Anime banner for Tokyo Xanadu EX+ featuring main cast

Tokyo Xanadu eX+ Review

Game: Tokyo Xanadu eX+
Genre
: Action RPG
System: Nintendo Switch (Also available on Steam (Windows))
Developers | Publishers: Nihon Falcom | Aksys Games
Age Rating: US T| EU 12+
Price: US $49.99 | UK Game £ 44.99 | EU € 49,99
Release Date: June 25th, 2024

A review code was provided, and many thanks to Reef Entertainment.

Originally brought West in 2017, Falcom’s Tokyo Xanadu was a departure from form for a studio best known for its sprawling geopolitical JRPG franchise, usually referred to as Trails, and Ys, a fantasy action RPG that follows the adventures of one young hero named Adol. Like Atlus’ Persona series, Tokyo Xanadu featured modern high school students locked into the role of confronting genuine evil as it seeps into the cracks of our world.

Tokyo Xanadu eX+ Kou on the ground, asking a girl a question
Kou gets straight to asking the important questions, like ‘what the heck?’ and ‘why the heck?’ and ‘who the heck?’

Technically, it was the third of a confusing sub-franchise whose original roots, traced all the way back, also led to the origins of Trails and a separate, lesser-known Falcom series called Dragon Slayer, but let’s pull back up to the present. Competent kids gathering up to fight evil is hot stuff, from Stranger Things to the aforementioned Persona. Tokyo Xanadu stepped up to put its own spin on an energetic gaming niche that can be a little alienating to a forty-plus-year-old woman who never wants to think about homeroom again. Can 2024’s refined Switch remaster, Tokyo Xanadu eX+, overcome my jaded memories and my graying hair? Honestly, yeah.

Controlling High Schoolers for Fun and Profit in Tokyo Xanadu

There’s no slick way to put it: Tokyo Xanadu is an action RPG through and through, with a streamlined yet initially fumbly control scheme that will take a sedate turn-based player a little while to click with the first time they enter a dungeon level. There’s nothing wrong with the combat controls on paper; your palette of options includes a basic attack, a dodge, a lock-on, a ranged special, and a couple of combos to access special powers unique to who you’re controlling.

Tokyo Xanadu eX+ A knight in white fights a giant winged monster.
Your first side story will introduce you to someone that I promise is not Ezio Auditore

Yet in that simplicity, and as you try to catch up to the speedy chaos going on around your characters, it may be a little easy at first for some to start instinctively slapping buttons in an attempt to GET THIS GARGOYLE LOOKIN’ THING OFF YOU. One must learn to stop doing that, or you’ll eat your dodge cool down, forget you have some nice useful Uh Oh skills, and, in the worst case, accidentally hit the speed-up button and get yourself really frantic.

It is entirely fair to call this a skill issue. If you are more experienced with action RPG (or at least more consistent about playing them than I am), you are going to be in for a good time. All commands are responsive, giving you a nice amount of control over the battle.

Interspersed between the combat levels are playable story sections familiar to Persona and Trails fans. Your protagonist, Kou Takisaka, is a self-possessed young man trying to balance his school and private life when evil creatures (called Greeds) enter the mix. Day to day, you’ll follow him to clubs and do odd jobs, getting to know your fellow students and making sure nobody twigs that your newly formed school club is actually an anti-demon vigilante squad. You know how it is.

Tokyo Xanadu eX+ Kou shops in a busy Japanese street
Kou can go shopping, and in some of the stores are Easter Eggs from other Falcom games.

These sections are fun and easy to navigate, and if you’re overwhelmed with the sheer amount of information that will come your way, there’s tons of easily accessed in-game reference material to help you out. Falcom is often great at designing fun, in-depth dossiers for its characters, and Tokyo Xanadu is a highlight of that effort.

Tokyo Xanadu eX+ Benefits From a Smooth Transition

First released on the underrated PS Vita handheld, the eX+ update that brought the game to PC and PlayStation 4 sharpened up the graphics and added oodles of extra content to keep players invested in the fates of Kou and his friends. The Nintendo Switch version is a slickly ported version of that PS4 rerelease. It doesn’t add any new features to what was already functionally a full director’s cut version of the game. It doesn’t need to, either.

Returned to its original potential as a handheld game, Tokyo Xanadu becomes a fun romp through the darker side of teenage imagination. With a trunk full of free DLC item kits (adding plenty of healing supplies you can access via a menu that pauses combat, bless) and silly cosmetics, plus a range of difficulty options for you to choose from, it’s even surprisingly chill to play. Y’know. Once you get your ARPG legs back under you. Skill issue, absolutely.

Tokyo Xanadu eX+ Anime cutscene of a mysterious girl in white
The mysterious spirit girl in white may be a trope, but I am a sucker for it.

Although the Switch is in its twilight period, with more and more games revealing the console’s weakness in handling heartier ports, it’s a nice surprise to find this game running like a dream. Load times are generally quick, and combat stays fluid. I didn’t run into any laggy dips that could’ve ended an S-ranked dungeon run despite my efforts, and menus don’t jutter and skip around.

Tokyo Xanadu’s Plot is Familiar Yet Fresh

It’s nigh-impossible to extract Xanadu from the shadow of its blockbuster franchise cousin, Persona, and maybe it’s pointless to try too hard. While, yes, as an adult, it’s not always thrilling to be playing plucky teenagers, Xanadu’s protagonist is actually a nice change from the big-ticket norm. Kou has a set personality for you to learn about, which makes him interesting to play. His rugged but kind demeanor includes cozy tropes like ‘wise beyond his years, if only he could remember to eat breakfast,’ and will make him into his own comfort food for Falcom fans who’ve been living alongside Rean Schwarzer — or just now getting to know Van Arkride.

Tokyo Xanadu eX+ Kou stands in a brightly lit school hallway
Kou, a dark-haired young man who spends a lot of time at school, is just a modern Rean Schwarzer. And that’s fine.

Like his Falcom peers, Kou is a decent dude caught up in an incredibly weird situation, and that humanity helps us care when he makes (or rediscovers) new friends in his ‘brother, I did not ask for this’ struggle against a post-war nightmare. And that struggle, too, hides shades of Falcom’s love for exploring real history through fiction. The traumatic aftermath of World War II, always a difficult topic in Japan, is gently reimagined through a massive earthquake that never happened in the real world, and the aspects of sin it releases.

At the same time, it’s never overly preachy or dour, nor is it here to wallow in those traumas. It’s more about putting one foot in front of the other and revelling in the joy of being with your friends. Even as an adult, that’s accessible, interesting stuff, and it’s handled well.

Conclusion

Tokyo Xanadu eX+ is a fresh port of an older game to a system that makes it accessible to almost anyone who wants a stellar, if overpopulated, and socially complicated, action RPG. That makes it a fine ambassador for the genre in general and even a comfortable introduction to Falcom’s particular brand of world-building and visual style.

Combat has enough variables to keep you busy with a streamlined palette of options, although there will be a bit of a skill hurdle for those taking on their first game of this type. But with no downside to tweaking the difficulty and tons of resources available for you to use, the game genuinely feels like it wants you to succeed at playing it, which is going to be refreshing to anyone who has friends fighting their way through the Elden Ring expansion.

Around here, we know we’re looking for a good time in our games, a fun time, and an experience that doesn’t leave us feeling too much like we’ve lost the joy of gaming. Tokyo Xanadu eX+ is an odd pick for a cozy experience, and yet, it absolutely can be, with a pace that’s quicker and livelier than its Persona peers. I’m happy to be a fan of Falcom in general, and I think this is a great game for chill gamers looking to explore a niche they otherwise might skip.

Final Verdict: I Like It A Lot

I like it a lot

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