Milla and Prime Milla's relationships to the party. The Xillia party isn't really affected by Fractured Milla's presence, besides comparing the two and remarking that she's not like the Milla they know, and none of them have much to say either when Fractured Milla dies to bring Prime Milla back. Elle is the only one who openly resents Prime Milla and points out that Fractured Milla was a real person too, seemingly setting up a plotline where Prime Milla has to win her trust, or the party realizes that Elle is right, but even this is quickly forgotten because Elle permanently leaves the party two chapters later. Ludger's own reactions to Prime Milla are nonexistent, despite being the only character besides Elle who actually got to know Fractured Milla, and he was the person who let her go, or was forced to let her go and heard her last words. Instead, Prime Milla's appearances in her and Jude's Character Episodes are largely Ship Tease or discussing the relationship between spirits and humans, neither of which involve Ludger nor invite him to express his perceptions of her.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Alternate Milla strikes this way to some players, as her brash, Jerkass attitude makes it hard to feel for the character when she talks about her issues. It doesn't help that the original Milla was arguably Rescued from the Scrappy Heap for some western players, and it's also hard to feel sorry for Alternate Milla when she calls Ludger a world destroyer like he enjoys doing it and fails to keep in mind that Ludger has to destroy the fractured worlds or else the real one will be destroyed. While Alt Milla being upset is justified, her lack of Character Development over the issue, combined with her whining more and more about her existence makes it a bit hard for some to sympathize with her past a certain point.
  • To those that don't like her, Elle can come across this way. While she's certainly a young girl and in a world she doesn't know well, her acting like a Bratty Half-Pint to everyone who isn't Ludger or Alternate Milla, doesn't give her a lot of sympathy points. Even late in the game, after she watches as the party, and specifically Ludger, kill her father who was a divergence crystal and she has a grief-stricken moment of refusing to tolerate Ludger, even if he's the prime dimension version of her father, she's not sympathetic for very long.
  • Origin is presented as the Big Good of the three spirits, maintaining a sincere admiration of humanity despite the immense pain that soul purification inflicts on him. However, his only move to stop Chronos from interfering with the Trial is gifting the Kresnik clan with a Key of Kresnik every few generations, who are still susceptible to Chronos hunting them down, and while he is touched enough by Ludger's love for Elle to continue soul purification despite humanity technically failing the Trial, the supplementary materials reveal that completing the trial will stop all transformations in progress anyway, so the Sadistic Choice of Ludger sacrificing himself to save Elle after using his wish to destroy Fractured Dimensions is completely redundant, Origin just never brings it up and lets him die anyway.
• Win Back the Crowd: Some fans who hated how Vesperia and its successors were much Lighter and Softer than the games made in the previous generation days very much enjoyed how mercilessly dark Xillia 2 could get.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: Jude's new outfit has a pair of red pants, with a darker red fabric on the inside. At first glance, it's easy to think he has wet himself.

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