Floppy fringes. Saucer eyes. Elevator music. Crazy bird creatures. Welcome to the world of manga, which seems as foreign as Jupiter to some of us. The Far East consumes this stuff like sushi and the Tales series has been around since 1995 – an interactive soap with dodgy romances and colourful battles.
Anyone who hasn’t invested 40+ hours in the first Xillia game might be baffled by the characters, but stick with it. There’s gold in them there hills. You play Ludger Kresnik, a silent type who skips around parallel worlds with his brother and an obese cat.
The story is nuts, frankly. Kresnik is in debt, so you have to pay money owed – helping out cat ladies and completing other insane missions - before advancing through levels. Instead of the usual turn-based combat, battles are free-for-all brawls. Chuck gorgeous animated sequences into the mix and you’ll be turning Japanese in no time.