Tokyo Xanadu Ex+

Post 00058 | May 26th 2025

Sorry I have been neglecting you, dear reader! Truth be told, I have been incredibly busy getting back on my feet. My physical therapist has been urging me to be more active to stay in good health despite my MS. She does have a point; Last time I was bedridden, I ended up walking like some kind of zombie. That’s not something I want to relive, so besides my exercises, I have been talking lots of walks, exploring the town. People have been really supportive and are inviting me along when they walk their dogs as well, which is a nice way to chat. It almost feels like a game, as more of the town gets unlocked as my health improves. I have now “unlocked” my way to the library at the other side of town, located at the tail-end of the park. It has a decent, albeit modest selection, but thankfully you can also order material from other libraries all over Denmark - all free of charge. I have just found out that this includes video games. Of course I am going to abuse that offer. 

That’s right lads, tonight we will be gaming on the taxpayer’s dollar. The game I picked is a recent release for the Switch, albeit an old release for the Vita: 2024’s Tokyo Xanadu Ex+, an enhanced port originally released in Japan in 2015. 

I only faintly remember hearing about this game back in the day. I loved my Vita back in the day, more than Sony did in any case. It had a gorgeously vibrant screen and comfortable buttons while still remaining pocketable. I carried it with me a lot more than I did my 3DS, but once the Switch came out, my Vita got increasingly neglected. In fact, I don’t think I bought a single Vita game after March 2017. This is probably why I never picked up Tokyo Xanadu when it first released in outside of Japan in June of that year - I was too busy riding through Hyrule that Summer. Thankfully, Nihon Falcom has decided to release an enhanced port for the Switch.

Now, the Switch has a vastly bigger library than the Vita, so you can afford to be picky in a way that wasn’t an option on the Vita; You sort of just had to play what was available. I’m not sure I would have given Tokyo Xanadu a second look if I hadn’t seen it at the library. We’re spoiled for choice when it comes to JRPGs on the Switch - Heck, we’re spoiled for choice when it comes to Falcom JRPGs. Falcom are known for their Legend of Heroes and Ys series, and while there were Xanadu games back in 8 bit days - NES aficionados may remember Faxanadu - it feels like a new franchise which is always refreshing. 

You play as Kou, a high school student from Tokyo who spends his spare time working various odd jobs. One night he notices Asuka, the popular transfer student, walking through the neighbourhood when a couple of delinquents decides to follow her. Kou decides to follow them, in case Asuka needs help. Luckily, it turns out Asuka is more than capable of handling herself; It turns out she’s a wielder for a secret organisation out hunting for eclipses, which are portals that connects this world to the Otherworld where monsters known as Greed. What’s more, when Kou gets sucked into one of these gates, it turns out that he also the power to wield a Soul Device weapon to slay these monsters.

	Some examples of what you'll see around town.

Gameplay switches between story portions, Persona-esque free time sections where you get to explore Tokyo and meet up with your friends and acquaintances around town, and fighting in the Otherworld whenever these Eclipses appear. I won’t delve too much into the story for obvious reasons, though I would say that I have been enjoying it. Character writing has always been Falcom’s strong suit which is also evident in this game. A lot of effort has also been but in fleshing out NPCs around town, so if you feel like it, you can easily spend a lot of time exploring town to fill out the character bio in your NiAR smartphone app (The game came out in 2014; of course the menu is a smartphone app). I’m terrible at remembering Japanese names and yet in this game I was able to remember the names of not only the playable characters, but also random people from around town. I think this really speaks to Falcom’s knack for building a coherent world.

Then there are the battle portions, which entirely consists of labyrinths in the Otherworld. Every chapter has a couple of labyrinths each which all differ in appearance. That said, they aren’t complicated to navigate. You might need to find a switch to continue or a branching path, but that’s it. Most branching paths consists of the correct way and a dead-end with a treasure chest.

As you progress through the game, more wielders will be awakened, each with their own fighting style and element type. Enemies have elements they are weak to but again, it isn’t as complicated as it could be - Their weakness shows up as soon you lock onto them. It does however entice you to switch between characters to keep the upper hand.

Each character has quite a few different moves in their arsenal, both physical, ranged and special moves. It can all be a bit much to remember in the heat of battle but thankfully you are being drip-fed access to new moves. This means the first couple of chapters can feel a bit basic until the game feels you’re ready to be challenged. And the game can be challenging at times as well. There were a couple of bosses where I did find myself die repeatedly. The game lets you retry with weaker enemies if you feel really stuck, but after a couple of tries I was able to down even the most annoying of bosses.

My biggest annoyance with the game is a fast forward feature that speeds up the game and auto-skips text. It should be a boon to someone with a library deadline, but it ended up annoying me more than anything. It is mapped to L3, the left analog stick. First time I must have clicked it on accident, and before I figured out what was going on, a good deal of the cutscene was gone. Secondly, on several occasions, usually when I was frantically trying to dodge a boss’ attack, I would enable the fast forward on accident. I can’t think of a worse time to enable fast forward than during a boss fight, and as you can probably imagine, it resulted in a couple of frustrating Game Over screens. Maybe it’s just my hands being too clumsy for the joycons though - I didn’t have the same issue playing docked with a pro controller.

There are tons of little easter eggs in the game for Falcom fans to find; There's are some gachapon machines in the mall that supposedly contain Zwei II and Gurumin characters (not collectible tough). Also, Towa from Trails of Cold Steel returns as a major character in this game.

As for performance, the game runs well on the Switch; I don’t remember seeing any noticeable slowdown during my time with it. It shouldn’t be too surprising considering it was a Vita game, but seeing how the enhanced EX version was originally made for the oomphier PS4, there was a risk it wouldn’t be fully optimised for Nintendo’s handheld. That said, there’s no denying that it looks like a game that was made for a decade old handheld; The visuals are good, but they won’t blow you away. In fact, “good but won’t blow you away” sums up the game pretty well. I enjoyed the game as a cozy Diet Persona type game. I enjoyed playing the game, but it didn’t do anything ground-breaking, which is fine; Not every game needs to be the next Citizen Kane.

Finally, I can totally recommend the concept of borrowing games from the library. Not only is it free (or rather, you have already paid for it with your taxes), you get a feeling of real-life urgency when you play the game. You really want to beat this game before you have to return it. I don’t if you can call it FOMO, or just the desire to experience something while you can.

While it might be lost to jpeg-compression, here's another nod to Falcom games; Kou is reading a book called To Make the End of Battle, which was the opening title to Ys II

Tokyo Xanadu Ex+ is available for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and PC via GOG or Steam (rated Playable on SteamDeck) while the original version Tokyo Xanadu is available for the PS Vita (Vita TV compatible).