Archview #58: Tales of Xillia

 For a 15th year celebration, it could've been so much more.

 Tales of Xillia prides itself as the celebration of 'Tales of" 15th year anniversary game. It doesn't mean it's a crossover game, as most games in the series, it's a stand alone game, although it had a sequel in Japan that's coming over next year.
 For a series first, you have to choose a main character, Jude or Milla. Altough you can play as any character during the playthrough, the main character decides the point of view the game will take, and you will also have a couple of different events when they split up. You don't really need to play as both characters, while the compliment and flesh each other out, most stuff is conveyed to the rest of the characters when they meet up.

 The game takes place in the world of Rieze Maxia, a world where people and spirits coexist and have symbiotic relationship, where both parts help each other. As per usual, someone is trying to break the balance and abuse spirits, so Maxwell; Lord of Spirits; won't stand for that. He takes human form and decides to protect the sprits from the greedy humans, and along the way he meets up with Jude and together they set out on a journey that will take them all around the world and beyond. The story is very typical JRPG stuff, you will see most twists coming, but side-events really flesh out the world and it's characters, which is pretty cool. Speaking of characters, if you've ever played a Tales of game before, they will seem very similar. Most characters share various traits from previous games casts, so they actually feel a little samey at their most basic.
 The gameplay is, in my opinion, the best a Tales of has ever had. Combat has 4 of your characters against the various enemies. It takes place in real time, so while you take control of 1 of them, the CPU controls the other 3. The game allows you to customize how they will behave during battle, so they rarely get in the way. You can also swap any character that's battling for one the characters that are on the bench at any time during a battle. They reintroduce the CC from Graces F, but now it's called AC, although it functions roughly in the same way. The AC gauge is what limits the amount of stuff you can pull off before you character stops attacking, and unlike Graces' CC, it fully recharges a second after you stop attacking. By pressing the X button mixed with different direction on the analog stick, you perform normal attacks that only consume AC. The Circle button performs your Artes, which double as special attacks and spells depending on the character, and consume both AC and TP, which is basically mana. Characters usually have a big pool of artes, so you can have to set them up on 'Circle+Up', 'Circle+sides', 'Circle+down' and 'Circle' shortcuts, although you can change them at any time, even during combat. The newest addition to the combat is Linking. You can link with any of the 3 other companions that are on the battlefield at any time, and linking produces many benefits, among them, sharing the TP cost of artes between both parts. Each Link partner also has his or her own special gimmick, Alvin, for example, breaks the guards of guarding enemies. Linking also allows you to mix Artes between characters for even stronger attacks, and is the only way to enter Overlimit mode, which grants you infinite AC for a short while.

 While not battling, you'll be exploring the many towns of Rieze Maxia. Just like Graces, there's no overworld, instead, every town and dungeon are connected either by boat or by road, and pretty early in the game you unlock "Free travel", that allows you to warp to any previously visited location on the fly. Roads tend to be very wide areas filled with enemies, touching one gets you into combat, so you can avoid them at will. While it's very colorful, areas also filled very barren, with very few distinguishing landmarks, and feel more like arenas filled with monsters. Dungeons are very linear, with few puzzles, and while not necessarily a bad thing, the final and the secret dungeons where quite a disappointment, when compared to previous Tales of games, definitely showing how rushed the game was. Towns don't fare much better, while they are beautiful to look at, they are a bit on the small side. The worst offenders are the seahavens, they all look exactly the same, even though it's fairly obvious that it was meant to fit the town of Leronde.
 One thing that did not sit well with me was the shops. Instead of each shop having it's own shops, there's a "Expand" system in place. Y'see, throughout the land you will find shiny dots that conceal materials. Monsters also drop materials. While in Graces you could either sell them or use them to craft stronger weapons or items, here they can only be sold or donated. You donate materials to the shops in order to expand their inventory. One of the things I love the most in RPGs, is when discovering new towns, to go straight to the shops for new equipment that's only available there, that feeling? It's now gone, as every shop is the same, regardless of where you are. This also makes it very easy to break the game. The game is quite easy on it's Normal difficulty, and soon enough you'll be able to tackle high level monsters. It won't be easy, but one of the earliest towns has a road to a high level area. This area also has high-level materials, so you can overlevel both you characters and the shops.

 Titles, which are usually a bit important on Tales of games, have also been changed up. Each character doesn't have titles, instead, they behave more as achievements, and they take the place of "Grade", which is used to buy benefits for your New Game+. Leveling up is also a bit different, when you level up, instead of gaining preset stat increases, you get points to spend in the "Lillium Orb". Each character has basically the same Orb, and there you can choose which stats to increase, filling certain slots also gets you new Artes or passive skills. Last gameplay-related thing worth mentioning is that you can now move the camera anytime, anywhere, and it feels good.
 Visually, it's a very colorful game, and it has some grandiose vistas, sadly, most of them are merely backgrounds, as hidden walls limit where you can and can't go. The game also relies on the classic stock animations, you know, for example Jude has a "thinking" pose whenever he is supposed to be thinking. While it is reminiscent of classic RPGs, it also feels a teeny bit lazy. Less forgivable is the amount of pop-up present in towns, sometimes you'll just see people pop up a couple of seconds after it finished loading. There is also quite a bit of slowdown on certain battles. Music is really good, and the voice acting was phenomenal. While some people seem to dislike Milla's voice, I felt she was fine, not the strongest performance, but not bad.
 Tales of Xillia is not a bad game. But it was very rushed and it shows, even in it's length, being shorter than your typical Tales of game. And as many shortcomings as it has, it also has, in my opinion, the best battle system Tales has ever had, and that's gotta be worth something. Right?
 7 out of 10.