Tales of Xillia was originally released on the PlayStation 3 in Japan by Namco way back in September 2011. After a positive reception there it finally made its way to the rest of the world this month and I’m glad it did because it is a welcome addition to the Tales series.
You can take on the role of Jude, a medical student who gets wrapped up in a sinister plot when he goes looking for his professor or Milla, a woman who controls the four great spirits of the world. I chose Milla for my playthrough. There has been criticism over her voice actor and emotionless personality but I found this suited her character as you are essentially playing the role of a God among humans who gradually opens up to her feelings as the story progresses. While playing I did get the impression that the story was really intended to be told from Jude’s point of view as it did tend to focus on how he was reacting to developments in the plot and Milla herself. There were times when blanks in the story weren’t really filled in either, to see everything you’d need to play the game a second time as the other character (trophy hunters you’ll need to do this too if you want a platinum). The plot isn’t particularly special but there are some twists and enough developments throughout it to keep you interested. What I did find were one too many ‘Eastenders’ moments where Milla would try to talk to Jude on multiple occasions but get slightly interrupted and agree to talk again later but never seemed to get the opportunity.
The music didn’t stand out really until halfway through the game where it suddenly gets a more jazz/blues vibe. The battle music changes at this point too, improving it but not changing the style too drastically so it still feels familiar.
As with all ‘Tales’ games the anime art style is back and so are some great animated cutscenes. I appreciate these kind of animated cut scenes more than CGI ones and at this stage they must be cheaper to produce so I would like to see more of them. For scenes that aren’t animated you can still find ways to enjoy them yourself as the prop pieces Tales fans would be familiar with are back. As you complete certain side quests you get items such as sunglasses, side burns and hats that can you put on your characters. Serious discussions are always better with an old man wearing shady black sunglasses joined by mercenary wearing aviators and a little girl with a party hat, or you can go all out and give them a dog tail or a halo, the combinations are up to you depending on what you have been rewarded with from side quests.
These side missions and sub events take place all throughout the game. Some centre on a particular part of the story and can be missed, others only become available to you after you have completed the entire game. Rather than giving you all your data from your previous playthrough, the ‘new game plus’ grades how you’ve played with points and allows you to spend these points ‘buying’ what you want to be carried over, so you likely won’t be able to bring everything with you the second time you play.
Another ‘Tales’ series staple that returns are the skits. While walking around you will be given the option in bottom corner of the screen to sometimes view short conversations between your group of characters. These are a fun way of seeing them interact with each other over silly topics or finding out extra bits of their personalities. They can relate to the main story, hint at sub events or just be idle chat. This is an excellent way of relating more to the characters you are controlling as you see a more human side to them here than anywhere else in the game. It’s a wonder other games don’t have something similar. The characters will talk over battles or as you run around the world too but this can become annoying as phrases are repeated, for example you are encouraged to always swap your party members around and if someone isn’t being used they will regularly complain about it with the same line, over and over. Another repetitive phrase is every town you go into with shops will ALWAYS have an invisible man shouting “Mutton! Fresh mutton!” You will never see this mutton seller, but you will hear him every time you enter a market area, no matter what part of the world you’re in.
What impressed me with the towns is how Tales of Xillia handled the upgrades of weapons, armour and other items. Rather than getting access to new equipment every time you went to a new town, you were given the option from the start of expanding the shops yourself through donations. By donating gald or items found in fights and on the world map you upgraded the shops which meant they could get new equipment in and give you discounts on the old equipment. This means you can potentially have very powerful gear early on depending on how much time you put into collecting items or gald to donate. There is customisation when upgrading your characters too, rather than automatically gaining strength and health points when you level up you get GP. This is spent on attributes on your lillium orb. It resembles a spider’s web and reminded me somewhat of the system in Final Fantasy X. You go along the lines selecting what to upgrade so your characters can be as balanced or as specialised as you like.
After sorting out your abilities and gear you’re ready to fight. Monsters appear on screen and you can outrun almost all of them if you want which means if you’re in a hurry to continue the story you won’t get caught having to go through many fights unless you want to…and really you will want to as its where the fun is at. The further you get in the game the more fighting options become available to you meaning instead of getting stale it gets more interesting.
The battle system in Tales of Xillia is so entertaining. You can take control of any of the characters in real time and customise every button to any attack at your disposal. Later on you have access to an additional eight moves in battle adding another layer to how you fight. There is a new link system which lets you connect to one of your party members meaning you fight closer together to support each other and can perform special linked attacks for greater effect. The fights also give you the option of four player local co-op, though this will mean you can’t link. I have no complaints for my AI partners, you can take control of any of them yourself if you want to use a specific move or item but I found them very good for supporting me and bringing me back to life or healing me so I left them to their own devices most of the time. At first glance the fights are very fast paced and hectic but you are introduced to them gently. Tutorials don’t bombard you at the beginning; rather as the situation requires it you are given the relevant information. For example when you are first stunned or paralysed by an enemy only then are the effects explained to you. This is a much more user friendly explanation rather than being given a ream of text to go through at the start of the game and likely not remembering most of it.
If you have played a Tales game before and didn’t like it then you’re not going to feel differently about Tales of Xillia. This series uses the Nintendo approach of just adding to an already successful formula rather than trying to change the format altogether. So if you’ve previously enjoyed a Tales game you will definitely want to play Tales of Xillia. Personally I preferred it to the much talked about Ni No Kuni, the battle systems is leaps and bounds ahead of it and there are more animated scenes to be found in Tales of Xillia than Ni No Kuni, a game so strongly tied to the animation powerhouse Studio Ghibli.
Tales of Xillia 2 is already out in Japan since 2012 and it has recently been announced that this too will be getting a western release sometime in 2014. If you enjoy Tales of Xillia as I did, you can be happy in the knowledge that we will be getting our hands on it’s sequel.