Introduction

Let's Uphold some Convictions in Tales of Xillia

There are two versions of the intro movie, each slightly different. This one is Jude's version.
This one is Milla's version. You'll notice that both are silent.
This is the song that would be there if youtube wasn't being weird with its copyright policy. 480p Jude version.

Tales of Xillia is the 13th "Mothership"_{means main} Tales game. It was cut down somewhat due to being rushed out for the 15th Anniversary, but it's still a fine game. Some of the stuff that was cut was incorporated into a sequel, which I will LP immediately after this.

Supposedly it sold well enough (as did the sequel) and Tales will be sticking around.

For more about Tales, see my Tales of Symphonia LP, my Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World LP (or don't, this was a bad game), Dragonatrix's Tales of Phantasia LP, Admiral H. Curtiss's Tales of Vesperia LP, or my Tales of Graces f LP.

Special thanks to Admiral H. Curtiss and one other person who'll be along shortly for their assistance with this LP.

I don't really like this title screen NEARLY as well as the one for Graces f.

Mechanics
Normally I'd put this after the cast of characters but then you'd be wondering what "partner abilities" were. The main mechanical gimmick in Xillia is Linking. When you link with a character, a glowing line forms between them and you and you share damage, healing, tp restoration, and status effects. Generally you want to be linked all the time, unless you're super-worried about petrification. Many skills can be shared with whoever you're linked to, and certain special attacks can allow you to use a special "link arte" when the overlimit gauge is at a marked point. Whichever character in the link did not initiate the link becomes the "link partner" and provides their "partner ability". Each party member has a different partner ability, all of which are pretty cool.

This game uses the "AC" system, which stands (I think) for "Assault Capacity". It's like a hybrid of the CC and TP systems. TP still exists and special attacks still consume it, but all attacks also consume one AC. You can't attack once you reach 0 AC until it refills, which it will after about a second of not attacking. It's a much more fluid means of combo-making than the old TP system, which would only let you chain 3 or so artes without special skills, and it's also usually faster paced than Graces's CC system, since you get all your AC back instantly.

Another notable feature of the game is the ability to swap any party member for either of your "reserve" party members, in combat. This is totally sweet and I'm sad it didn't make it into Xillia 2 (I'll explain why when I do Xillia 2).

Advancement in this game is handled by the "Lillium Orb" whil I'll go over in the future, along with shop experience.

Cast of Characters

Jude Mathis

Jude's a 15-year-old medical student (education is kind of weird in Rashugal). He's actually smart, but doesn't really know what he wants from life. His medical studies are mainly following in the footsteps of his father, who's a renowned doctor, and his mother, who's a skilled nurse.

Jude's weapons are gauntlets, his gimmick is "snap pivot" which is basically side-dodge from Graces, and his partner ability is "restore" which heals you and stands you up when you're knocked down and has a chance to res you.

Milla Maxwell

Milla is Anime Animist Jesus, who comes not to bring peace, but a sword. She's the "Lord of Spirits" in human form, descended to save them from the scourge of Spyrix. I really like her because she's one of the few JRPG protagonists that undergoes a satisfying arc. I like her more than Yuri from Vesperia. There, I said it.

Milla's weapons are one handed swords and a huge variety of spells, her gimmick is "spirit shifting", which allows you to use her spells as either spells or melee attacks depending on if you hold the button or not, and her partner ability is "bind" which paralyses enemies. All of these are awesome.

Milla also commands The Four, who are this game's Summon Spirits (although it calls them Great Spirits). Since she starts the game with them, we don't have to go on a journey to four elemental temples to get them. That would get old after a while.

She's also my favorite character to play as, in part since she gets easy access to ALL the elements.

Alvin

Alvin is a mercenary who is totally not shady. The fact that he has a DLC Kratos costume is a total coincidence.

Alvin's weapons are large swords (and guns, although you can't buy guns), his gimmick is "charging", which allows him to combine his gun and his sword to boost some artes, and his partner skill is "breaker", which will attempt to guard break any enemy you're attacking.

Leia Rolando

Leia is the daughter of a world-renowned martial artist and a chef, but is currently a nursing student. She's 15 (remember that education in Rashugal is weird) and has known Jude since they were kids.

Leia fights with a staff, and unlike most staff-using RPG characters, is more interested in beating you to a pulp with it than casting spells with it. She does have some spells, but they're all healing or buffs. Her gimmick is "elongating staff", which causes her staff to grow when she dodges an attack with a backstep, and her partner ability is "steal", which steals items when an enemy is knocked down. This can be enormously important for humanoid enemies, since they often have healing items and can keep using them until you steal them. I once fought a boss for THIRTY MINUTES until I remembered this.

Elize Lutus

Elize is a 12-year old girl who lives locked in the basement of a house in a remote village with her pet... whatever the hell Teepo is. Mysterious!

Elize fights using a mace or wand, but really it's about Teepo and Dark magic. She has a lot of very powerful healing and defensive spells, as well as the only good status-curing spell, but is offensively kind of useless against things that resist Dark. Her gimmick is "Teepo switch", which lets her set Teepo as "on" or "off" for boosts to spells and melee respectively, and her partner skill is "Teepo drain", which sucks TP out of the enemy for her and her link leader.

Elize is hands-down the most powerful character. I'd rather play as Milla, but if you forced me to pick one of them to bring to a fight, it'd be Elize.

Rowen J. Ilbert

Rowen is the 62-year-old butler for the ruling Sharil family of Sharilton, a semi-independent part of Rashugal. He also used to have another, slightly less peaceful job.

Rowen fights with rapiers (and throwing knives, although we can't buy those) and a variety of spells (although with less variety than Milla), his gimmick is "arte tuning", which lets you press buttons after a spell has finished for additional effects, and his partner skill is "auto magic guard", which does exactly what it says.

Skits
So skits in Xillia usually use square portraits, like Symphonia, until suddenly they don't. I've resized the full-body-pose portraits so that they'll fit reasonably as line icons. Well, not THAT reasonably, but whatever. I did worse in the Graces LP.

Also, in addition to skits Xillia has little field chat things where characters will randomly say stuff as they walk around. These are voiced so I'll include them in the skit videos if I can get a good recording of them (they're super-easy to interrupt) and it's not one we've seen a bunch of times.

New Game+
I'm using the following New Game+ options:
Max Item Capacity: 30
Inherit Fashion Items (to keep all our sweet costumes)
Inherit Accessory Items (because I forgot to turn it off and don't care enough to go back)
Inherit Special Items (because screw grinding for the Artes Ball)
Double Gald (because why not)
Double Items (because shop levels)
Unlock Skits (because I want to make it easy to grab any skit I've missed)
Maximum AC +1 (why not)
Inherit Arte Usage (because I spent time on cranking these through the roof)

The Let's Play Archive

Tales of Xillia

by wdarkk

Introduction

Table of Contents