REVIEW - Tales of Xillia (2013)

Ahhh the good old Japanese Role Playing Game. There's something about them that just really appeals to me. Whether it's the rewarding experience of seeing your character growing stronger as time passes on or the complex plotlines or the beautiful graphics, it's some one of those that made games like The Last Story. Final Fantasy VII and Dragon Quest VIII so memorable to me. Today's game is special as it's also my pick for 2013 Game of the Year.

Namco's incredible Tales of Xillia, an exclusive for the PlayStation 3.

Tales of Xillia takes place in the magical realm of Rieze Maxia, a place where humans and spirits live in harmony. Human's have been researching into finding some way of using spirit's artes without using up their mana with the use of a device called a Spyrix. A Spyrix however is dangerous to spirits, and so, the lord of spirits itself is taking action. Enter Milla Maxwell, a "busty twenty year old" who is the human incarnation of the Lord of Spirits, Maxwell. In the country of Rashugal, the king has been experimenting on his own members of public with spyrix technology, effectively killing the population, and Milla finds herself going to the capital to stop them. Enter Jude Mathis, an honours medical student who stumbles upon Milla's raid of the Fennmont Research Laboratory where all these experiments are being conducted. The 60+ hour journey that Milla accidentally brings Jude on is one of trust, friendship, slight romance and growth. It's a basic save the world plot sure, but the characters save it from being flat. Teepo - while annoying at times - can be really funny and Alvin is pretty interesting too. It's unique and has a very diverse cast of characters.

Tales of Xillia is your typical JRPG. You explore a huge fantasy world collecting items, looting chests, talking to townsfolk and battling monsters to gain EXP and level up. What sets it apart though is it's battle system and it's level system. Battle's are triggered when you walk into an enemy on the field. The battles in Tales of Xillia take place in real time compared to the standard menu driven systems in traditional JRPG's. You can also be any member of the party, although this must be assigned before battle in the menu. In battle, characters must work together to beat enemies by linking together. When linked, they can use Linked Spirit Artes and Chain Linked Spirit Artes, which are really powerful attacks. The best thing about this system is that you can choose who you want to fight in the party and switch them out mid battle at any time and you can choose who you can be linked with at any time too. This allows for an amazingly fast paced battle system (some battles taking as quick as 3 seconds) with a lot of tactical precision needed and strategy too.

Leveling is different thanks to the Lillium Orb mechanic. Characters still gain EXP like a traditional JRPG (even if they didn't participate in battle) but when they level up, the gain around 3-4 GP. GP is then used in the Lillium Orb to increase certain attributes such as Intelligence, Agility, Max HP and so on. While this may seem extremely customizable, it's actually very linear as you're being led along a grid to unlock skills as you go along leveling attributes. It's like the Sphere Grid in Final Fantasy X or the Crystarium in Final Fantasy XIII/XIII-2.

Graphically, Tales of Xillia employs an Anime-esque art style that fits the game really well. Environments are not very detailed but have character and charm to them. The animated cutscenes are jaw droppingly gorgeous and characters - while some are bizarrely designed - are nicely made up with some nice fashion too. The game's framerate stays at 30FPS outside battles and maintains a solid 60 FPS in them, making it a bit inconsistent but I don't mind that too much. Battles are well animated and flashy and over the top, but that's expected from a JRPG, especially a Tales of game.

In the sound department, the game sounds absolutely astounding. From atmospheric guitar piece to dreary dungeon themes to fast paced battle music to some incredible overworld music, Tales of Xillia offers an extremely diverse and high quality soundtrack well worthy of putting on your iPod. The voice acting is pretty good, the only character I have a gripe with though is Milla Maxwell. No offense to the lady that played her, she did a fine job, but did Namco seriously have to hire somebody with a Lisp to play Milla? Just a nit pick but still...

Overall, Tales of Xillia does a damn good job at what it does, and that's being a stellar JRPG. Sure, it's not perfect, but compared to other games I played this year (GTA V, The Last of Us and Tomb Raider), Tales of Xillia just impresses me that little bit more than any of them (yes, even more than Last of Us.). It's flawed, but it's still a really damn good RPG. If you liked any other games in the series, play this one. I can't wait for the sequel next year!

Story: 9
Gameplay: 9
Graphics: 9.5
Sound: 10
Personal Enjoyment: 10

FINAL SCORE FOR TALES OF XILLIA: 9.5/10