This underrated Switch RPG will hold you over until Persona 6

Tokyo Xanadu’s story feels awfully familiar. It takes place in a fictional district of Tokyo called Morimiya City. Our main protagonist, Kou, chases after his classmate, Asuka, as she walks into a strange portal. On the other side, Kou realizes he’s in a nightmarish dimension filled with dangerous monsters, and discovers that Asuka is a special agent tasked with closing down portals. Awakening to his Persona — I mean — Soul Device, he can now fight alongside her.

While Tokyo Xanadu’s opening hours are filled with common anime tropes and follow a similar slice-of-life gameplay structure, it stands out in a few ways. Falcom’s Trails series is known for its incredible world-building, and it’s shown through the smallest of details, such as NPC dialogue. The same applies to Tokyo Xanadu. As the game progresses, the same NPCs will have completely different dialogue depending on where players are in the story.

For example, there’s a young painter that Kou meets who exudes confidence, but as he gets to know her, she reveals she experienced a humiliating event during college. After winning the city’s portrait contest, she’s able to regain her composure. As the plot progresses, so do the stories of regular NPCs, which makes Morimiya City feel more immersive.

Tokyo Xanadu has a much more linear and traditional RPG story progression, broken down into several chapters. I appreciate this approach as it doesn’t require as much activity micromanaging as Persona. Tokyo Xanadu has bonding episodes too, which function the same as Persona’s Confidants and Social Links. Kou can hang out with his party members in order to get to know them better while simultaneously making them stronger by learning new abilities. Those who enjoy the social sim aspects of Persona won’t miss out on them here in Tokyo Xanadu.

A big difference between the base version and the eX+ edition is that the latter adds side story episodes. These are short playable chapters that don’t involve Kou, but rather two or more party members who usually end up taking a trip to a dungeon and defeating a mini-boss.

One of the blind spots that Persona has with its relationship simulation elements is that there are very rarely ever moments where other party members interact with each other without the protagonist’s presence. Tokyo Xanadu does something different with its side stories so that not everything focuses on the main protagonist, allowing players to see new sides of other characters.

Tokyo Xanadu uses a real-time action system similar to that of Dynasty Warriors. The hack-and-slash combat is quite straightforward; I enjoy being able to revel in a power fantasy by destroying waves of enemies. Of course, higher difficulty levels require me to be more patient before charging at monsters. Perfect dodging becomes incredibly important to avoid being wiped out. I personally enjoy how I can just focus on the story without having a difficult boss impede me.

Dungeon design is Tokyo Xanadu’s weakest component, as they consist of bland corridors. However, the trek through the game’s dungeons are made bearable by the excellent soundtrack filled with tense piano keys and blistering electric guitars. The dull dungeon design actually works in its favor, in some ways. They’re crafted in a way that lets players speed through them. By factoring in time spent, damage taken, treasure found, and enemies cleared, players receive a letter grade at the end of the dungeon. The stripped-down design allows for some faster action that suits its combat.

As for the Switch port, performance is consistent with very little hiccups and surprisingly short load times. This port also comes with a revamped localization from Aksys Games — and it’s noticeable because the original script had so many instances of the word, “chortle,” to indicate laughter. Thankfully, I didn’t see as many of those this time around.