Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Tales of Xillia - Post Completion Review



Before you start reading, I have to admit that this was my very first “Tales of” game.  I’d always been intrigued by the franchise since its inception, but never had the urge to plunk down the money for one until Xillia.  I’m familiar with ins and outs of the JRPG genre, and have tons of titles under my belt, the most recent being Star Ocean: Last Hope and Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch earlier this year.

My experience with Tales of Xillia was largely positive.  Like most JRPGs, you’re thrown straight into the middle of a complicated plot from the outset, and travel together with its characters through shocking plot twists and unexpected turns.  In a departure from other JRPGs I’ve played, Xillia allows you to “choose” between one of two main characters – the robotic and entertainingly harsh Milla, and the kindhearted and somewhat naïve Jude.  Your choice doesn’t have any specific affect on the outcome or progression of the story, but there are times when your decision has an impact on the presentation of the game’s events.  To give a general example without spoiling anything specific, there are times throughout when Milla and Jude are forced to split up.  Depending on who your focus is, you get to see a different side of the events leading up to the point where the two reunite.  It’s a pretty neat dynamic, but I feel it could’ve been used a whole lot more.

The world of Xillia is beautiful and full of fantasy, brimming with magic, spirits, and ferocious monsters alongside heaps of modern technology, a setting reminiscent of previous generation Final Fantasy titles.  After adjusting to the initial information overload, I quickly grew fond of each and every one of the main characters, a varied cast of lovable and memorable personalities (if not a bit cliché), from the mysterious and devil-may-care Alvin to the innocent and bashful Elize.  Graphic quality is a bit choppy, but it doesn’t hurt the overall presentation, in my opinion.  Battles are full of vibrant colors and flashy special moves. There are these wonderful “anime” cut-scenes sprinkled generously throughout the presentation of Xillia’s story to emphasize important events, too.   As far as the game world itself, Xillia lacks a traditional world map, and you move directly from place to place by exiting one area and immediately entering another.  Once you reach a certain point, you’re able to fast-travel to any location you’ve previously visited, a handy mechanic for tying up loose ends.  Each “civilized” locale is full of talkative NPCs that add more depth to story.  One nifty feature I like – each person you can speak to has a little smiley face bubble above their heads.  When they have something new to say, the lines of the face are dark.  When you’ve already spoken with them, it grays out.  This makes it much easier to determine who you’ve gabbed with, and saves time when you’re trying to dive deeper into Xillia’s world.

Aside from the main quest, you can take on some additional “side quests” along the way.  While this was a nice break, they offered little in the way of substantial rewards, and became more of a forgettable distraction as I got farther into the game.  The majority of the tasks were your standard “get this item for me” or “defeat those monsters” tasks, not diverging significantly from the stereotypical “fetch quest” norm.  It was a good attempt, however, and it did add a bit of variation to the sometimes linear progression of Xillia.  The “hostile” areas between towns are full of monsters to fight, but are honestly on the whole a bit dull.  You can find bags of materials or sparkling resource points, both of which regenerate after a time, and you can duck into tiny crawlspaces with treasure chests inside (sometimes – funnily enough, your characters will comment if it ends up being just an empty cave with nothing in it).  This is all well and good for explorer types, but the similarities between each area became too great.  It felt like I was adventuring through the same place over and over again, except now there was grass, or different types of trees, or it was snowing.  Sure, there are some truly unique interior regions, but even those were a bit cookie-cutter.  It would have been interesting to include a bit of flare that made each area truly special, rather than rearranging and repainting the same general maps again and again.

To me, the areas where Xillia really shines are the battle system, the loot system, and the leveling system.  In battles, each character has a unique set of techniques and spells (i.e. artes) that can be accessed by quick commands on your controller.  Each character also has a different ability that only he or she can do.  Milla, for example, can change up her arcane artes, either channeling them as a devastating spell, or unleashing it as a quick attack that works well in combos.  Rowen particularly was my favorite, as he can add additional effects (and damage) to his magic by performing various button presses while the arte is in effect.  In a nod to Chrono Trigger, you can also pair up with another character, granting access to powerful dual techniques, as well as support abilities.  It almost felt like I was playing a fighting game!  When Elize is your partner, she steals HP and TP from your target and transfers it to herself and you, Jude restores a portion of your HP if you get knocked down, and Leia attempts to steal items from toppled foes.  It was a lot to absorb at first (I had a hard time which moves combined with which characters), but all the information is easily accessible from a menu that can be accessed during battle (which also pauses the action).  There’s also a meter fills up as perform combos and artes.  When full, it allows each character to unleash powerful (and cool) ultimate technique under certain conditions.  In battle, you control one member of your party at a time, but can switch between your current (and, later on, even reserve) characters at will, and can change your backup partners in similar fashion.  The rest of your activate party fight on autopilot, and act under AI strategies that you can customize.  Luckily, Xillia’s AI does a pretty good job; I almost never found myself cursing my computer controlled teammates.  There’s even an option to let your team use items automatically, which helped in tight situations (but it forced you to really keep track of your inventory).  All in all, this system was challenging but very rewarding.  I felt particularly proud of myself (I literally fist pumped) when conquering a couple of the game’s more difficult bosses.

The loot in Xillia is comprised mainly of (1) equipment, (2) usable items, and (3) materials.  Equipment is pretty much what you would expect.  Each character has a unique weapon type, along with slots for body armor, a helmet, and an accessory.  There is, however, a really nifty collectible wardrobe of wearable items that change a character’s appearance, but don’t improve on abilities in anyway.  These include things like bunny ears, a devil’s tail, pilot shades and half-rim glasses.  It’s fun to play dress-up, but it would be better if the actual equipment you wear (which, by the way, have beautiful illustrations in the menu) changed your appearance, a feature that JRPGs are notorious for ignoring.  Usable items are comprised of a variety of restorative and offensive consumables, although food is something a little different.  When you eat a scrumptious dish, it provides lasting effects that continue over a number of battles.  Some boost gald or experience earned, or restore your HP or TP at the end of each fight.  While there’s no crafting system of any sort in Xillia, you’re constantly picking up materials from treasure caches and monster drops.  At each shop, you have an option to “Expand” the five vendor types (items, weapons, armor, accessories, and food), which opens up additional, more powerful items for purchase.  This is how you access more and more powerful (and expensive) equipment.  Xillia is unique in that some of the best equipment is available for sale in a shop, rather than hidden across the game world, and you’ll find yourself constantly grinding for gald.

Lastly, Xillia’s leveling system draws parallels to Final Fantasy X, where (like the Sphere Grid from that game) every level earns you a pool of Growth Points that can be spent on activating nodes.  Each node boosts a character’s base statistics (strength, vitality, intelligence, spirit, agility, dexterity, HP, TP, and SP – Skill Points).  To activate a particular node, you must have activated one adjacent to it on the grid.  When two adjacent nodes are activated, the gridline in between lights up.  In the middle of these gridlines are special nodes that are unlocked when you light up all the gridlines surrounding it.  These provide new Skills, which are permanent bonuses or enhancements to your characters that can be “equipped” using a pool of Skill Points, or Artes, the special skills that can be utilized in battle.  It’s a complex system at first, but it allows you to ultimately decide the direction in which each character develops.  As you progress, the grid (called the Lilium Orb by the game’s characters) expands, and eventually, a second orb is revealed beneath.  Keep this in mind, however – when you begin, you earn about 3 GP per level, and as you advance, it increases to 4 and even 5 per level.  But, once you reach around level 55 or 60, it drops dramatically to 2 (and it may do so even further, but I didn’t get that high), so make sure you spend your points wisely.

All in all, Tales of Xillia was an enjoyable JRPG with a fleshed out game world, a story full of unexpected left turns, and characters that made me smile.  The battle system is challenging and complex, shop expansions are an enjoyable twist on standard RPG looting, and the Lilium Orb is a customizable (albeit familiar) way to strengthen your party.  Although this was my first “Tales of” game, it definitely won’t be my last.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Level-5 Working on a PS4 Project


OMG.  I love Level-5.  They hooked me with Dark Cloud (and its excellent sequel, Dark Cloud 2) – I thoroughly enjoyed the endless random dungeon exploration mixed skillfully with item crafting, world building, and character leveling.  It was AWESOME!  And of course, as you all know, I was greatly impressed with Ni No Kuni.  While, yes, it was a JRPG through and through (which is why many didn’t take to it), I personally treasured every minute, including the grinding.  The pairing with Studio Ghibli didn’t hurt, either.


To hear that the developer is definitely working on a title for PS4 makes me really happy (you can see IGN’s story here – “Ni No Kuni DeveloperCreating Playstation 4 Game”).  Not to put down Ni No Kuni, but the game that would make me happiest would be a Dark Cloud 3!  Here’s hoping.


Skyrim Version 1.9 Update



Hey guys – I’m sorry for the long hiatus, but I’m finally back to writing about video games!


If any of you fired up Skyrim last night, then you know that the long awaited version 1.9 update was finally released to the consoles.  This introduces a couple of important new features
  • Legendary difficulty has been added.  I personally only play on Adept (which is plenty fun and challenging enough for me), but for those of you who want to try, check it out and let me know how “legendary” it really is!
  • Keeping to the “legendary” theme, skills can now become Legendary.  When a skill reaches level 100, you can choose to reset it to 15.  This allows for 85 more increases that count towards your character level!  This means there’s a MUCH higher character level cap, too!  I didn’t get a chance to try it out last night (my current character doesn’t have anything at 100 yet), but I’m going to play with the feature using my alternate characters soon.
  • There’s a HUGE list of bug fixes (that I won’t go over in detail here), but I was already stoked when I realized I could FINALLY drop Gallus’ Encoded Journal (that stupid book is stuck on ALL of my characters).  That in and of itself proves that Bethesda has corrected some long outstanding issues. 

I’ll post more information as I discover more details.

Friday, March 8, 2013

9 Things Unique to Video Games


9 Things Unique to Video Games


There’s an awesome article on IGN that touts the qualities of video games.  I have always been a proponent for video games as intricate works of art, and the author outlines 9 aspects that make gaming something special, a world apart from other media.

Read the full article here – “9 Amazing Things Unique to Video Games”.

Below is a concise list of the elements the author goes over:

  • Immersion
  • Sense of Presence
  • Engagement
  • Interactivity
  • Shaping the Experience
  • Customizability
  • Progress Blockers
  • Mastery
  • Replayability
  • Better Satisfaction/Time Ratio

NOW PLAYING - Metroid Other M


NOW PLAYING – Metroid Other M


In between Skyrim marathons, I’ve sat down with Metroid Other M for a few sessions, and I have to admit – I have mixed feelings about the overall experience thus far.  Probably because I’ve become accustomed to the Metroid Prime experience, Other M seemed like a big throwback to me, which it essentially is.  Many have likened it to Super Metroid, which is pretty on target.

The game is played in third person mostly, with the option to switch to first person (to look around and shoot at things out of the camera’s normal visual range).  Samus retains most of her familiar abilities, from her Morph Ball and Bombs to the Charge Beam and Missiles.  She can now dodge with a quick tap of the Control Pad with good timing.

Perhaps it’s because I’m used to the massive, colorful, and beautifully designed worlds in Metroid Prime that I’m a little disappointed by the dull and dark environments of Other M’s world so far.  Sure, Section I has gotten a little more interesting in terms of world design, but you’re still confined to the inside of a ship.  Many of the rooms are also pretty linear, a change from Prime’s humongous levels.

But I suppose it’s unfair to compare this game too much to Metroid Prime, because it’s not trying to be Metroid Prime.  The controls are actually pretty good and respond well, and the challenge level is satisfying (yes, I’ve died a couple of times already, I have to admit).

I’ll let you all know how it turns out as I progress further…