Obviously, we had plenty of lore-dense JRPGs before that, but starting with consoles like the PS3, these games could start putting their settings in much clearer focus. See, residents of Oliver’s world have a “soulmate” in the other world, another individual with whom they share an invisible, inexorable link. XIII comes out swinging with a lot of high-concept world setting and proper nouns, from the floating world of Cocoon above the planet of Gran Pulse to the fal'Cie that govern both. A lot of it is kind of incomprehensible at the start, but that’s also thematically appropriate for Lightning and the party. Case in point, while Tales of Xillia doesn’t necessarily use the dual world thing, it does follow a very similar pattern in how it develops its world.