Tales of Xillia is the thirteenth core game in the Tales of series and the first to be specifically developed for the PS3. Originally released in Japan in 2011, it finally received a Western localisation in 2013 thanks to the success of Tales of Graces f. The battle system is familiar to players of previous Tales games, this time around it is called the Dual Raid Linear Motion Battle System. The amount of moves are restricted by your Assault Counter, for example, a counter of "5" means you can use five moves consecutively before you have to pause for a brief bit to regain the points again. Magic is called Artes, which are activated by pressing circle and a movement of the left stick. Artes use up Technical Points, in addition to the Assault Counter. The new addition here are the linked artes in which you can pair with another character to get benefits. Linking with another character allows you to stop other monsters from attacking you from behind, character specific abilities (such as Milla's bind which paralyzes monsters or Alvin's guard break, which can break a monster's guard) and the flashy linked artes.
Linked artes can be used when a gauge on the left side of the screen fills up. They are more powerful than normal moves and involves both characters (Mystic Artes still exist but are slightly harder to execute compared to past games). Once the gauge completely fills you can go into overlimit which allows rapid chaining of linked artes which looks amazing. The other three characters in your party will be controlled by AI. You have some input through the form of Strategies. It's a basic system in which your decide on the behavior of your parties members such as prioritizing healing or defeating weaker monsters first. Your AI can automatically use items through a "If, Then" condition which you pre-populate. It's a simple and effective system. You may freely switch between characters during battle as well as swapping party members in and out on the fly. This allows much more versatility meaning you're never trapped with a fixed party during boss battles.
Thanks to all the constant special effects, especially near the end of the game, battle lag can happen and it's actually quite annoying when there is a slight delay in your inputting the button and your character executing it. Cooking makes a comeback although it is nowhere near as involves or strategic as Tales of Graces f. You just have to purchase food, use it and the effects will come into play. Effects range from increased attack power to restoring HP at the end of every battle. A neat thing about newer JRPGs is the non-random battles. Enemies roam the battlefield and you can choose to avoid or fight. Once you're in contact with an enemy it transitions to the battle screen. Transitioning can take a few seconds the first time you're on a map but any encounters afterwards has a quick transition. The leveling up system is great, you gain experience points per normal but the stats raising system is called the Lillium Orb.
The Lillium Orb allows you the freedom of choosing what you want to raise and when to learn new moves and skills, to a certain extent. It is still fairly linear as you need to raise a certain amount of each layer (shaped in a hexagon with a number of orbs in each line) in order to unlock the next layer. It reminds me of the Crystarium system from Final Fantasy XIII but much better and having more freedom. To be honest, the graphics are very average. It is not horrible and it achieves the objective of playing an anime but you wish that the detailing was slightly better or things not looking as flat as they are. Hair in particular doesn't look that great, they usually move in chunks which looks awkward. Clipping often happens. Lip syncing isn't the best since the mouths move based off the original Japanese script. However, I don't find the voice actors to be that bad.
Exploring is heaps of fun here. Map sizes are huge, while the game still dictates you move from this point to the next, the maps allows a lot of exploration. You can return to an area to find out that you actually missed a whole piece that you didn't explore when you first ran through it! The fact that the camera can be controlled is welcomed here. Maps also add a bit of verticality with many places allowing you to climb up to different elevations of height. This means what originally appears as a tiny space is actually a huge area with many levels. On the other hand, these areas are filled to the brim with roaming enemies who respawn frequently, this gets quite annoying. Towns are fun to explore and contain what you would expect. At least they are quite varied in terms of themes, the first town is one in perpetual twilight with a more down to earth and urban feel while later towns has a bright colorful palette out in the countryside. Sadly, there are a significant amount of pop-in which is ridiculous but it could be a byproduct of the extremely short load times.
The story isn't the most captivating and at times it feels bland and boring. It drags on for a bit and in true JRPG fashion, there are some events that could be cut out and still wouldn't have affected anything. That said, there were a fair few moments where it was touching or exciting. The humor isn't as apparent here though and this lack of funniness is what really causes the story to drag. A lot of the skits and the end-battle dialogue isn't funny (as in the writers did not try very hard), which makes them more of a chore. In general, after you get past Chapter One, the story picks up. Sure, there will still be some annoying characters such as Ivar and Alvin (who redeems himself in the end). Also, just when you thought the story was about to reach its finale, something unexpected comes up and blows it out of the water.
One thing that is obvious is that due to the two viewpoints (you either pick Jude or Milla as the character to play through), party members frequently leave and rejoin, making it annoying once you've got your preferred party. While both of the stories share a huge amount of content which are exactly the same, each has a few unique dungeons, story moments and bosses. Once you've cleared one story though, you can play the other through the New Game Plus which allows you to carryover stats as well as purchase bonuses through the Grade system (which are points you earn through in-game achievements). The story is told via cutscenes that are usually rendered with the in-game engine. Occasionally, anime cutscenes appear and these are fantastic and beautiful. They've very rare in the first three quarters of the game but frequently appear near the end.
In additional to the meaty story, there are sidequests which are called sub-events in this game. This includes from just cutscenes to fetch quests and battling specific monsters. A number of them add in sidestories which makes them more interesting to play through and adds a significant amount of game time. All this amounts to a long game, it took me 60 hours on my first playthrough, which includes completing all areas and sidequests. Instead of going with the tradition of "new town, new equipment", all the shops share the same inventory list. The difference is that you use monster drops to increase Shop Levels. Increasing the levels will equate to either new items to purchase or cheaper existing system, this makes it addictive and difficult sometimes to pick between getting the discounted equipment or the newly unlocked expensive equipment. Tales of Xillia is a solid JRPG that keeps the spirit and mechanics of the genre. It's not the best Tales game due to the average story but the game mechanics are solid. The combat system is a blast to play, environments are suitably huge and encourages exploration. Recommended if you're itching for a classic JRPG.
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