A spin-off of Falcom's Xanadu series, Tokyo Xanadu is first for the company in that, as opposed to being set in a fantasy world, it is set in an alternate version of the real world, specifically Tokyo. It is an Action RPG with the graphical engine of The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, released on September 30, 2015 for the Play Station Vita.
Set in the fictional city of Morimiya on the outskirts of Tokyo, the story follows Kou Tokisaka; an Ordinary High-School Student who works at various overnight part-time jobs to make ends meet while his parents are working overseas. One night, he finds his classmate Asuka Hiiragi being stalked by delinquents, and tries to intervene to save her when out of nowhere, a strange gate appears and draws all of them inside an unknown place. Kou then finds Asuka defeating some monsters using a sword, saving both Kou and the delinquents from them. But before he could ask questions, Asuka erases his memory, and Kou wakes up barely remembering what happened.
The next day, Kou attends class at Morimiya Academy, and later works at another part-time job in the evening. After finishing work, Kou finds his childhood friend Shiori being pursued by an invisible creature, and gets drawn into another strange gate. Asuka arrives just in time to deal with the situation, but strongly insists Kou to turn back immediately. However, Kou regains his memory of the night before, and all of a sudden, a strange light grants him a Soul Device; a weapon that can defeat monsters called Greeds. Surprised by this, Kou tags along with Asuka to save his friend Shiori from the monster pursuing her.
He is later informed that Morimiya is plagued by a phenomenon known as the Eclipse, which commonly spirits people away into labyrinths where Greeds inhabit. Asuka is a Wielder and an Enforcer of an organization called Nemesis, and her job is to search out for Eclipse gates and defeat the Greeds inside to negate them. Since Kou gained his Soul Device and became a Wielder himself, he also tags along to help Asuka defeat the Greeds.
Later, as the story progresses, more students from Morimiya Academy get involved with the Eclipse and become Wielders themselves, and together with Kou and Asuka, they form the Xanadu Research Club (X.R.C. for short) in order to protect Morimiya City from the Greeds.
An enhanced port of the game, Tokyo Xanadu eX+, was released on September 8, 2016 for the PlayStation 4 and Steam on December 2017. It features side-stories for most of the playable cast, an after-story taking place months after the main story, and previous NPCs Promoted to Playable. A port to the Nintendo Switch was released on June 29, 2023 in Japan.
Surprising many fans, the original Play Station Vita game was released by Aksys Games in the United States on June 30, 2017, whilst eX+ was released in fall of the same year. The English release of the Switch port is slated for a June 2024 release, with a revised localization.
A sequel to the game, currently titled Tokyo Xanadu New Project, has been announced.
Compare Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE, a Fire Emblem/Shin Megami Tensei spin-off also removed from the former's medieval fantasy roots to be set in modern-day Tokyo. Tokyo Xanadu is also often compared to SMT's spinoff Persona, in which several aspects of said game were appropriatednote .
This game provides examples of:
- Alternate History: The existence of the Eclipse aside, reading into a bit of lore from the school library books reveals that Japan's military has developed much differently in the game's universe than it did in real life. It became the fourth largest military in the world note , among its arsenal includes Humongous Mechas called Valiant Gears, which are seen in action in Chapter 7.
- Amateur Film-Making Plot: One subquest involves Kou and his friends helping the movie club shoot a film, with Ryouta as the main protagonist.
- Ancient Order of Protectors: While a bit more subdued due to the fact that the earliest detection of Greeds dates back to after the end of World War II in-universe, The Underground (which consists of Nemesis, Zodiac, and The Kronos Orden) more or less plays this role by acting as the overseers to all Eclipse-related phenomenon in the world, and frequently cover up said incidents from the public as either missing person's cases, freak accidents or natural disasters as a way of protecting civilians from harm.
- Anti-Frustration Features: The Witch's Briar Castle is a long dungeon with three maps and cutscenes in-between each one. The first time you run through it, there will be save points between each map to make up for the length of the maps and cutscenes.
- Anti-Grinding: The game follows Falcom's usual practice of having diminishing returns for fighting monsters of a given strength as the party's level goes up. In addition, upgrading the Soul Devices is dependent on having certain monster drop items, and every upgrade slot requires different ones, that are found in different dungeons. By the time you clear a given dungeon 2-3 times, you'll have all of that drop that you can possibly use, so there's no point in long-term grinding for crafting materials, either.
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: You can only bring a maximum of three characters out of the grand total of eight (ten in eX+) into any labyrinths at a time, and the third slot is reserved as a support slot for the character to be on standby while gradually healing from damage. This is even hand waved in-game by Asuka, who notes that bringing more people into labyrinths could be dangerous, and insists that other party members should fall behind for back-up just in case.
- Bait-and-Switch Boss: In Chapter 5, the party encounters the Abyss Hound guarding Asuka's cage after Kou and Mitsuki defeated it earlier on. However, a different Elder Greed (Chaos Raven) suddenly descends and kills Abyss Hound before fighting the party.
- Big Friendly Dog: One regular at the park, Sachie, has a collie named John who’s quite friendly.
- Bishōnen Line: Generally speaking, the higher ranked Greeds are more human-looking.
- Bland-Name Product:
- One of the electronics brands on sale at Star Market is “Yanaha.” Also on sale are products from Sany, Antendo and Mystsoft.
- Rion drinks a "Dr. Paper" in her Chapter 5.5 friendship event.
- In the After-story, Towa is shown using a "Zell" laptop.
- The Xiphone itself is a very clever one to the iPhone, just with an extra X added.
- One of the items you can buy for Kou's room is a video game console called the "MegaStation 4".
- All over the place on Station Square. Sometimes it's adding one character (Misetannote and Nikeanote ), sometimes it's subtracting one character (Akashimayanote , and sometimes it's swapping one character out for another (NOS Burgernote ). There is also a sports outlet called Izunonote there.
- The TVs sold by Star Camera comes from the Aqua series line-upnote .
- The railway service in the country is run by Nippon Rail, with a logo that's a stylized NR note .
- Boring, but Practical: Ranged skills generally have less DPS than Power and Flying skills, but they're useful for avoiding close-ranged attacks while still maintaining a combo.
- Boss Bonanza: In the Final Chapter, any Elder Greed bosses that weren't previously degraded will be fought again, with the first boss being fought out in the streets, and the others in the three pillars. The exception to this is the Dark Delphinium, most likely due to already being used as the demo boss.
- Boss-Only Level: The Sanctuary of Eternity in the Epilogue. It has no labyrinth to go through, nor any Greeds to fight along the way. It's just one boss battle against the Nine-Tailed Fox.
- Boss Rush: In eX+, after defeating each of the main bosses once, you gain the option to fight them again from both the Main Story and the Side/After-Stories in the new Boss Battle mode, with an actual "Boss Rush" option available once you complete the Main Story and the After Story if you want to fight them one after the other.
- Boss Subtitles: Every boss in the game is introduced by subtitles that briefly display on-screen and say "Elder/Grim Greed: [Boss Name Here]", with the first two words indicating what type of Greed you are facing.
- Calling Your Attacks: Chances are everyone are calling their Cross Strike names when doing that.
- The Cavalry: Monsters attacking the country, and responsible for an earthquake trashing the capital? The military will look into ways to deal with them should they ever come back.
- City of Adventure: Morimiya City - the game's Hub Level - is divided into several districts for the player to explore around, talk to NPCs, and do sidequests and friendship events. And as you progress further through the story, more districts will be unlocked, which will further expand the city and the scope of your adventure. The game's back cover even advertises the game as being 1/2 Action RPG, and 1/2 City Adventure.
- City of Spies: Due to the Eclipse events, it seems like almost everyone in Morimiya has something to do with the "Underground," the loose grouping of conspiracies that keep the Eclipse under control. And this is just the beginning; the Student Council President and princess of a MegaCorp gives orders to a Yakuza waka gashira.
- Colbert Bump: An In-Universe example; after a travel show does a piece about Shopping Street, business picks up all over.
- Colony Drop: Yuuki’s X-Strike attack ends with a satellite dropping onto the enemies.
- Company Cross References: The game makes references to many other Falcom works in the game world.
- Posters for Ys VIII and Cold Steel III, and in Cold Steel III's case, even featured an in-game television screen showing screenshots of the game. It should be noted that both games are still in early stages of development when Tokyo Xanadu was released.
- When getting his soul device, Kou was asked "Do you want power?" by the Twilight Child, no doubt playing on the infamous scene at the end of the first Cold Steel where Valimar asked Rean the same thing but in Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe.
- In Shiori’s friendship event in Chapter 4, Kou is reading a story about a certain red-haired adventurer.
- If you challenged Towa in the Gate of Avalon mini-game, she will mention that one of her friend from college is the creator of it, possibly a reference to Crow as he's a close friend of her Cold Steel incarnation who popularizes Blade which Gate of Avalon is based on.
- Some party members are this to the cast of The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, and some even from other Trails Series games:
- Kou is a high school student who happens to take a lot of part-time jobs after school, like Rean who became an errand boy for Thors' Student Council which became the sources of some of the game's side quests.
- Yuuki is a major shoutout to Jona Sacred from Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure in that both are Computer Wizard/Playful Hackers with extremely similar personalities. They even recycled Terminal Room, which is practically Jona's theme, for use with Yuuki.
- Jun AKA White Shroud also has some similarities with Wazy Hemisphere from The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero as both of them are soft-spoken green-haired pretty boys who are actually powerful Church Militant on secret infiltration missions.
- Towa Kokonoe is identical to Towa Herschel from The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel.
- The arcade at Horaicho has some pretty interesting games:
- They have a game called Gate of Avalon, which is what the card game Blade is called in this universe. Incidentally, in the first Cold Steel, Gate of Avalon is a Blade card game tournament held during the Thor's school festival.
- There's a game called Explosive Fishing with Demon Rean, which features Rean and several popular Erebonian fishing spots. The PS4 and PC version plays identically to the fishing minigame in Cold Steel II
- The arcade also has Pom! Pom! Party! machines. Sadly, those are not playable.
- The claw machine in the arcade is themed after Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure.
- One game at the arcade is Mishy Panic with Magical Girl Alisa, combining characters from both The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure and The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel with one of the minigames from the latter.
- The Show Within a Show Magical Girl Alisa features characters from The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel in a Magical Girl setting.
- One of the sidequests requires Kou to dress up as the town mascot, Morimaru, and do a performance because the regular actor for the character has fallen ill. This is a play-by-play callback to a sidequest in The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure where Lloyd has to dress up as the Mishelam Wonderland mascot, Mishy, and do a performance because the regular actor for the character has fallen ill.
- Cooking Mechanics: There is a wide variety of dishes to cook
, to say nothing of all the different ingredients required for each recipe. Each type of dish can be cooked into a regular dish, a special dish, some sort of non-food item, or something terrible that can either restore an inferior amount of HP than normal or kill you, depending on the skill level of whoever cooks it. - Crate Expectations: Each labyrinth has boxes inside which can be broken to obtain blue energy to heal, yellow energy to recharge your X-Drive gauge, and other additional goodies like consumable items and crafting materials. In fact, part of the final grade you get from completing the labyrinth goes to destroying all of the boxes, and the game gleefully tells you this from the start.
- A Day in the Limelight: Almost all the party members have a Chapter that focuses on them. eX+ also gives them a side-story.
- Sora: Chapter 2 and Side-Story 2
- Yuuki: Chapter 3 and Side-Story 4
- Shio: Chapter 4 and Side-Story 5 (the latter shared with Mitsuki...kind of)
- Asuka: Chapter 5 and Side-Story 3
- Rion: Chapter 6 and Side-Story 6
- Gorou: Chapter 7
- White Shroud: Side-Stories 1 and 5.5.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: The main source of difficulty in the fishing minigame. The screen shows an image of four buttons with one highlighted showing which to press - but they're not in the same order as they are on the controller, so pressing according to position instead of by label will often result in a wrong press and instant failure. Averted in eX+, which changes the screen layout and actually shows the buttons where they would be on a PS4 controllernote
- Dead All Along: Shiori, who died in the earthquake ten years previously. This is actually the reason why the Eclipse was building up in the area, as the local illusion that Shiori survived was coming into ever more conflict with digital proof from outside the region stating that she didn't.
- Degraded Boss:
- Several Elder Greeds become Elite Mooks in later dungeons.
- eX+ has a strange example: an Elite Mook from the last dungeon of the main story was given a Palette Swap and made into a boss for one of the side-stories. So from the perspective of eX+ alone, it is a straight example of this trope (as the side-story is played before the last dungeon), but in a meta-sense, it's Inverted (an Elite Mook got promoted to a boss).
- Disappointed by the Motive: Mikuriya's reason to forcefully summon the Greed Angel out of Rion (which could very well kill her) is apparently because he wanted to gain leverage in future negotiations with the Hokuto group and eventually be accepted as one of the twelve core families in the Zodiac group. X.R.C. in general, and especially Mistuki and Rion in particular, are very disappointed in his reasoning and behavior.
- Disc-One Final Dungeon: The Fortress of False Gods. You split in two groups, complete a long dungeon, and ended with a battle with the "breed" that lurks under the Morimiya City. You did it! But then the White Shroud remarked that he can still feel the presence of "twilight", Kou received an urgent call from Shiori, and another "Hollow Quake" happened. There is still one more chapter to go.
- Disc-One Nuke: The Kitty Fie Plush from the arcade medal shop allows the wearer to resist all status effects, gain 700 max HP, and gain a decent flying attack bonus. It can be obtained as early as Chapter 3 if one is willing to farm medals.
- E = MC Hammer: Subverted in Chapter 1: Towa writes a math problem on the blackboard and asks Asuka to come up and write down her answer. The problem is actually valid, even if mostly meaningless and boring basic algebra textbook exercise, and even appropriate for their class. Asuka's solution is also correct, looking as if copied directly from the same textbook, thus showing that she excels at math.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: In the True Ending, after everything they went through, the main characters managed to bring back Shiori thanks to her being revived by the God-like spirit residing below Morimiya. The ending credit shows us the characters with their friendship stronger than ever and enjoying the happy times. The After-Story in eX+ shows this is meant to be the canon ending, though the XRC has to work even harder to maintain their happy ending because of the Twilight Apostle, who was revived alongside Shiori.
- Elemental Powers: There are 5 attributes, and both characters and enemies are attuned to them, making switching between party members during battle crucial. They are Fire, Spirit, Wind, Steel, and Shadow. Note that the characters attribute is determined by their Master Core (similar to the Master Quartz), meaning that each member of the party can change their attributes by switching out their Master Core. This is divided among the party as such (barring Kou being the only character who can use any of the five):
- Fire: Kou, Shio (Primary), Mitsuki, Gorou (Secondary)
- Spirit: Asuka, Ryouta (Primary), Yuuki, Rion (Secondary)
- Wind: Sora, Rion (Primary), Shio (Secondary)
- Steel: Yuuki, Gorou (Primary), Sora (Secondary)
- Shadow: Mitsuki (Primary), Asuka (Secondary)
- Light: White Shroud (AKA Jun) (Only)
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Fire<Spirit<Steel<Wind<Fire, with Shadow being strong and weak against itself. Note that the menu before each dungeon will tell you the distribution of enemies weak to which attribute, and you can affect your post-dungeon score by getting "Element Kills" achieved from defeating an enemy using their given weakness.
- eX+ throws in Light, which is weak against Shadow and strong against everything else.
- The End... Or Is It?: In eX+ after beating the game, the credits scroll and a final image comes up. Then some text pops up: Tokyo Xanadu is completed. But "eX+" is not completed. To be continued... "After Story". More effective if you play the game without knowing exactly what the eX+ version adds.
- Evolving Title Screen: When the player starts the game, only Kou and Asuka are shown in the title screen, with other playable characters are added as the player progresses through the chapters. The game also adds Ryouta, Shiori, Gorou, and White Shroud after the player completes the Normal End, and changes to a different illustration depicting the X.R.C after the True End is reached.
- Foreshadowing:
- A throwaway line from Kou early in the prologue turns out to be this as it foreshadows Shiori has been Dead All Along.
Kou: She's dead to the world right now, so I guess I'll just carry her home.- Several times, especially during the hot springs intermission episode, it's mentioned about gods watching over Morimiya. This becomes especially important when on the path to the True Ending in eX+ as Nine-Tailed Fox is an ancient god who has been forgotten by Morimiya's people and returns Shiori to life.
- Station square's electronic billboard will occasionally show a slide reading Yumine Morimiya. This doubles as a Bilingual Bonus, as it means Morimiya's Dream, which again ties in to how the City is becoming increasingly disconnected from the reality that Shiori died in the earthquake 10 years ago.
- The existence of the Nine-Tailed Fox was mildly hinted at the Intermission chapter in handful of "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" lines regarding ancient gods underneath Morimiya. In Yuuki's bonding episode at the hot springs has Kou take a picture of Yuuki and a fox-shaped shadow. Later in the Intermission's dungeon, Rem mentioned that she took on the form of a fox because she's borrowing part of the power of something sleeping in the area.
- Funny Background Event: During the Pool Day cutscene at the beginning of Chapter 7, Rion and Shiori have a conversation about Kou, the camera then cuts to a shot of Kou, while behind him Ryouta desperately struggles to tread water and stay afloat in the pool.
- Gender-Equal Ensemble: By the end of the main game, the team has four boys (Kou, Yuuki, Shio and Gorou) and four girls (Asuka, Sora, Mitsuki, Rion). The After-Story campaign adds two more guys (Jun and Ryouta) and two more girls (Shiori and Towa) to the ensemble (though the latter two are Support Party Members).
- Goofy Suit: One sidequest has Kou advertising a summer festival and performing in a commercial while dressed as the town mascot Morimaru.
- Gotta Catch Them All: There are optional sidequests involving the collection of item sets from capsules and arcade games.
- The Greatest Story Never Told: After the Eclipse is dealt with at the end of the final chapter, virtually everyone in the city forgets what happened and believe that the city was just hit by another earthquake.
- Great Offscreen War: The war between the wielder and Greeds 10 years before the current story. Nobody is aware of it except for those with knowledge of Eclipse, which is a result both from agency cover-up as well as the memory wipes after the incident was resolved.
- Group Picture Ending: If you got the True End, the final scene is a photograph one of the main cast. If you complete the after-story, the final scene is a photograph of virtually everybody.
- Halloween Episode: The After Story, taking place after the Epilogue, is set during October 30, one day before Halloween and with preparations under way for a Halloween festival in town.
- Happy Ending Override: In the eX+ version, the After Story chapter is added after the Epilogue/True Ending of the original game. While Shiori was revived due to the Nine-Tailed Fox retconning reality, this also brought back the Twilight Apostle in a much stronger state than when it was fused with Shiori. The Twilight Apostle proceeds to trap the XRC, Shiori, and other NPCs in a fake Morimiya in order to challenge them, and eventually plans on destroying all of reality. While the XRC does manage to beat the Twilight Apostle and save both Shiori and the world, Rem states that they'll eventually have to make a choice again.
- Haunted Castle: Witch's Briar Castle in Chapter 5, which is actually Morimiya Academy transformed into a castle by the Mist Witch.
- The Heartless: The Greeds are a variant of this. While they're not spawned directly from people's negative emotions, they are drawn to people because of it, and will cause further problems for the targeted people in question. However, one type of Greed that definitely plays this trope straight are the Phantom-type Greeds, which are said to be the literal manifestations of dark emotions reaching a critical point. The Elder Greed you fight at the end of Chapter 2 is Sora's senpai Chiaki, who transforms into a Phantom-type Greed as a result of her jealousy and resentment towards Sora getting the better of her.
- Heroic Bystander: Everyone in Morimiya during the Final Chapter. Most of them have no idea what's happening, but they see monsters roaming the streets and they do their damnedest to fight back, get children to safety, and find defensible locations to hole up in. While most of them can't hurt the Greed, they get points for trying, and those with mass-produced Spirit Arms from the military actually manage to push back the attackers.
- Hot Springs Episode: The intermission chapter in-between Chapters 5 and 6 is dedicated to the Morimiya students taking a vacation at the Kamiyama Hot Springs. It's only a breather chapter where you can just interact with party members in friendship events, and it has only one plot-relevant labyrinth to go through.
- Hufflepuff House: The Church of the Holy Spirit and their subsidiary, the Kronos Orden, is stated to the “third pillar” of the Underground along with Nemesis and Zodiac. While one of your part members (Jun) is revealed to be a member who is involved with certain events and their name is mentioned when discussing certain concepts, they mostly stay in the background.
- Inescapable Ambush: Several labyrinths feature rooms that will trap the player inside with barriers, and the only way to escape and proceed further is to kill all of the enemies and/or a miniboss in the area.
- Infinity +1 Sword: The Rainbow Crown accessory is a New Game+ accessory that requires having filled out each and every single character page on NiAR, then talking to Kaoru in the After Story. It not only comes with Lucky Seven stats (77 on every stat, including 77% critical boost), but it also has the benefit of making the wearer immune to all status ailments.
- Interface Spoiler:
- The cards in the Gate of Avalon arcade game display all of the main characters' Soul Devices, including those used by party members who will not officially join until long after Chapter 3 (when the card game is first introduced). Special mention goes to the Blast and Force cards, which display both forms of Gorou's Soul Device, as well as the Bolt card, which displays White Shroud's (aka Jun's) Soul Device. The Mirror card is the odd one out, but still displays a pair of tarot cards and a cane. These are Spirit Arms used by the NPCs Yukino and Old Man Yamaoka respectively in the Final Chapter.
- There's also another one that careful players might notice. Despite being initially introduced as a supporting character, Gorou's picture on NIAR looks suspiciously more detailed and larger than other Non Player Characters (that includes major supporting characters like Shiori, Towa, Jun, and Ryouta), just like the seven playable characters. Turns out he eventually joins the the X.R.C. as the eighth and final party member.
- Invisible to Normals: Normal people who do not have any spiritual connections are unable to perceive the Greeds and the Eclipse. The only exception is when people become the focal point of an Eclipse through various means, and during the Final Chapter when all of Morimiya is pulled into an Eclipse, the people inside it gain the ability to see Greeds in plain sight.
- Japanese Delinquents: The characters Shio, Akihiro and Haruhiko are the only named ones. The first two are plot relevant, with Shio being a party member and Haruhiko being a wannabe. There are also the gangs BLAZE and CHAOS.
- "Just Frame" Bonus: Using the dodge action just before an attack hits the player character will result in the attack being negated while slightly refilling the EX and Drive gauges. Certain elements can extend the invincibility period or increase the amount of gauge filled.
- Keep Circulating the Tapes: In-Universe. There's a magazine you can obtain in the game called "Tokyo Demonic Parade", which goes into in-depth detail about the Eclipse, the Underground, as well as the Kronos Orden, which includes White Shroud. Rem is also briefly mentioned too at the end, but the remaining pages have been torn before it can go into more detail about her. This magazine was recalled by the Japanese government for obvious reasons, so any remaining copies of it are rare. The copy you get is from the pawn shop in Horaichou where the owner is known to be very shady in regards to the Eclipse, so he likely doesn't care if it ends up in civilian hands.
- Keep It Foreign: During an English lesson early in the game, the subtitles in the English version briefly turn into Japanese as Asuka speaks the Japanese version of the line being read.
- Let's Split Up, Gang!: This is done in the final dungeon of Chapter 7, with Kou and Gorou leading one team, and Asuka or Mitsuki leading the other. It's done again for The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, with the party in four pairs of two (one of which is Kou and Asuka).
- Lucky Charms Title: In game, SPiKA's latest single is titled "Wish☆Wing".
- Mecha-Mooks: Some types of Greeds are robots rather than organic monsters, even right down to having serial number-esque names. They'll usually be associated with the Steel element, have electric and laser-based attacks, and some will attempt to self-destruct on you once their health is low enough.
- Metropolis Level: Most of the game takes place in Morimiya City, a fictional district of Tokyo that serves as the main Hub Level. Between going into the Eclipse to defeat the Greeds, you can spend time talking with the residents and helping out with their tasks, as well as bond with Kou's friends. The city is divided into several districts to explore like Morimiya Academy, the Central Square, the vintage Brick Alley, the park, the entertainment district, the mall, and even Morimiya's signature tower. By the final chapter, Morimiya becomes a Dungeon Town as it gets overrun by Greeds after the Princess of Doom awakens.
- Milestone Celebration: An In-Universe example as Chapter 6 reveals that it is the third anniversary of SPiKA's debut.
- Militaries Are Useless: The Aegis Battalion and Valiant Gears, created to respond to Eclipse incidents, prove completely ineffective against them when Gorou deploys them against the "breed."
- Monster of the Week: The story follows a more episodic formula of isolated incidents caused by particular Elder Greeds, with said monsters being the last bosses of each chapter. This goes on until Chapters 5 and 6, where an Arc Villain is introduced to be the cause of the Grim Greeds wreaking havoc in those chapters, and Chapters 7 and 8 put focus into fighting the actual Big Bad.
- The Night That Never Ends: Morimiya is trapped in an eternal night as the Big Bad finally awakens and isolates the city from outside world, which is also indicated by how the calendar just loops back to the previous day when the day is supposed to change. The chapter is even appropriately named "Endless Night".
- New Work, Recycled Graphics: Tokyo Xanadu reuses the same graphics engine as The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, so many game mechanics, assets, and character models from those games are recycled and given a fresh new coat of paint.
- No Communities Were Harmed: The city of Morimiya is based on the real life city of Tachikawa (where Falcom's offices are located), complete with the large plaza and arch from Tachikawa station.
- Noob Cave: The Ruins of Abstraction in Chapter 1. Being the first proper Eclipse labyrinth, it's where Kou (and by extension, the player) learns the ins and outs of labyrinth crawling and combat.
- One-Time Dungeon: The Viridian Path, Amber Waterway, and Frost Demon Path labyrinths in the After Story. They're short and linear dungeons that you only visit once to reunite with the other X.R.C. members after they've been separated. But afterwards, you're unable to revisit them, even from the Eclipse selection menu. Notable in that they're the only dungeons where you don't get graded for your performance at all.
- Otaku: Saburo and Jun, Kou’s classmates, are anime otakus, though the former moreso. A regular at Books Orion, Hiromu, is a train otaku to the point he loves train schedules.
- Palette Swap: For the Switch release, much of the in-universe Company Cross References (such as posters and books) to Falcom’s other games has had their colors swapped.
- Peninsula of Power Leveling: The Ruined Castle of Darkness in eX+. Story-wise, you visit this labyrinth during the Intermission Chapter's side-story as White Shroud and the Armored Soldier, and the dungeon by that point has some very strong and high-leveled enemies. But, should you decide to return here as the X.R.C. in Chapter 6, you'll gain large benefits in level grinding with the higher difficulty involved, since the enemies here give a lot more Experience Points than the enemies of the previous labyrinth (Sacred Land of Eternity). It's possible to jump three-to-five levels ahead of your current expected level in this labyrinth (perhaps even more if you keep doing consecutive runs until Anti-Grinding sets in), which can make the rest of the labyrinths in Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 a breeze.
- Permanently Missable Content: All of the sidequests and friendship events are chapter-exclusive, so it's important to get them done within the chapter's free time as much as possible. Or otherwise, they'll expire and no longer be available. This is especially so with the friendship events because of the limited amount of Affinity Shards you currently have in your possession, so there's no possible way to get them all done in a single playthrough unless you're playing New Game Plus. In addition, some friendship events contain info needed to complete your friends list, which are easy to miss without a proper guide.
- Power Levels: Greed's power levels are classified by a series of types, which imperfectly describe combat power and more specifically correlate to their ability to affect the real world:
- Regular Greed can only exist within and affect the Eclipse.
- Elder Greed can take over and control Eclipses, which can then open on their own and draw people inside. They serve as early level bosses, though they're often relegated to sub-bosses or mooks later on.
- Grim Greed are capable of bringing the Eclipse out into the real world. They start appearing as bosses halfway through the game. The SS-class Grim Greed is fundamentally the same, it's just a much stronger version as well as being the mount for the Princess of Doom.
- XXX Greed (or SSS-class Greed) are powerful beyond classification, and are able to affect all of Japan or the world with their power or Cosmic Retcon the dead back to life...sort of.
- Product Placement: Nanahoshi Mall contains an Animate store, which is a real chain of anime/manga/game merchandise stores.
- Punny Name: SPiKA's name is undoubtedly a wordplay on the word Speaker.
- Rebuff the Amateur:
- Asuka initially wants Kou to stay out of her business and not try to investigate the Eclipse with her. She's an enforcer for Nemesis and prefers to work alone, while Kou has no knowledge of the Underground. He manages to wear her down and get her grudging acceptance, but this trope comes back in full effect in Chapter 5, when Asuka discovers a Greed on a tier higher than anything they've faced before. According to her, a Grim Greed is entirely beyond the rest of the group's skill, and so she puts Kou in a barrier so he doesn't interfere with her defeating it.
- In Chapter 7, when Gorou and the Aegis Battalion intervene, he tells the XRC that they've done great so far, but now that the Breed is active and threatens to cause The Tokyo Fireball, it's time for the adults to take charge and deal with things using Humongous Mecha.
Playtime is over. There is no place for juvenile civilians in our operations. - Reed Richards Is Useless: Subverted. It turns out that a lot of the baseline tech in this world's Japan was developed by the Underground through Eclipse technology. In particular, the baseline technology for the Orbal Network - the setting's Internet - and the Xiphone - smartphone - are based on Nemesis' Eclipse combat tech.
- Required Party Member: All over the place, but one place with a really specific inversion is that you can't have Kou, Gorou, Asuka, and Mitsuki together in Team A when attacking the Fortress of False Gods. This isn't specifically explained in-game; likely, it's because these four have significantly more seniority and experience than the others, and none of the rest would qualify to command the B-team.
- Ret-Gone: Shiori in the Epilogue. With the Greed that had been maintaining the illusion that she survived the Tokyo Earthquake ten years ago gone, only people who could see the Eclipse remembered her more than distantly, as she'd been Dead All Along.
- Reused Character Design: Most of the character models in the game looks familiar, as if they've taken the 2D character designs from the older Trails Series games, flashed them out into 3D models and reused them in the game. If you think Kou kinda looks like Joshua Bright but with brown hair and Sora looks kinda like Kloe Rinz but with cyan hair, you're not going out of your mind. And that's saying nothing about Towa....
- Save Scumming: It's possible to take advantage of save points in dungeons to get the no damage bonus. Though this strategy is more practical on higher difficulties and in dungeons with fewer stage hazards, since it requires running back to the start of the dungeon.
- Sequel Hook: eX+ ends up having one in its After-Story: the Twilight Apostle's last words continue to bother Kou, and all Rem can tell is that yes, she does know the meaning behind them and why all of the events of the game happened in the first place. She leaves after saying that it likely means this is only the beginning, and that whatever may happen could take place in this land or another.
- Shop Fodder: You won't find yen in the Eclipse, but small gemstones from the Eclipse are valuable to the Underground and serve as your main source of income.
- Shout-Out: One of the books found in the library is called "Great Teacher Kinshachi".
- Show Within a Show: Magical Girl Alisa, a very popular show within the Tokyo Xanadu universe. There's some amusing Company Cross References in play as the characters are based on the DLC costumes from The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II, with the two games being made by Falcom.
- Spin-Off: Like it's sibling the Trails Series, this series also spun off from Dragon Slayer.
- Spoiled by the Manual: Some plot-related stuff which are meant to be actual surprises within the game, are spoiled right from the get-go in both the instructions manual, and the art collection booklet that comes packaged with the limited edition of Tokyo Xanadu eX+. Obvious party members aside, some stuff include the Hokuto Group being affiliated with Zodiac, which is meant to be revealed in Chapter 5 as an important plot twist, and the name of the mysterious child Rem, which can make her reveal later in the story less shocking.
- Spoiler Opening: The chapter opening video shows clips of events throughout the entire game, including six of the eventual eight X.R.C. members fighting Eclipses, spoiling the fact that they would eventually gain powers and join the party.
- A Taste of Power: The White Shroud and Armored Soldier's side stories in eX+ are essentially the pair slaughtering their way through Greeds. Compared to the X.R.C., the White Shroud has the Light element that counters all but Shadow on the Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors chain, regenerates health from killing enemies, and has absolutely destructive attacks that hit everything in front of him. This is especially prominent given that the White Shroud's initial playable appearance immediately follows the first chapter's tutorial labyrinth. The White Shroud also doubles as a One-Man Party once they join the party permanently, as he loses none of that power and effectively out-tiers the entire cast.
- Temple of Doom: A good majority of Eclipse labyrinths all take place in a temple or ancient ruins of some kind. So much so, that it's easier to list labyrinths that don't have this level motif.
- This Is a Work of Fiction: The game opens with a disclaimer that "This game is a work of fiction. Outside of specific instances, all places, persons, situations, etceteras are not real and are products of the author's imagination. Because seriously, high school students wielding psychic weapons?!"
- Updated Re Release: Tokyo Xanadu eX+ is an updated version of the original Play Station Vita release. It includes more content than the Vita version, promotes some key NPCs to playable status, adds additional side stories and an after-story, improves the frame rate, and fixes the "Blind Idiot" Translation issues of the previous localization attempt. It is later ported to the Switch, which includes all previous Downloadable Content and includes a high-speed mode found in the Trails games.
- Version-Exclusive Content: Many of the DLC costumes in the PlayStation Vita version are not brought over in the Updated Re-release, remaining as exclusives for that particular version of the game. Likewise, eX+ itself has its own set of DLC costumes that are not available in the Vita version. All of these DLCs would later be included in the Switch port.
- The Very Definitely Final Dungeon:
- Pandora, a.k.a. Acros Tower in Morimiya City in the Final Chapter. It's divided into five sub-labyrinths leading up to the Final Boss.
- In the After Story, it’s the Boundary of Death, the biggest Eclipse Gate opened up in Morimiya. It's filled with Greeds of every element, with many of them being degraded versions of previous bosses.
- Wainscot Society: There are multiple groups dedicated to dealing with and understanding the Eclipse, and sometimes harnessing it for technological development. These groups make up the Underground. The two main organizations are Nemesis; a looser group consisting of scientists and specialized Enforcers, and Zodiac; an alliance of MegaCorp families who want to keep a lid on things and sometimes profit by them. The two groups trade information, technology, and money (much of Nemesis' operating budget comes from licensing tech to Zodiac), but are not precisely allied. There's also a fair number of people in Morimiya who are in the know and involve themselves in trading Eclipse materials and gems, but are not specifically identified with either group. The Xanadu Research Club are likewise unaffiliated, though they include members of both Nemesis and Zodiac, and are able to call on assistance from both. Then there's the Seal Knights of the Kronos Orden, who are separate from the rest of the Underground and are more interested in simply destroying Greed and Eclipse-related phenomena. Zero Battalion Aegis, the Japanese National Defense Force's anti-Eclipse unit, are also separate from the Underground, though they're cooperating with Orden.
- Wham Line: eX+ has the Twilight Apostle utter one as its last words, throwing everyone present for a loop:"You were right. After all, I don't even understand...why I was born...10 years ago."
- World of Technicolor Hair: A few characters (namely Sora, Mitsuki and Rion) have unusual hair colors, but it is never commented on as unusual.
- Would Not Hurt A Child: The members of the BLAZE gang have no problem mugging innocent bystanders, but some NPC dialogue states that they left Tsubasa alone for being a kid.
