It makes me so happy to know that the Tales of 30th Anniversary project is a thing. For such a prolific JRPG franchise, so many of the games are either inaccessible on modern hardware, exclusive to Japan, or both. Seeing Bandai Namco put such a serious foot forward in remastering multiple classic entries in the series is incredible, and even more so considering the great entries they’ve chosen to remaster so far. Tales of Graces f Remastered earlier this year was a delight, and now it’s being followed up by Tales of Xillia Remastered – a gorgeous PS3-era chapter in the series that I finally get a chance to dig deeper into.
While seeing this game’s cover while browsing game shops always piqued my curiosity, back in the day, it never made its way into my collection, so I dived into this remaster blind. The game opens with what is probably the most unfairly skewed protagonist choice I’ve encountered in a game. You’re shown two brief cutscenes, and then asked to pick which character from those scenes you want to continue the story of – Milla or Jude. The problem is that Milla’s scene is pretty vague, showing her sitting in a temple and muttering something about “the spirits leaving” before attacking a ghostly snake and walking away. Jude, meanwhile, immediately presented me with the most fascinating story setup I’ve ever seen in a traditional JRPG. He’s a busy med-student in a huge, bustling medical school – the idea of a medical school in the middle of a fantastical JRPG world of swords and magic immediately lit up my eyes.
I was quick to choose Jude, but the other wrinkle with this choice is that it ultimately doesn’t alter the game all that much. Jude and Milla’s paths intertwine early on, and they end up spending a vast majority of Tales of Xillia Remastered adventuring together as they try to restore the balance between modern society and the ancient mana that fuels it all. The two heroes split up from time to time, but only for brief moments, so while the solo scenes I got with Jude were incredible, I never felt like I was missing any important information by not witnessing what Milla was up to in those moments.
Despite originally being a PS3 game, Tales of Xillia Remastered is downright gorgeous. The game already had breath-taking visual design, with vividly colored environments and beautifully modelled characters, and the smooth frame rate and upgraded resolution of this remaster only serves to further elevate those already incredible visuals. It doesn’t totally register as a modern game, though – a lot of cutscene animations are a little stiff in that classic way. Still, I think there’s a lot of charm to that, and it’s nice to be able to experience a game from it’s era but bundled with the quality of life you’d expect from a modern release.
Combat in the Tales series has always been a highlight for me, and Tales of Xillia Remastered is no slouch in that department. The real-time combo-heavy battles here are a blast, and I really enjoy the more open-ended approach to upgrades and skill progression this game has. There’s a huge emphasis on using skill points to unlock new ablities across a massive web of upgrades, and you can approach it in any order you like. On top of giving you more freedom to customize a single characters build, the character-link system in this game lets certain characters chain together their Artes mid-battle meaning that customising your crew to synergise properly is really important. That link system also adds a sort of rhythm-game quality to combat that I adored. Timing and flow are key, but your AI partners will trigger their linked abilities automatically, meaning it’s less of a mechanical or input-heavy challenge and more about focus and smart character swapping.
While the amount of bonus costume content and customizable soundtrack options packed into Tales of Xillia Remastered are a treat, one bonus I wish was handled differently is the Grade Shop. This is a menu that lets you redeem points to unlock cheat-code enhancers for your playthrough to increase money gained, XP gained, double damage, and more boosts of the sort. These are fun tools to use for making subsequent playthroughs or challenging sections of the game a breeze, but the issue here is that this is the very first thing you see upon starting a new playthrough. Without any context for the game or time spent playing it, it feels weird to be presented with this massive cheat menu, especially when so many of them warn that they can’t be disabled once applied. I would have appreciated this menu being tucked away somewhere in the actual game, and not so front-loaded.
Despite that Grade Shop hiccup, Tales of Xillia Remastered is an incredible game and a wonderful remaster. It only makes me more excited to see which entries in the series get this treatment next, because so far, Bandai Namco has done an incredible job of giving these nearly-forgotten JRPGs a second lease at life.