Tales of Xillia is a PS3 JRPG from the “Tales of…” series that came out today worldwide (after a 2-year localization from Japan). I know even less about this one than I did Graces when it came out.
It’s the first Tales game to have a choice between protagonists, though 90% of the game is the same no matter who you pick. You can either be Milla – an incarnation of Maxwell, a series regular who is the Lord of Four Elemental Spirits (Efreet, Gnome, Sylph, Undine), though I expect a twist – or Jude – a… medical student.
Yeah, I’ve heard from people that the three female leads are interesting and the males are rather bland, which I think is a step up from Graces where Pascal was the only good character and everybody else only had moments (I might give you Sophie). It takes place in a world with two kingdoms, one who make contracts with spirits to do vaguely magitek-ish things (like powering streetlamps) and a rival nation that controls and herds monsters. The art style is beautiful and takes inspiration from Chiaroscuro (Tales does this a lot, Graces took from watercolors).
The battle system, for those familiar with Tales, is apparently a mix of the Symphonia-style system (also used in Abyss and Vesperia) with free run and TP, and the comboing system in Graces/Destiny where you can do continuous combos as long as you have enough of the right regenerating resource (though I can’t recall what they call it in this game, it’s basically CC). It also introduces a “link” mechanic which allows two characters to work together to do combination attacks with each other; I think kind of like Field of Fonon attacks in Abyss but less annoying to pull off and more character specific.
They also kept the Japanese theme rather than translating it or nuking it and going with an instrumental version like they did with Abyss. I’m happy with this, Ayumi Hamasaki (the Empress of Pop/Queen of JPop herself) apparently isn’t good enough at English to sing a translation, but her vocals really drive that song, Progress is a great song period, not just a great Tales theme. I’d probably prefer a translation, but since she can’t provide one I’m glad they kept the vocals rather than doing what they did with Abyss.
I have heard that this game was a bit rushed and thus not as sidequest heavily as other Tales games, but I think I’m okay with that. Its sequel, Tales of Xillia 2 is already confirmed for a US/EU localization, I believe for next year some time.