Tales of Xillia Remastered Review – Nostalgia Saves The Day

Tales of Xillia has been among the Tales franchise’s finest offerings despite its release dating back to more than a decade. Its unique combat system and a story with a lot of heart had me sold on it when I first played it, and the chance to see the game make its way back to my library for me to replay has largely been welcome.

Tales of Xillia Remastered does what it sets out to do, and perhaps even more than it intended, making the experience feel very familiar to fans and franchise veterans, but fresh enough to feel just as welcoming as it did back in the day. But does its gameplay feel as good now as it did then, in the face of many RPGs that have since come and gone?

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“Things get quite interesting when you unlock companions and have them join you.”

You get to decide that for yourself quite quickly, and after an opening anime cutscene that really sets the stage for your adventure. It’s possible to experience a subtle yet slight shift in your perspective depending on which character you choose. While I originally went with Jude Mathis, choosing his unique brand of exuberance and hand to hand combat, Milla and her sword are a potent combo, and playing her for this run was both interesting and a lot of fun.

Milla’s character is as compelling as ever, and her role in the game makes her time away from her usual safeguards feel surprisingly vulnerable. She relies on Jude and the rest of your companions just as much as she did on her Spirits, and her sometimes cold demeanor hides a sort of melancholic longing for her powers that she builds up in the game’s smaller moments.

Now’s a good time to talk about the Grade Shop. This store is available to you right off the bat when you start your adventure this time around, and offers a bunch of perks that drastically alter how easily upgrades are accessed for your characters, and the overall difficulty of the game.

Playing with all of them active makes the game an absolute breeze but does take out the fun of using the Linked Combat system that the game gradually introduces you to, with helpful tutorials popping up for each new mechanic that adds a layer to each battle. Things get quite interesting when you unlock companions and have them join you, and if you love switching between your characters for some awesome Linked Artes, you’re going to feel right at home with this one.

“The maps continue to be quite bland as you travel between regions.”

If this is your first time with a combat system like this one, you might find a learning curve involved, but it’s nothing a little practice can’t fix. Fortunately, there’s a lot of opportunity out in the game’s world for that, and you soon unlock different abilities and nifty skills for your characters, while also unlocking new abilities via the development of individual characters’ Lirium Orbs. It’s also easy and intuitive to switch skills around between fights thanks to a character menu that’s well organized and easy to dive back into.

That extends to the vendor system and the need to contribute to their growth via monetary or material deposits, which gives you the feel of a world you’re actually investing into and being rewarded for your efforts. It’s also a good excuse to dive into combat every chance you get while you travel between objectives for the main story.

While the map’s updated visuals are a welcome sight, making details look a lot snappier this time around thanks to the remaster, the maps themselves continue to be quite bland as you travel between regions. I found them to be a complaint in the original game, and I’d say not much has changed, aside from a few really convenient additions.

A new marker pointing you in the direction of your next story objective, alongside treasure chests currently unopened being added to the minimap, makes engaging with all its systems much better this time around. That’s because they make for fun little detours while allowing you to stay relatively on track to your next objective, with all of the XP and rewards that come from fights you get along the way.

“However, once you fall into a rhythm, the game’s combat quickly becomes repetitive despite new companions joining the fray.”

It’s two simple additions working together to make the entire experience better, and it really stood out to me as I went along with Jude and Milla in their adventure. I’d say they were better additions than the Grade Shop, which could have been earned as it was in the original game. It’s good that you can deactivate its buffs at any time, though.

Which brings me to the star of the show: the combat system. And while I’m happy to say that it’s fun, I can’t help but feel it could have been better somehow. The controls do take some getting used to, and firing off attacks and Artes feels smooth, as does the ability to free run and create distance before launching counterattacks.

There’s enemy variety and some very memorable bosses, along with convenient toggles for dashing and encounters. These work very well to let you take things at your own pace in the remaster, making the experience feel more intuitive to navigate on your own terms. That adds to the original game’s charm, lending a touch of player agency to an adventure that supports it via the narrative.

However, once you fall into a rhythm, the game’s combat quickly becomes repetitive despite new companions joining the fray. However, that could take a while for those of you who haven’t experienced it before, and the Grade Shop is always there to tweak things in your favor if you’d like to move things along.

The game runs ever so smoothly on the base PS5, and that does a lot for its combat system. However, there aren’t any notable changes to the story or its presentation aside from the visual polish that a remaster brings. For Tales of Xillia, that makes its anime cutscenes look even better, while the game’s character models do display their PS3 roots. That’s something I’d say adds to the nostalgia factor, but an argument could be made for a remake considering how popular this one is, and the fan demand that nudged the remaster along.

“If you’re a fan of the original Tales of Xillia, the chance to play that adventure any way you’d like from the get-go feels great.”

There’s also a welcome improvement to loading times, with nary a moment passing between maps or combat encounters when you enter or exit them. Once again, that sounds like a minor change on paper, but it makes a world of difference to the original experience. It also takes the edge off the lackluster map designs, and it’s now easier than ever to ignore them entirely.

Your companions are a fun bunch for the most part and the game’s AI does well to encourage you to use Linked Artes more often in combat, and make combat quite simple and fun, just like wit as in the original. If you’re methodical and efficient with your attacks, that’s half the battle, one already won with this title.

If you’re a fan of the original Tales of Xillia, the chance to play that adventure any way you’d like from the get-go feels great. If you’re a newcomer playing this classic to relive the original adventure, that’s an option too. This flexibility makes Tales of Xillia Remastered easy to recommend, its story being entertaining enough and bringing a solid balance between its light-hearted optimism and its darker, more complex themes. It was good to see King Gladius again, all things considered.

I came to it for nostalgia, but stayed because this remaster gave me quite a few welcome reasons to.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.