Warning before you read this: I get heavily invested into video game stories. Crazy, I know. I mean, it’s not like people get so invested in other media, such as movies, to the point that they chase directors off of Twitter. I really delve into the story of two games in this post and provide quite a bit of analysis. You’ve been warned!
This post contains spoilers for Tales of Xillia and Tales of Xillia 2.
This is an incredibly detailed critical analysis of Tales of Zestiria‘s mechanics based on playing the import. The author is my friend Radiant Roar, who is a long time expert on the deeper mechanics behind modern Tales of games. There’s a few minor spoilers for certain party members and boss names in the post but is otherwise spoiler-free. This post covers the game’s mechanics and is not a critique of the game’s story. It’s definitely worth a read.
Here is Radiant Roar’s youtube channel as well. He’s made a bunch of great videos from various Tales of games.
The 13th game in a popular, long-running Japanese RPG series starring a female main character for the first time in the series’ history. Unfortunately, the game faced some issues during development resulting in some disappointment among fans. Eventually a sequel was released that fixed many of the issues in the first game while introducing a new male protagonist and a weird, somewhat bizarre plot.
Think I’m talking about Final Fantasy XIII? Nope! I’m referring to the 13th “mothership” title in the wonderfully prolific Tales of series, Tales of Xillia.
So, Tales of Xillia. What is there to say? I’ve been a huge fan of this series since 2005, so of course I had to get this game as soon as it came out. This is the ninth Tales game I’ve finished now? I’ve kind of lost count at this point. I love this series, and it’s slowly creeping up to the same level as Final Fantasy on my personal hierarchy of favorite game series.
Achromatic 