Reviews from

in the past


they actually wrote that skit about milla's bazongas

Gameplay was fun, especially when I started getting used to the Linking system. Great cast overall. Probably my favorite out of the Tales games I've played so far!

Downsides:

- A couple of the character's arcs didn't feel fully resolved to me.
- Parts of the game's 4th Act felt rushed, and I wish there was more to the late game areas.
- Most of the highroads you go through look the same, which was very boring.
- The Coliseum is awful.

it was fine i think a lot of the minor story things were really really good but the major story needs a huge revamp from the traditional tales formula. i did like the combat though

The absolute pinnacle of what Bandai Namco has been trying to achieve with this series for many years now (13+ goddamn entries).
-Excellent Combat
-Excellent Characters
-Excellent Story
-Music was aight
Dungeons need some work tho.


Played when it was new. Amazing Tales of-game! I'm hoping for a remaster and re-release

This review contains spoilers

Oh, Xillia. Between its underbaked plot, baffling pro-child-marriage polemic, and habit of recycling locations but tinted green, there are many frustrations to be had here. But I just want to talk about the Milla route (or lack thereof), which is genuinely one of the most aggravating experiences I've ever had in a video game.

The game bills itself as having the first female co-protagonist, so going in not knowing much about it, I assumed this meant that you could choose your player character (Jude or Milla), and go through approximately the same story with minor variations. This is... not the case.

Partway through Act 1, Milla is seriously injured and removed from the party. You are forced to play as Jude. On the Milla route. Eventually, though, return controls to Milla--and the game, as if warning you of what is to come, asks if you would like to switch back to Milla or keep playing as Jude. If you, like me, stubbornly decide to play as Milla anyway, you're in for a rude surprise when Milla... dies. Just straight-up dies. You can now play as her while dead, missing all the actual plot events that occur while she's out.

"Man, I wish they had done this with Aerith!"--Nobody.

Luckily, she's later resurrected, in a deus ex machina for whatever the plot was that was happening offscreen. Between the introduction of Muzet, Alvin's betrayal, Jude's mental breakdown, their fight to the death, and Leia getting shot, there's a lot to catch up on. This is all conveyed to you via optional skits.

Even when you do get to play as Milla, the game doesn't really feel like it's in her perspective. Case in point: the many scenes where Milla talks to spirits, and the player is not able to see the spirits that she can see. Contrast this with Sorey's ability to see Malakhim in Zestiria--we can see characters like Mikleo or Lailah, and the humour comes from the supporting cast being unable to. Perhaps this is partly due to what feels like a rushed development schedule, rather than just not putting any thought into the character, but neither option is good.

In conclusion, Milla's "route" feels at best like a side story for players who have already completed what is clearly intended to be the actual game, Jude's "route", and I have no idea why they didn't implement things this way.

Tales of Xillia (2011): Muy agradable, con la duración justa, y con un sistema de combate que aunque continuista respecto a la saga, le añade un par de novedades para que no sea tan repetitivo. La historia es un poco floja, pero tampoco molesta. Un buen juego, sin más (7,30)

Ótimo jogo, diria que dos Tales que joguei é o único que não tem nenhuma parte chata, a história se mantém interessante do começo até o fim, desenvolvendo bem os personagens da party principal, enquanto traz plot-twists realmente surpreendentes. As sidequests são bem criativas, já que ficam espalhadas em locais específicos e totalmente opcionais, dando uma dinâmica bem bacana. Fico bem esperançoso com o segundo jogo, já que muita coisa ficou em aberto.

A new entry inspired me to go back to this PS3 era game. Not as bafflingly easy as Berseria, with an interesting villain you are not trying to destroy. Having two character playthroughs was ill-conceived, as one adds story, the other only adds flavour.

Game has an interesting first hour, and then the story just falls off.

This is a great entry in the series! The characters are great, the story is good, the combat is great, but still not as good as Berseria's combat. You can do different unique things with the combat in this game, some good, some not as good.

The cast is great, the villains are also great and overall this is just a fun game to play.

This review contains spoilers

Depois de mais de 70 horas de jogo e enrolando bastante, finalmente terminei Tales of Xillia. Eu lembro de lá pra 2013/14 (eu acho) eu joguei as primeiras 3h disso na casa do meu grande amigo e namorado Uiberon e eu me amarrei no jogo. Finalmente em 2022, na minha jornada pseudo-retrogamer atual eu comecei a ativamente tentar pegar uma cópia pra mim, e consegui no Natal. Storytime is over, vamos à review.

Os visuais do jogo são simplesmente belíssimos, e tanto os monstros quanto os personagens e cenários me pareceram bem acabados e charmosos. Os NPCs de cidade são pouco inspirados, mas hey, quem vai ligar pra figurante num JRPG? Algumas animações são meio duras e limitadas, mas não chegou a me ofender.

A jogabilidade eu sou suspeito pra falar. Pra MIM foi um Hack'n'slash com level up e personalização gostosíssimo. Eventualmente eu achei repetitivo, mas também só aprendi a jogar com um boneco, provavelmente se você alterna os personagens durante a jogatina pra fazer combo o jogo fica bem melhor. Vou criticar entretanto o sistema de level-up, pois no fundo no fundo as escolhas pouco importam. Se você juntar xp o suficiente, vai ter ponto pra tudo e dá pra upar todos os status.

Sobre a dificuldade, eu botei o jogo no Hard e acho que só apanhei pra alguns chefes no começo do jogo e na reta final eu perdi pra o chefe final na primeira forma uma vez. Como eu joguei sem aprender a dar side-step e mal apertando defesa o jogo inteiro, minha aposta é que ele é fácil mesmo. Tem também a chance de eu sempre estar bem equipado pois eu farmo bem (finalizei com as melhores armas do jogo e com armaduras da loja nível 70+ e no nível 70+), então no fim das contas não sou muito confiável para analisar isso. Nos chefes que dropam arma mágica o jogo fica difícil pra porra, eu tive que fazer muito malabarismo com item pra dar certo, MAS só morri um monte de vezes pra o primeiro deles, o segundo e o terceiro caíram de primeira (são 6, achei 3).

Sobre a história... ela é ao mesmo tempo muito boa e muito genérica. Basicamente, garoto encontra deus, garoto e deus encontram reis, garoto e deus enfrentam um rei, rei é morto por militar invasor, garoto e deus matam o militar invasor, deus morre, garoto entra em depressão, o deus morto na verdade era falso, garoto em depressão decide encontrar o verdadeiro deus, deus falso volta, garoto e deus falso enfrentam deus, outro rei aparece e dá uma pisa em deus, garoto e deus falso enfrentam o rei que deu uma pisa em deus, deus falso vira deus verdadeiro e todo mundo fica feliz pra sempre. Tem uns twists, um monte de side-story e na real isso foi tudo uma grande piada, MAS a história do jogo ainda é mais ou menos isso aí. Meio que muito do que ocorre é lugar comum de quem costuma ver anime, então não parece ser suuuper original, mas é executada de maneira decente. Meu problema está só no ritmo e tom da narrativa, que vai meio devagar e leve pra super épico e frenético e vice-versa de tempos em tempos.

Sobre os personagens, o Jude é meio genérico mas ainda é legal, Milla é meio chata mas ainda é legal, Elize tem uns momentos em que a personalidade vai de 8 a 80 mas a gente perdoa por que é criança. O Alvin é o charme encarnado, mas depois que ele começa o entra e sai no grupo vira um porre (e olha que eu jurava que ia ser meu personagem favorito). Leia é uma personagem com algum potencial mas que fica irrelevante quando você se liga que ela é só um estepe pra o Jude quase que o tempo todo. Rowan por outro lado tem zero defeitos e é o melhor personagem do sexteto. Talvez eu prefira o Rowan por sentir falta de uma boa figura paterna na minha vida, mas a gente finge que isso não influencia em nada.

Sobre os vilões... é aqui onde o jogo dá uma decaída. Gaius é um antagonista fenomenal, mas ninguém mais que anda com ele importa. A Chimeriad (grupo do Gaius) deveria ter personagens que rivalizassem com os protagonistas e interagissem num âmbito pessoal, mas na real eles todos parecem encaixados de última hora e pouco desenvolvidos. Muita história sendo contada em conversas de terceiros e pouca informação sendo colocada na narrativa de maneira orgânica. Especialmente a piveta que é a alerquina miniatura de cabelo branco chega a ser irritante como fica solta na narrativa.

Ah, ter cutscenes animadas e eventuais skits no mapa só com quadrinho e voice-over dá um CHARME pra esse joguinho e pra os personagens que é digno de nota. Os skits me fizeram gostar bem mais dos personagens do que só as cutscenes fariam, especialmente por poder trabalhar sidestories de maneira mais leve e curta. Uma pena que ainda com elas, ainda faltou mais substância para algumas backstories.

Acho que já deixei claro o problema maior do jogo, mas caso você não tenha pego ainda, vou resumir: inconsistência narrativa. Personagens demais e pouco tempo pra desenvolver todos. História boa, mas que não se desenvolve num ritmo ideal. Informações caindo de paraquedas de tempos em tempos e alguns plots que não se desenvolvem muito. Parece um anime tentando adaptar um mangá muito maior talvez?

Agora, essa narrativa estraga o jogo? Nada, só impede que ele seja grandioso, mas Tales of Xillia ainda é bem agradável e gostoso de jogar, e inegavelmente memorável.

PS: PUTA MERDA COMO EU ODEIO O IVAR!!!!

This review contains spoilers

I hope this just wasn't the best place to start this series... Cause I'm not too impressed.
There is not much I liked here.

After an interesting start the story just meanders and the main conflict with the humans, spirits and how technology relates to that is merely told about rather than shown. The characters will occasionally make remarks about the world building, but it all comes down to a "tell, don't show" which in turn pushes interesting conflicts to the side and instead goes for individual actions and plot points more like a Saturday morning cartoon or monster of the week thing. Engrossing us either in generic character backstories or weird conflicts/ moments like when one character looses their ability to walk for a dungeon and a half. The scenes themselves are also incredibly stilted. I tried watching the rest of the story on YouTube, but it was just not entertaining enough, so I just read a synopsis.

The skits are genuinely enjoyable, it's just a shame that the story itself couldn't motivate me at all and just giving me character dynamics and banter without interesting context, was kinda weird.

The environments while inspired by places like Mongolian steppes and thus conceptually unique sadly weren't to interesting in the long run. Maybe that would have changed on the way though.

The combat took me a while to get into at all, as I rather expected it to be a combo thingy of weak and heavy attacks with some clever special moves. But instead it's closer to a Street Fighter game. That's kinda interesting for an RPG, but sadly not enough to keep me motivated. Especially as I felt I could just go through the motions to win the battles and boss fights.

Overall this game doesn't make the best first impression for the series. Don't know when I will return to it, but maybe I will with ... Berseria or something. Someday

A solid RPG all around. The Tales of series is always quite solid in terms of gameplay and world building. Story was decent, nothing mindblowing. But I certainly had a great time doing almost everything the game had to offer.

I've been really meaning to play another Tales game this year, but getting hella addicted to first Atelier (beaten ten games so far this year ^^;) and then SMT (beat four games ^^;) really didn't help that effort XD. So I looked at the ones I had on hand to play, and I figured Xillia would fit the bill well, as that's the one immediately after my favorite, Graces, and it's one I've had recommended in particular from several friends in the past. It took me some 51 or so hours (and then mucking about for another 10 or so in post-game) to finish the Japanese version of the game, and I enjoyed my time with it very much ^w^

Tales of Xillia is the first game in the Tales series (to the best of my knowledge) to take a page from the Atelier playbook and have two main characters instead of one. First you have Jude, the 15 year old med school student who becomes embroiled in trying to stop a plot by his city/kingdom to plunge the world into war (or worse). Then you have Milla, the living avatar of the master of elementals, Maxwell, who is the one who embroils Jude in trying to destroy the evil Jin machinery that the government is trying to use for evil purposes. There's a cast of four main/playable characters outside of them, but they're the two the plot primarily revolves around. You can actually pick from playing either's route before you start the game, but Jude's is the one you should play first (as I did) and it's also the most complete. Milla's perspective on things is almost identical to Jude's, and Jude is the real main character when all is said and done, no matter how much Namco may try to pretend otherwise (although Milla is a very good #2 story focus).

I really loved the story and especially the character writing in Tales of Graces, and Tales of Xillia did not disappoint on that front either. All six of the main cast are really well portrayed and developed (with my personal favorite being Teepo), with the story's main themes being conviction, duty, and finding one's purpose. The antagonist is also very interesting for a JRPG, as I really can't think of any other one that I've played where the ultimate conflict between the main hero and villain comes down to such an almost mutually agreed upon point that their conflict ends the way it does here. Being a more recent Tales game, this is a longer story with two major twists (although it's oddly enough split across four acts), and I think it handles the writing really well in the way Tales so often does. The familiar fantasy-with-technology setting and larger themes of environmentalism and anti-colonialism are here, sure, but they're done in an entertaining and still unique way from other Tales games to make this one as engaging as ever.

The gameplay has changed a little and a lot, but it's mostly changed in the very incremental way that the Tales series is so reliable with. Where Vesperia had learnable skills tied to weapons you equipped and Graces had skills tied to your titles you equipped, now equippable skills are tied to a large sphere grid-style board you can slot points into upon leveling up. It also provides stat buffs and such on top of what you get for normally leveling up, but it isn't anything super revolutionary (although it is a trend the series would continue for some time). The way you walk around the world has also changed, with the narrower corridors that used to define dungeons and fields being replaced with wider areas, particularly in the fields. You can look around these locations for materials and treasure chests, but it again isn't a terribly significant change to how things had been done so far. The game has no overworld, but it does have fast travel available very early, and the way it does its shops is also quite clever. Instead of having multiple shops, all types of shop are effectively the same all over the world (no hunting for that ONE shop that sells the thing you need), and you use those materials you win in battles or find around the world to trade in and upgrade them and the stock they hold. It's a very neat idea to reward exploration and also make shopping much more convenient.

The combat system has the same sort of combo/chain limit style that Tales of Graces has, but refined even further so it doesn't have nearly such a steep learning curve as that one did. However, while they have kept the chain system, they've also re-introduced a mana system, so you can't use artes and special moves like you used to. They take a lot of how technical and important your movement was (side-steps are completely removed) and refocus it instead on dodging and attacks that more easily flow into one another. A really cool move that Jude can do is if he dodges with a back-step just before an attack, he teleports behind the enemy to hit them for higher damage!

This also helps build up your link gauge faster, and linking is this game's overlimit mechanic. During battle, you can link to another party member, and they'll both gain a special power to use in battle as well as help you kill whatever you're killing (both guarding your back as well as helping you focus-fire). When you've either taken or dealt enough hits to reach a pip of the meter, you can press R2 after you do a particular special move (every partner has particular artes they can do this with) to do a super powerful move. Filling the bar all the way means you can use those special moves as much as you want until the meter runs out and/or unleash an ultimate attack. Tons of Tales games have overlimit mechanics like this, but this is definitely the overlimit mechanic that I've enjoyed and actually used the most instead of just forgetting to ever use it XP

The presentation is really nice. Music is pretty and atmospheric, which is very usual for a Tales game, and the anime graphics style of Tales is as pretty as it always is. Character design is good and fan service is very thankfully kept low (save for a few fairly revealing outfits). There are some slight performance hitches in very large battles (generally post-game battles or optional super hard fights with lots of movement and particle effects), but even when they happen they don't disrupt your ability to fight too badly. It feels more like you suddenly have bullet time than anything XD

Verdict: Highly Recommended. This game didn't take the top spot of Tales of Graces for my favorite Tales game, but it came damn close. Xillia is honestly probably just a better game than Graces, if I'm being more objective, but Graces's themes and characters just hit home for me in a way I'm not sure any game can top. This is a really solid Tales game and an excellent one to check out if you've ever been interested in the series. It may not be quite as good as Vesperia to use as your entry to the series, if you've ever played one at all before, but it's still a really good one that you wouldn't be going wrong with either as a newbie or a series veteran~

Gameplay extrêmement addictif et fun, le système de lvl up c'est génial car ça motive le joueur à faire des quêtes annexes / grind (à chaque fois qu'on monte en niveau on peut choisir quelques skills ou améliorations, c'est vraiment génial), les graphismes et artstyle sont géniaux comme toujours. Le scénario était très bon (et un peu dark, ce qui est pas une chose mauvaise bien sûr) à mon avis et on peut choisir soit Jude soit Milla en tant que protag, je pense que c'est assez cool ça.

Vive Leia 🛐

~ Tales of Xillia é um jogo longo com um vocabulário complicado até mesmo pra quem entende bem inglês, já que utiliza expressões criadas para o próprio jogo e isso resulta em um enredo confuso e cansativo, entretanto, tirando os protagonistas (yep, no plural) tem um dos melhores casts de personagens ''secundários'' da série q acaba sobrepondo todos os problemas citados. O combate não é tão complicado quanto o de Vesperia e nem tão simples quanto o de Arise, mas é extremamente satisfatório e divertido. O sistema de skill tree é bastante similar ao do FFXII, na qual tu pode alocar pontos nos atributos que achar melhor em cada personagem e consequentemente liberar skills e magias. A trilha sonora e animação que são características bastante marcantes da série Tales também são bem menos atrativos em Xillia. No geral eu gostei da experiência que eu tive com o jogo, mas é difícil recomendá-lo principalmente se levar em consideração o difícil acesso, tendo em vista que é um exclusivo de PS3 até hoje e se encontra ''preso'' na plataforma.

Thoroughly forgettable game both in terms of gameplay and story. Good thing is I don't remember anything egregious about it either. Perhaps it can be made better with an expanded second half that further fleshes out the world. But it's not like the game is short in its current form. Prolonging it could drag down the pacing.

Still my favourite Tales of game. Has my favourite combat, my favourite villain and a really strong cast.

This was my first Tales Of game so I may be biased. I knew that Tales Of is highly praised for their stories and honestly I did enjoy it to an extent. I had a few major issues but I still enjoyed the cast and story nevertheless.

PLAY JUDE SIDE. If you're reading this, please play Jude side or you'll miss out the climax of the character arcs of some side characters (in exchange for some tidbits of lore).

This one really caught me by surprise and quickly became my favorite tales of game. Alvin and Rowen are my bbygurlz fr fr

Love this game and it's characters. Very fun, entertaining story. Give it a try if you like jrpgs.


First Tales game I ever played and it has a good main cast. Only issue I have is you have to play it twice as Jude and Milla to fully finish the story and personally I wish they combined both campaigns something Xillia 2 fixed greatly.

My first Tales of game and it was so good

While an enjoyable game, the game is just full of glaring flaws in both story and gameplay (too many to even name on here). The biggest strengths the game has are the world building, the chemistry of the main crew and a select few characters have some decent character work.

Jude Law, bringing the prescription for pain!!