It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly 15 years since the original release of Tales of Xillia, but here we are. That’s notable because it marked the 15th anniversary of the Tales of series, and today Bandai Namco is celebrating 30 years of these stories.
It’s an appropriate time to revisit an anniversary game for this reason, thus the release of Tales of Xillia Remastered, which marks not only this particular milestone but also the game’s first time outside of its original PlayStation 3 version.
Much like its recent cousin, Tales of Graces f Remastered, Tales of Xillia Remastered promises visual updates and a number of quality of life updates across the board. Similarly, it’s not a remake, so if you’ve played it on PS3 already, you know what to expect, or at least I did going into it.
For those who haven’t, however, Tales of Xillia is a game whose strength relies on its characters and particularly its dual protagonists – Jude Mathis and Milla Maxwell.
From the onset, the game invites you to choose one of the two to follow for the length of the story. For those new to Xillia, it’s Jude who will provide most of the context up front. Milla has a different perspective, but from a narrative standpoint, I think it makes more sense to go with her on a second run through.
The story itself still plays up both protagonists along the way, as well as the development of their relationship with each other and the other characters they meet during their journey.
Tales of Xillia begins with a watercolor-scape of a world known as Rieze Maxia. Right away, we’re introduced to Jude (or Milla if you’ve gone that route), a medical student who is looking for his missing teacher. He eventually encounters Milla as she saves him from becoming a military experiment designed to power a spirit-stealing weapon known as the Lance of Kresnik.
When Milla’s own elemental companions get absorbed instead, the pair end up on the run, and a series of circumstances has them clashing with a king who believes in the Lance’s power.
This is only the tip of the iceberg, however, as a greater plot and even a terrorist organization reveal the world isn’t as small as it seems.
Xillia’s main story is fairly straightforward, and I think it leans on the usual Tales of tropes to decent success. Its biggest strength is the colorful cast of characters – Alvin, Leia, Elize, and Rowen – who all bring their own individual stories and how they gel with each other over the course of the story in a way that allows for emotional investment on the part of the player.
Alvin in particular remains one of the standouts for me, even if his motivations are a little too easily read and he’s ultimately kept around for his usefulness. My only real complaint is that things could have been fleshed out a little further. There are a lot of interesting ideas that are only surface-level, and a deeper exploration could have gone a long way to fleshing out the world’s lore.
Xillia’s battle system (known as the Dual Raid Linear Motion Battle System) remains as fast and as fun as ever, with four characters placed into action combat. One character can be controlled by the player while the other three are directed by the computer – a feature which can be strategized properly in the menu settings.
Battles themselves happen in real time, so attacking with weapons or artes consumes Technical Points. What makes Xillia stand out from other games in the series is the ability to link up with a partner character, with which they can then perform linked artes and other unique abilities, provided the Linked Artes Gauge on the side of the screen is full.
Doing so can trigger Over Limit, which means the characters have immunity to stagger, and unlimited artes during the duration of the battle.
Xillia makes use of Skills in its systems as well, which can be obtained by leveling up the skill tree-like Lilium Orb using earned GP.
I think it’s all very streamlined in a way. You can customize a lot of the character attributes to the style you want to play. For example, I built Jude to focus more on attacking, while characters like Elize and Leia were more suited for healing. Milla, Alvin, and Rowen were more balanced between the two, but you can do whatever you want for the most part.
The remaster takes this up a notch by including the Grade Shop right away, which is a sort of New Game+ give yourself all the cool abilities upfront addition.
Other add-ons include the ability to autosave anywhere, toggling enemy encounters on the field, a retry feature for normal battles, subtitles for battle scenes that weren’t previously available, and a whole host of smaller map additions, and the ability to skip cutscenes. A lot of this stuff is super helpful for both returning fans and for that inevitable second playthrough to see both sides of Jude and Milla’s story.
From a visual standpoint, Tales of Xillia Remastered is about what I remember it being like on PS3, just ported up to work on PlayStation 5. That means they didn’t really redo much at all in terms of the models or the sparse environments. The colors do look a little more vibrant, and the framerate is solid, so that counts for something. Unfortunately, the English audio quality still sounds compressed in some areas, particularly with Milla’s voice.
It’s pretty much what you’d expect from a typical remaster – and that’s not a bad thing. It’s not like Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core Reunion, where they put a whole new coat of paint on old bones, and that’s just fine. Xillia’s life as a PS3 game was built on those limitations, so they had to get creative with the art style, and that still holds.
Overall, Tales of Xillia Remastered is a fine game. If you’ve never played it before, it’s finally out there for you to play on modern systems. For returning fans, the quality of life improvements make getting back into it a breeze.
While the story isn’t as fleshed out as it could be, the snappy gameplay systems make Tales of Xillia Remastered an easy choice for those looking to pick up a relatively short RPG.
Tales of Xillia Remastered was reviewed on PlayStation 5 with a code provided by the publisher over the course of 35 hours of gameplay — all screenshots were taken during the process of review
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