Tales of Xillia - The Games I've Played

Tales of ____ games have always been a favorite of mine. They're inventive, they have funny story lines, the characters are always unique, but for some reason I feel like they're only getting smaller and smaller, the more that they come out.

Tales of Destiny, Tales of Symphonia, and even Tales of Abyss had over world that you had to walk through and you had an entire world (or two (spoilers!)) to walk through. There were world(s) to walk through, explore, and the story line was just as huge. Xillia, on the other hand, is having a hard time convincing me that it takes up an entire continent and by the time it finally gets to the secondary place (spoiler again, but come on, all Tales games run the same story line, there's always a second world, a second place, or something like that, they don't change the story elements THAT much between games) the story is almost over and there's almost nothing left to do, and on that note, the second world is TINY. 

Sure, they might reference how it's an entire world, and how huge it is, but the parts that you actually get to see, and where you can go to, is super-duper small. Even when comparing it against the first world that you start out in, the second world is a list of one town, three dungeons, and two fields that connect everything together. At least in the other games things are balanced and there is equal time and attention spent on both places, but in this one. . . not so much.

I'm all for the Tales crew doing their thing and mixing things up, and in Tales of Xillia, honestly things are pretty mixed up compared to the normal standards, there's references to the other games, shout outs to everything that they've done, and it keeps things in line with the series, and it's a great addition to the series, but there are a few weird choices that they chose to make.

First, throughout ALL of the Tales games, there are certain things that are cannon. For example, gnome is always the earth elemental summon, ALWAYS. There's also always a person named Maxwell. Sometimes Maxwell is a super big part of the story, and other times he's just a myth that is passed on in the background of sub-events, but Maxwell is always made out to be the master of all elements and typically has an attack along the lines of meteor storm and/or elemental master.

Meet Tales of Xillia's Maxwell -

You'll notice that he's a she.

It makes more sense in the story line (spoilers!) but the real answer of why he's a she doesn't show up until FAR too late in the game when I'm already done with dealing with her.

Just like the other Tales games out there, there are always characters that I avoid in my team and just don't use.

Maxwell in Xillia takes the cake for one of the characters I never touched. I used her (even in her own story line) only when needed, but I avoided her at all costs.

That brings me to one thing within this that was actually a super cool, super origional idea, that SHOULD have been pushed further. In Xillia, there's the idea that there are TWO story lines. One for Jude (the boy main character) and one for Millia Maxwell (as seen above). The concept is unique and interesting, but the reality of the fact is that the difference between the two story lines is minimal at best. The only differences is a slight story separation here and there, but it's not like either story is missing something that the other doesn't have. This concept of two separate stories is actually what made me willing to play through it a second time, because I thought that the reason the maps were so small, and the reason that it seemed to end so quickly was because the second story had the rest of the world to explore and the rest of things to do, or something more to add to the entire game than what I had just played.

I was wrong.

Now, don't get me wrong, although I am picking on this game and saying some things about it, I'm by no stretch of the imagination saying that it is a bad game. In fact, as soon as I get done writing this review my goal is to finish up the last bits of trying to 100% this thing.

It's a great game for all of the reasons that Tales games are great, and a super addition to the series. It keeps all of the amazing things like the free range fighting systems, familiar skills, familiar summons and elementals, but keeps it fresh with new leveling mechanics, new story line, and new characters that are interesting and worth the time to play.

I'm sorry, but if you don't like Elisa and Teepo, then something is wrong with your soul. The two of them were most likely not the BEST choice to be my healer in the end game, but just because I loved them so much as a character duo, they stayed with me as long as humanly possible, the same went for the Conductor.

The leveling system is unique and innovative (although lacking in actual skills compared to some other of the Tales games out there) but allowed progression, but customization. It's an interesting take on the sphere grid of FFX, that results in early and mid game customization to make your characters exactly what you want them to be, focusing stats where you want them to go, but sadly in late game (especially at max level) all characters no matter how you play the game across any save file, will have the exact same skills. Every time I play Jude at lvl 99 will always be the same Jude, no matter how I want to skill build him.

The grade shop was nice, and always fun to have a bonus for NG+, but at the same time a bit annoying because there was nothing there in the game to give me a bonus in the grade or item drops for amping up the difficulty. I could put every monster on impossible mode with NG+ with all of my weapons, but it meant nothing because I got nothing more from unknown difficulty level than I did at easy.

If you haven't played a Tales game before, this is a good introduction into the weird, quirky world of Tales. The odd, yet amazing tools of % based healing gels, no turn based fighting, and the ability to grab a friend (or three) and make the fighting like nothing you've ever experienced before. I wasn't able to do that with XIllia, but the potential of having a person sitting with you playing this game utterly WRECKS the game mechanics in fighting. Fights that I had to stress out about and over level on, if there was a live person next to me to play with, would have made it a cake walk of activating spells and abilities at a stupid rate.

One of the weirdest parts about the game was actually the lack of grinding. On first play through, if you want to be high enough level to kill that chapter's big bad, simply kill everything that you walk by on your way there. Don't dodge fights, and you won't be under leveled. The actual amount of grinding or the need to retrace your steps to make sure you stay alive, is minimal. It's nice, but for a person who likes to sit and grind out levels on levels (I'm weird like that) it's a change of pace.

Great story, memorable characters, and a unique twist on the traditional Tales mechanics that you thought they couldn't change to make something new again.