Info about Tokyo Xanadu eX+:

Official game description:
Tokyo Xanadu eX+; a massive action RPG from the masters of the genre, Nihon Falcom! When high school student Kou Tokisaka encounters the nightmare realm known as the Eclipse, his world is forever changed.  
In this definitive version of Tokyo Xanadu, experience the game in 60 FPS along with new scenarios, new playable characters, new modes and more!  
**Key Features**  
**40+ hours of Action RPG gameplay!**  
Quest through Morimiya City and battle hordes of nightmarish monsters!  
**Explore a Brave New World**  
Talk to characters, build relationships and forge alliances as you navigate the expansive cityscape of Morimiya City. Upgrade your equipment, play mini games and train in dungeons!  
**New Scenarios!**  
Enjoy unique tales of the Wielders that weren’t depicted in the main story. Once you’ve completed the game, get access to an all new quest and carry on the adventure!  
**New Playable Characters, New Monsters, Dungeons and Bosses!**  
Play as the mysterious knight, White Shroud. Brandish unrivaled strength and the powers of light to take down vile monsters and vicious bosses! Plus, new dungeons filled with fierce new monster types and giant bosses to battle!  
**New Modes: “Time Attack” and “Boss Rush”**  
In Time Attack, defeat various bosses that appear in the main story as quickly as possible. In Boss Rush mode, you can battle each boss one after the other.

Release date: Dec 8, 2017

Categories: Action RPG, Character Switching, Social Link System, Dungeon Crawler, New Game+, Multiple Endings, Time Attack Mode, Boss Rush

Feature scans:
- MTX: score 10; verdict: Fair / Traditional DLC Model; summary: User feedback shows no evidence of predatory monetization. The game follows a traditional one-time purchase model with standard DLC. Price complaints are limited to the base game's cost, not in-game purchases.
- Steam Deck: score 85; verdict: Broken with major stability issues; summary: The game receives mixed feedback: some users report a seamless experience with full controller support, but significant issues exist including fullscreen crashes, guaranteed crashes at specific scenes that block progress, controller input freezes, and PC save sync failure. The most severe stability problems push the experience into the 'Broken' range for affected users.

- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price:
  - Community fair range: $8.00 - $15.00
  - Reasoning: Multiple reviews state the full price of $60 is too high and advise waiting for a sale. Specific sale prices of approximately $10 are repeatedly mentioned as fair or worth it, implying the community considers the game's base value to be significantly below $60. A Japanese review also indicates a sale price of around 1200 yen (~$8-9) is cost-effective, supporting a range between $8 and $15.
- Playtime Metrics:
  - Game completion: 80.0h
  - Story completion: 45.0h
  - Session length: N/A
  - Endgame: N/A
  - Reasoning: The 43-45 and 48 hour reports both describe completing the main story with minimal or focused play, providing a consistent estimate for story completion around 45 hours. The 80+ hour report includes full completion of all story content, side quests, and NPC interactions, making it a reliable indicator for game completion. No direct evidence supports session length or standalone endgame time, so those metrics are left null.
- Time-to-fun:
  - Summary: Tokyo Xanadu has a slow, tutorial-heavy start that many find boring, but becomes enjoyable after the initial dungeons and story setup, resulting in a 'clicks after' time-to-fun profile.
  - Stance: Clicks after
  - Anchor: Past the tutorial dungeons
  - Time to anchor: N/A
  - Friction: slow start; boring first two chapters; extended tutorial phase; poor pacing of tutorials and dialogue; repetitive early dungeon design
  - Unlock drivers: passing the tutorial dungeons; the game clicking; mid-game story progression; ramp-up time
  - Conditions: tolerance for slow early pacing; enjoyment of Falcom-style dialogue-heavy games; appreciation for good soundtrack; willingness to push through boring parts
- Player Archetypes:
  - Falcom Series Enthusiast (sale)
    - Motivation: To enjoy Falcom's signature narrative, character interactions, and shared universe references.
    - Playstyle: Explores the world for lore, appreciates cross-game references, and compares mechanics to other Falcom RPGs.
    - Experience: veteran
    - Purchase stance: sale
    - Labels: fan
    - Reference games: Trails of Cold Steel; Ys; Zwei!!
  - Persona-Inspired Newcomer (sale)
    - Motivation: To experience a Persona-like social life simulation combined with action RPG exploration.
    - Playstyle: Prioritizes social links, side quests, and character episodes; treats combat as secondary.
    - Experience: newcomer
    - Purchase stance: sale
    - Labels: N/A
    - Reference games: Persona; Persona 4 Golden; Persona 5
  - High-Difficulty Challenger (buy)
    - Motivation: To master the combat system and achieve the highest ranks on the toughest difficulty settings.
    - Playstyle: Switches party members for elemental advantage, uses abilities instead of basic attacks, and replays on Calamity/Infinity modes.
    - Experience: veteran
    - Purchase stance: buy
    - Labels: N/A
    - Reference games: N/A
  - Completionist / Achievement Hunter (no buy)
    - Motivation: To unlock every achievement and fully complete the game with 100% progress.
    - Playstyle: Plans multiple playthroughs, grinds for friendship notes and items, and optimizes for achievement runs.
    - Experience: veteran
    - Purchase stance: no buy
    - Labels: achievement hunter
    - Reference games: Monster Hunter


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Excellent character development (weight 0.63): Well-developed, charismatic, and memorable characters with meaningful relationships are praised. Characters are distinctive and have good dialogue.
- Outstanding soundtrack quality (weight 0.44): Players consistently praise the music and soundtrack as perfect, banger, top-tier, and memorable, with specific mention of Falcom Sound Team JDK.
- Falcom style nostalgia (weight 0.36): Numerous players appreciate the classic Falcom essence, signature cliches, and familiar elements. It feels like a typical Falcom game that fans enjoy.
- Fluid and satisfying combat (weight 0.36): The combat system is described as fluid, fast-paced, simple yet satisfying, with unique character movesets and engaging real-time mechanics.
- Memorable NPC interactions (weight 0.27): Non-player characters have unique, evolving storylines and dialogue that make the world feel alive and contribute to immersion.
- Fun action JRPG overall (weight 0.25): The game is described as a fun, enjoyable action JRPG and one of the best in recent years.
- Captivating story moments (weight 0.19): The story is interesting, captivating, and has a thrilling final chapter.
- Average but acceptable story (weight 0.15): Some players find the story average or straightforward but still acceptable. It is not a major weakness.
- Unique fighting styles (weight 0.15): Each playable character has a distinct fighting style, weapon, and elemental system, making combat varied and fun.
- Real-time combat system (weight 0.15): The real-time combat is dynamic, prioritizes player skill over stats, and is simple but fun.
- Complete standalone story (weight 0.12): The game delivers a complete story without a cliffhanger, which is appreciated as a standalone narrative.
- Excellent voice acting (weight 0.12): Japanese voice acting is praised as excellent, well-voiced, and well-localized.
- Fun dungeon and combat (weight 0.1): Dungeons and combat aspects are fun and enjoyable.

Common complaints:
- Mediocre story quality (weight 0.37): The story is described as average, cliche, and generic with anime tropes. It is not excellent and lacks uniqueness.
- Inferior combat system (weight 0.3): Combat feels rough, mediocre, and lacks depth compared to Ys 8 or 9. The combat system is not satisfying and does not stand out.
- Excessive dialogue and slow story pacing (weight 0.27): The story drags on with too much dialogue and padding. It feels slow and predictable, making the game overly long.
- Mediocre and repetitive combat (weight 0.26): Combat is described as mediocre and not deep, sometimes compared to a low-budget Dark Souls. It becomes monotonous quickly.
- Repetitive dungeon design (weight 0.26): Dungeons feel repetitive and similar, with reused visual themes and predictable layouts. This makes exploration tedious and stale.
- Reused assets from Trails of Cold Steel (weight 0.23): Many assets are directly reused from Trails of Cold Steel, including recolored enemies and models. This makes the game feel less original.
- Inferior to other franchise entries (weight 0.22): The game does not meet the quality of other Falcom titles like Ys or Trails, nor Persona. It feels like a lesser experience in comparison.
- Weak character development (weight 0.22): Character development is shallow and characters are not memorable, often falling into cliches. Many loose ends remain unresolved.
- Random and simple dungeon generation (weight 0.2): Dungeons sometimes feel random or overly simple, like from earlier Persona games. This reduces exploration depth.
- Poor keyboard controls (weight 0.2): Keyboard controls are awkward and poorly mapped for controller-oriented design, with scattered keys and bad defaults. This affects user experience significantly for non-controller players.
- Sluggish combat animations (weight 0.19): Character movements and combat animations feel sluggish due to long wind-up times. This affects the pacing and responsiveness of battles.
- Limited graphics options (weight 0.18): Graphics options are minimal, restricted to resolution and display mode without advanced settings. Visual quality is poor and dated.
- Repetitive enemy design (weight 0.16): Enemy variety is low, with many recolored or recycled enemies from earlier Falcom games. This makes dungeon encounters monotonous.
- Slow game start (weight 0.15): The beginning of the game is slow and requires patience before gameplay becomes engaging. Some cutscenes are also of low quality.
- Flawed second playthrough experience (weight 0.15): New Game Plus forces unnecessary side stories and slow character unlocks, frustrating repeat players.
- Difficulty and balance issues (weight 0.15): The game has occasional difficulty spikes and is generally too easy on normal mode. Balance needs improvement.
- Translation errors and performance issues (weight 0.14): Translation has typos and missing text near the end, and minor slowdown occurs in dense areas with high-level skills.
- Inferior presentation and soundtrack (weight 0.12): The game has less flashy presentation and a less catchy soundtrack compared to Persona. The overall budget feels lower.
- Not worth full price (weight 0.09): Many reviewers feel the game is not worth its $60 price tag and recommend waiting for a sale.
- Unconvincing true ending (weight 0.08): The true ending is seen as too forced or convenient, which may not satisfy all players. This reduces narrative payoff.

Gameplay feedback:
- Action RPG with dungeons (weight 0.56): The game is an action RPG combining real-time combat with dungeon crawling, social sim elements, and exploration. It includes dungeon racing mechanics, treasure chests, and core upgrades.
- Combat similar to Ys (weight 0.55): The action combat is compared to the Ys series, described as real-time, hack and slash, and emphasizing player skill, but sometimes considered more simplistic or slower.
- Mix of Trails, Ys, Persona (weight 0.41): The game blends elements from Trails of Cold Steel, modern Ys, and Persona, combining action combat from Ys with JRPG mechanics and social systems from Trails and Persona.
- Character switching with elements (weight 0.33): Combat involves real-time action with a party of three, where players switch characters to exploit enemy elemental weaknesses using special skills like Ex-Skills and XDrive.
- New Game+ with modifiers (weight 0.24): The game features a New Game+ mode with difficulty modifiers, extra dungeons, and an Infinity mode, along with multiple endings.
- Dodge and perfect dodge (weight 0.21): Combat includes dodge rolling and a perfect dodge mechanic that negates all damage, allowing for counterattacks.
- Unique character playstyles (weight 0.18): Each playable character has distinct skills, specialties, and unique fighting styles, including speed, ranged attacks, and magic barriers.
- School life setting (weight 0.15): The action RPG is set in a high school with slice-of-life sections, blending school life activities with dungeon crawling.
- Multiple endings available (weight 0.12): The game has normal, true, and after-story endings. The true ending requires achieving 8-star stats across all abilities.
- Social link system (weight 0.12): The game includes a Persona-like social link system, though some find it less integrated than in Persona.
- Dungeon rating system (weight 0.12): Dungeons are graded with S-ranks based on elements, speed, treasure collection, breakables, and taking no damage.
- Special attacks and combos (weight 0.12): Characters have special arts, ultimate moves, combination attacks like Ex-Skills and X-Strike, enhancing combat variety.
- Falcom-style storytelling (weight 0.11): The game follows a classic Falcom narrative with a youth hero story and supporting characters, typical of the developer's style.
- Minigames included (weight 0.11): The game features minigames such as a card game, skateboarding, and a crane game, along with collection items.

Performance notes:
- Smooth performance on various hardware (weight 0.46): Multiple users report the game runs well across a range of systems, from low-end laptops to high-end desktops, with stable framerates and no major issues. This highlights strong optimization for diverse configurations.
- Crash on alt-tab or scene transitions (weight 0.15): The game is sensitive to alt-tabbing, with multiple users reporting crashes or freezes. Additionally, black screens between cutscenes can also trigger crashes.
- Controller support with remapping (weight 0.13): The game supports keyboard remapping and controller use, including remappable keys. However, default keyboard controls are considered awkward by some, making a gamepad recommended.
- Crash when changing display modes (weight 0.12): Switching from borderless to fullscreen, or changing resolutions, can cause the game to crash or freeze, sometimes requiring a forced shutdown. Workarounds include staying in windowed mode.
- Crashes at specific scenes or chapters (weight 0.12): Some users report crashes during certain story scenes or in the final chapter, though a third-party tool like SenPatcher can resolve some issues.
- Minor slowdowns in dense areas (weight 0.09): On mid-to-high-end hardware (e.g., Ryzen 3700x, GTX 1080), users experience minor framerate dips in larger areas with many high-level skills or effects. Performance remains otherwise smooth.
- Occasional control issues after pausing (weight 0.07): Some users experience temporary control problems, such as inability to move forward, after pausing the game. This appears to be a minor bug.
- Steam Deck saving issues (weight 0.04): One user reports that the Steam Deck cannot identify PC save files despite cloud save being enabled, causing inconvenience for cross-platform play.

Recommendations:
- Best for Falcom fans (weight 0.73): The strongest recommendation is for existing fans of Falcom, especially the Trails series. Many reviews state this game is most enjoyable for those who already appreciate the developer's style.
- Also appeals to Persona fans (weight 0.33): A significant number of reviewers compare the game to the Persona series, recommending it to fans of that franchise. This suggests shared mechanics or a similar school-life atmosphere.
- Wait for a sale (weight 0.28): Several reviews advise against paying full price, recommending waiting for a discount. This indicates the game may not be seen as worth its full retail value.
- Suitable for JRPG enthusiasts (weight 0.27): General JRPG fans are also a target audience, though the recommendation is less specific. Reviews suggest it is a solid choice for anyone who enjoys the genre.
- Not for everyone (weight 0.21): A few reviews explicitly state the game is not recommended for a general audience or that it lacks purpose. This points to niche appeal.
- Great for casual play (weight 0.08): Some reviews highlight the game as a light, easy-to-enjoy experience that doesn't require deep thinking. This positions it as a relaxing title.

Other player notes:
No miscpoints

Emotions:
- Frustration (weight 0.17): Players are frustrated by poor controls, clunky combat, and unresponsive keyboard layouts, combined with repetitive dungeons and slow pacing. The story is criticized as shallow with long-winded dialogue, and technical issues like crashes, camera bugs, and poor localization further compound the negative experience.
- Disappointment (weight 0.11): Players expected more from the game, finding its combat stiff, graphics outdated, and story predictable or cliche. Many feel it combines the worst elements of Ys and Trails, with repetitive content and poor localization preventing enjoyment.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.11): Players enjoy the fluid and satisfying combat system, great music, and engaging story with charismatic characters. The combination of school simulation and action RPG elements, along with NPC interactions and world-building, provides a fun experience for Falcom fans.
- Satisfaction (weight 0.1): Players feel satisfied with the complete story, well-paced progression, and rewarding gameplay that improves in the mid to late game. The game offers good value with its content, character development, and quality-of-life features, providing a fulfilling overall experience.
- Excitement (weight 0.04): Players are excited by the fast-paced, satisfying combat and electrifying soundtrack that energizes dungeon and boss encounters. The fusion of Ys-style combat with Trails storytelling creates an addictive and engaging experience that builds anticipation for future Falcom releases.
- Boredom (weight 0.04): Players find the game boring due to a generic and predictable story, repetitive combat, and slow early chapters. The reliance on template narratives and palette-swapped enemies makes the experience feel stale and padded.
- Surprise (weight 0.04): Players are surprised by the game's quality exceeding expectations, especially given its 'leftover assets' reputation. Unexpected aspects include engaging NPC detail, a satisfying villain reveal, and a moving ending that caught many off guard.
- Annoyance (weight 0.03): Players are annoyed by technical issues like camera glitches, translation errors, and crashes, as well as design choices such as repetitive one-liners, poor turbo mode, and tedious achievements. The game's similarity to Trails of Cold Steel and its harem tropes also frustrate some.
- Appreciation (weight 0.03): Players appreciate the successful blend of Trails and Ys elements, with a charming cast and engaging world. Despite a low budget, the game offers impressive NPC dialogue and character interactions that create a more atmospheric experience than expected.
- Nostalgia (weight 0.02): Players feel nostalgic due to the game's story set during the mobile network era recalling real history, and its life simulation segments reminiscent of Persona 4 and 5. Familiar elements from older Falcom games and bookstore easter eggs also evoke fond memories.
- Emotionally moved (weight 0.02): Players are emotionally moved by the touching and well-executed endings, including the normal, true, and after story. The character growth and hard-fought happy ending provide a deeply resonant experience.
- Disgust (weight 0.01): Players are disgusted by over-the-top fan service including swimsuit scenes and hot spring scenarios, combined with cringey character actions. Poor direction and dialogue make the game unbearable for some.
- Anger (weight 0.01): Players express anger over terrible controls, stuttering performance, and garbage maze design, compounded by a cliche story and padded gameplay. Game freezes in the final chapter with no auto-save heighten frustration.
- Anticipation (weight 0.01): Players anticipate a sequel and eagerly await new Falcom games, hoping for improvements in future titles like Kyoto Xanadu. The curse of the story leaves them wondering about its resolution.
- Relief (weight 0.01): Players feel relief upon completing the game after many hours, finding it helps relieve anxiety and lightens their mood. Understanding a specific in-game term brought a smile of recognition.
- Amusement (weight 0.01): Players are amused by how over-the-top story tropes become unintentionally entertaining, and by the power fantasy of post-game domination. A specific story line even caused one player to spit out their tea.
- Affection (weight 0.01): Players express affection for the charming and heartwarming story and characters, particularly Shiori Kurakashi. Despite its lower budget, the game is considered one of their favorite JRPGs on Steam.
- Curiosity (weight 0.01): Players are curious about the interesting story and how it unfolds. The store page's comparison to Persona and Trails of Cold Steel piqued their interest.
- Interest (weight 0.01): Players are interested in seeing how mechanics develop across Falcom games, and in the characters and social bonds. World-building through conversations further engages them.
- Mild frustration (weight 0.01): Players feel mild frustration due to a very weird start and controls that are slightly clunky compared to Ys games.}