I always experience a tangible feeling of sadness and remorse when I'm done with a good Japanese role-playing game. Unlike so many other genres, they ask players to spend dozens of hours with them to complete, and when you play a good one for long enough, you get caught up in its world and characters. So when it's all over, it's like closing a good book that took you 50 hours to read. You didn't really want it to end, but it did anyway. 2013's Tales of Xillia was one such JRPG , a game I really enjoyed spending time with, getting to know, and ultimately beating and leaving behind with a heavy heart.

Fighting through time.

44 IMAGES

In most respects, PlayStation 3's Tales of Xillia 2 -- which is the 14th core Tales game -- is simply more Tales of Xillia, but as a fan of the original, that’s exactly what I wanted. Indeed, judged from the periphery, Xillia and Xillia 2 are virtually indistinguishable from one another. They share tons of locations, characters, enemies, graphical assets, music, and sounds. They even share each other's technical benefits and shortcomings, like snappy load times and tons of pop-in. This may seem like a cop-out to some -- and maybe it is -- but familiarity is one of Xillia 2's greatest strengths, allowing players to jump in while cutting through the formalities that aren't needed in a story-driven sequel that assumes players already worked their way through the original.Xillia 2 thrusts players back into the world of Elympios and Rieze Maxia, two territories once separated by a magical barrier that, for thousands of years, obscured them from each other. Representing Rieze Maxia are most of the characters you're familiar with from Xillia: Milla, Jude, Leia, Elize, Alvin, Rowen, and others. Rounding the group out is Xillia 2's main -- and mostly quiet -- protagonist, Ludger, and a young, mysterious little girl named Elle. They’re both admittedly weaker than the main cast from the original game, and while Ludger is interesting, I have no idea why he was designed to be virtually silent.Elle, on the other hand, only takes part in the story, and not in combat, which lessened my attachment to her. She's essential to the overarching plot, but I always found myself caring about the original cast more, and her subpar voice acting didn't exactly help (nor did Milla's voice actresses' still-disjointed performance, which isn't quite as bad as the original, but still noticeably worse than expert performances from the likes of Alvin's and Rowen's respective actors). Her morbidly obese cat companion Rollo, on the other hand, is absolutely amazing.For as much as Xillia 2 borrows from Xillia, it takes some smart left turns that ultimately keep the experience new, fresh, and on equal footing with the quality of the original. The biggest turn is the deviation away from Xillia's binary campaign progression, which relied a great deal on whether you were playing primarily as Milla or Jude. Xillia 2, on the other hand, is far more linear in its campaign's delivery, instead giving Ludger a litany of decisions to make during conversations and combat alike. The way Ludger works his way through conversations, and who he chooses to pair-up with in battle, can build his affinity with other characters, providing a great reason to carefully navigate Xillia 2's extensive exposition while testing out new match-ups during fights. There's considerable depth to this system, especially since it unlocks new items and conversation options.What remains very much the same, thankfully, is Tales of Xillia's combat, which is alive and well in the sequel. Tales' fighting game-lite, action-oriented combat is the hallmark of the franchise, and while it seems chaotic at first, getting a hang of it is incredibly rewarding. I absolutely love mixing things up in battle, using different special abilities called Artes along with more typical attacks. Ludger even has skills no one else does, including the option to select from three weapon types on the fly mid-fight: blades, war hammers, and guns. This gives Xillia 2 an extra dose of uniqueness, though you'll undoubtedly find yourself using his blades 99 percent of the time.A major change between Xillia and Xillia 2 -- one I'm not completely sold on -- is the abandonment of the Illium Orb for something called the Allium Orb. In Xillia, the Illium Orb was how you'd upgrade your character using points earned by leveling up. This time around, much of that is done for you. Instead, the Allium Orb allows you to equip special items that slowly teach you more Artes and skills the longer you have them equipped in battle. This approach is very reminiscent of Final Fantasy VI's Esper system, though it's far deeper and requires a high level of micro-management, which isn't always fun when already balancing Tales' existing, deep customization systems. I'm glad they tried to change this fundamental aspect of the original, but I definitely preferred the Illium Orb. It was simply less stressful to keep track of.There's more newness to be found. The original Xillia's somewhat random approach to side quests has been replaced with two separate systems that are easier to keep track of, and don't require endless backtracking to places that may or may not bear fruit for you, which was a significant drawback in the first game. The first, lesser system is called Contracts, scores and scores of fetch quests, hunts, and the like that will earn you special points and money, the latter of which is important to pay back a mysterious debt you've incurred at the outset of your adventure. These are easy to keep track of, and they can be accepted in any town in the world. (Jumping in between towns, dungeons, and fields is as easy as using Xillia's snappy quick travel system.)The deeper, more significant system is the series of character-centric quests that revolve around the members of your party. These meatier, far more substantial quests allow you to build camaraderie with your party members while learning more about them at the same time. I really dug these quests, and enjoyed how they were separated from the primary, chapter-based story that's always waiting to be driven forward in the background.Oh! And then there's Kittie Dispatch, which revolves sending cats you find on item-seeking adventures... but I'll leave you to discover that oddity for yourself.Folks looking for bang for their buck will also be pleased with Xillia 2. I've spent just shy of 40 hours with the game, and I'm still not done. I'm too drawn to all of its ancillary features -- side quests, hunts, Coliseum fighting, leveling my Allium Orbs, earning Tales' famous Titles, and more -- to engage the last couple of dungeons and battles just yet. I can't imagine anyone seeing and doing everything in Tales of Xillia 2 in fewer than 40 hours, and that's being very generous. But if you're playing for Trophies, be wary: all of that time has netted me only three Bronzes. Brutal.