My experience is a little different. I disliked Xillia 1 enough that I did essentially nothing but the main story, because a lot of the side stuff was so boring and didn't have any rewards I cared about. As a result some of these areas in Xillia 2 feel unfamiliar to me, even if they were in the first game.
On one hand, so far the main chapters usually feature more new places than old ones, and I'm not doing any of the character episodes until later, so what I go through on that front is pretty reasonable and makes the game feel new. On the other, the debt at the end of chapters is a little annoying though, and it heavily emphasizes running through Rieze Maxia, so it feels boring and repetitive. I usually just kill Giganto Monsters until it's paid off. It's not so much that it's difficult, it's just a little awkward to hit a wall like this after every chapter.
That aside, I think I'm still finding what the game offers as a whole more interesting than the overall experience provided in Vesperia, Graces, Innocence, Hearts, or Xillia, to place it among this generation of Tales games. The game feels kind of...refreshing, in a way. By time I got to Xillia, I think I started to get burnt out on the series and they started to feel too samey, particularly with their worlds and storylines, and it's almost to the point where not even the battle systems are enough to hold my attention. Xillia 2 still has that issue to some degree, but the locations it features (particularly the technology, clothing styles, and architecture of these places), the way it portrays some of the characters, and the story progression keep me more involved and interested. It's not really breaking new ground for games in general, but for Tales it's a change of pace that I think the series could use. Like, some of the usual Tales tropes are still present, but what makes it different from a lot of Tales games to me is that a lot of the tropes aren't a part of the core storyline of the game, and instead centered around the individual characters to whom it matters most. Like they could have just thrown together some typical Tales story where the main theme is about Origin and how people's use of energy is affecting the world, or one about the conflict between Elympiosans and Rieze Maxians, or even something about the importance of having close friends, but instead they've centered those topics around individual characters like Jude or Gaius, while the main story focuses on something that's more unique within the scope of the series.
It has some really odd ideas that dampen the experience, and I really wish they weren't there, but I also think it's doing a few things that brings the series out of its comfort zone, and/or could really be beneficial to the series in future entries. Two things in particular I really like are the existence of a very involved and detailed quest chain for each character, and the game essentially going into free roam mode after each chapter and giving you time to take a break and focus on new sidequests that show up. The first because I think it's something that's really beneficial for a character-focused series like Tales, and the second because Tales games have so much content spread around that they really needed to do something to make finding and completing them more efficient and accessible to players.
It's pretty clunky, but I also feel like the series has been on auto-pilot in many ways for several games now, so the clunkiness is rather welcome. At least for now. Hopefully they recognize what works, what doesn't work, and what doesn't work now but could work if they made some refinements, and use that knowledge in future games.
'. And everyone's fine with that. Really? I ended up feeling sympathetic towards Bisley, much as I hated what he did using Elle it was amazing how little anyone else seemed bothered by what all the Crusniks had to go through (you've collected them all? Congratulations, now go kill someone, just because.) because of how the whole thing was set up. Ludger just didn't get a break, not one.
