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Game Title: Tales of Xillia
Platform: PlayStation 3
Developer: Namco Tales Studio
Publisher: Bandai Namco Games
Genre: Role Playing
Age Rating: CERO: B, ESRB: T for Teen, PEGI: 16+
Release Date: September 8th 2011 (Japan), August 6th 2013 (North America), August 9th 2013 (Europe and Australia)
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Game Score: 8.5/10
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Summery:
Tales of Xillia does an excellent job of crafting an enjoyable battle system alongside it's amazing story, soundtrack and improved content from previous games.
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After the acceptance and popularity of Tales of the Abyss on the Nintendo 3DS and Tales of Graces F on the PlayStation 3 in the west, recent reports show that western fans are finally able to play some of the latest entries that they have been following for some time. Tales of Xillia finally arrives in America, Europe and Australia and it's sequel Tales of Xillia 2 has been announced for it's state side release in August 2014. It has been ever since 2011 that the game originally released came out in Japan and fans should be pleased to be able to play the game at long last after a long 2 year wait, thankfully it was worth it.
Tales of Xillia starts the player of in putting control of one of two leading main characters, Jude Mathis a young medical student who is efficient in Martial Arts and Milla Maxwell the Lord of the Spirits who uses her Sword alongside her ability to use magic and also use her Summon Spirits at the start of the game. Various Kingdoms around the world of Rieza Maxia plan to use a Spirix powered weapon known as the Lance of Kresnik to drain the power of the spirits and destroy the world. Along the way the two heroes meet other characters like the freelance mercenary Alvin, an old but famous tactician Rowan, Leia an energetic girl who studied marital arts with Jude and lastly you have Elize a young depressed girl with a hilariously talking doll named Teepo. All I can say is that you wouldn't want to ever mess with Teepo otherwise it will either mock you or possibly chomp your face off and I seriously find it just funny when Teepo latches onto Jude's face. Allowing the player to pick Jude's or Milla's points of view during the storyline is a nice touch much like in Star Ocean The Second Story as it allows you to see some exclusive events that's been given to them. It also allows for replay value to be able to see everything that the storyline has to offer, regards the storyline develops the same way with only little differences. The script is written well and the English Dub acting is solid for the most part but Milla Maxwell's voice is somewhat on par with Tales of Graces English acting but not as terrible. I do feel that Milla's voice level is delivered in a few cutscenes but mostly the battles. However sometimes her voice seems somewhat lazy which tries to ruin a bit of her solid character building that she builds over the course of the game. I will say that Milla is a much better leading female character then Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII and for me that's saying quite a bit. The Tales Franchise is known of it's skit sequences and while it returns to the square box format, it fleshes out the storyline which puts the player on track to your next objective and humorous events between the characters. They are still fully voiced as with other games in series. Tales of Xillia's story gets on well to very great start introducing the world and the characters till then you'll then be hit with some new major plot twist that will leave your head spinning.
One of the most important aspect of Tales of Xillia that is different from other Tales Games is the gameplay perspective on the field map. It utilizes a behind the back Third Person perspective with players exploring very large interconnected environments which to me is similar to Final Fantasy XII and XIII but it is executed much better. The areas are vast and very explorable as each area now has various loot and treasure that are hidden around for you to unearth and now you can crawl underneath or climb up surfaces. It gives the game an open world feel without making the game feel strictly linear. Side quests have improved from Tales of Graces, they are much easier to accomplish and keep somewhat track of, you'll still fail if you advance to far into the story. Some sidequests relate to interacting with NPCs that explain about the world to the party members while others are requests ranging from typical fetch quests or defeating a group of monsters in a targeted location which are quite fun. A new feature is that there's a wrapping feature which can allows to return to previous locations easily to cut down on the back tracking, I find myself using this feature for sidequests and grind a lot.
Tales of Xillia keeps true to the formula of the series but there are new tweaks, in stores they will not sell any new items as you go through the game, instead you'll need to donate raw materials, gald or purchase items to increase a shops level unlocking more stuff to buy. There are 5 different shops ranging from Item Shops, Weapon Shops, Armour Shops, Accessory Shops and Food Shops. You may think this could actually make the game to easy if you relay on using the same shops for grinding but it becomes very necessary in dealing with a lot of harder encounters later on, or if you are playing the game on harder difficulties. All the items and equipment you purchase in the game serve their purpose but utilizing food is a bit different, instead of actually cooking you purchase meals and activating them unleashes various effects such as increased stats, recover HP or TP after battle or increased EXP or Gald. These meals become very useful when you spend time grinding.
A new unlockable feature is attachments which you place on your characters, each piece is ranged from different ears, wings, back packs, glasses and tails. Many of these can be found in treasures and completing sidequests alongside a sub costume or two while others like Sword Sheaths to costumes such as the Cameo clothing or the infamous Swimsuits are bought as DLC and that is because there isn't any costume events in the game, aside for one for Milla and Alvin. You change the character costume, hair style and adjust the size and position of the attachments on your party members as you see fit.
Like all other Tales games the battles take place in real time and can be started by touching an enemy on the field map plus the ambushes and advantage encounters return. All the basic combat instructions from using basic attacks, Arte abilities and free movement is present with ability to set up the controls for all 4 players. The battle system in Tales of Xillia is called the Dual Raid Linear Motion Battle System where the player has only direct of one character while all your other members are controlled by the AI. Players are still able to plug in extra controllers to have friends join in locally but Tales of Xillia adds extra to the combat to keep it fresh without players relaying too much on reckless button mashing. There's an AC (Assault Counter) meter which depletes by 1 every time you use an attack but also the TP bar has returned in which you need to watch the two meters when attacking, good thing also is that AC meter fills instantly when not attacking. Xillia later introduces a Linking system where you can link up with another party member using the D-Pad, a linked partner will provide cover or flank the enemy giving the player strategy over the monsters. Eventually you'll get into advanced skills that the player and the linked partner can use, for example Jude can restore a party member who gets knocked down as well as sliding to get behind an enemy after dodging or Milla can hold an enemy in it's place and as well summon her spirits as I already mentioned. However things can get a bit complicated when you start pulling off powerful Unison Attacks as well as being able to chain them together and pull off powerful attacks known as Mystic Artes. Thankfully as you go through the game you'll get simple tutorials that explain what to do and you can read them any time you want to refresh. The magical elements are now able to cause different status effects but poison does the same thing but now fire spells cause burn effect The Linear Motion Battle System always keeps the battles very engaging especially against tense boss battles later on and it's like other games it's important to grind for EXP and Gald to survive later encounters. If you ever begin to think the battles in Tales of Xillia are a bit to easy, you can turn the difficulty to hard if you ever wish.
Tales of Xillia's cell shaded graphics give out an authentic animé style feel with both series artists Kosuke Fujishima and Mutsumi Inomota work together to design the characters. The environments in the game are outstanding comprising of various dark forests, mountain paths and complex fortresses. Although the character models do show off a bit of age as character attachments can be clipped through and when the character sheath their weapons away they just simply disappear. Every now and then the game will unleash an anime cutscene which are quite nice. The game however suffers from some very strange pop up issues, you'll enter a town that's empty of human life only to have NPC's and objects appearing over the next several seconds. It's an issue that occurs so frequently that it becomes somewhat creepy from the otherwise impressive looking game that may feel outdated by more recent RPGs, considering that this was a 2011 game that got released in the west for 2013.
The soundtrack in the game composed by Motoi Sakuraba is one of the best soundtracks heard for a Tales game with its calming tunes in the town towards tense and drama tunes during some of the cutscenes. Many of the tunes are so memorable like for example the tune in Fennmont or the one that plays in the Final Dungeon. Most of the voice acting I already mentioned is mixed as voiced cutscenes and skits are well done but one little thing the designers have added is a small chatter whilst walking around the environments. Some of the chatter comes from the environments you explore but however many others relate to certain character situation. It's great to hear only for a time but when characters consistently mourn that they are not participating in battles or if players forgot to utilize food it starts to become very annoying.
Dispute the graphical issues and the sometimes annoying character remainders but however Tales of Xillia is an overall improvement from Tales of Graces and it does feel on par with Tales of Vesperia. It's a game that should be well loved by fans for the excellent job of crafting an enjoyable battle system alongside it's amazing story, soundtrack and improved content from previous games. If you've been disappointed with Square Enix's more recent and disappointing Final Fantasy XIII and XIV titles and if you want any other PS3 J-RPG choices aside from Ni no Kuni then Tales of Xillia is well worth the money for over 40 to 80 + hours of playing through one of the two campaigns from what the game offers. Hopefully in the future we can expect to see some future titles in the series over in the west, since it has been a long while that other games haven't had a faithful chance of get noticed in English. Combine this with Tales of the Abyss on 3DS and Tales of Graces on PS3, Tales of Xillia is making the franchise shine brighter then most other J-RPGs in the most recent years.
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The Good Points:
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1. Improved Side Quests allowing for easy access
2. Enjoyable Battle System with plenty of new tweaks and mechanics with 4 player support
3. Two Character choices adds plenty of replay value and motivation to see what the story has
4. Instant wrapping helps cut down on the relentless backtracking
5. Best Soundtrack for a Tales game, ever
The Bad Points:
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1. Some graphical pop up issues in towns
2. Character remainders start to get a little annoying after a few times hearing them
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Reviewed by: Anthony Hayball (AQWBlaZer91)
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