[PS3] Tales of Xillia is making waves!

Tales of Xillia was originally released in Japan almost two years ago(!) and has only just been released in the US, with an EU released scheduled for August 9th.

It has been getting great reviews all around, when first announced in Japan, it got the most pre-orders out of all the Tales games, as well as getting a 39/40 from the popular Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu.
IGN have just recently gave the game 8.0/10, saying that the combat is fun, has an interesting story and lots of replay value.

The game is set in a world that has been divided into two by a spirit called Maxwell. In one world, Rieze Maxia, they can all use mana and live in harmony with the spirits, whilst in the other world, Elympios, they all use advanced technology and use the lives of the spirits to supply power. (You can probably see where this is going.) In order to stop them from doing this, Maxwell created a barrier around Rieze Maxia, but somehow the folks in Elympios have managed to break in, form a group and start stealing spirits.

In Tales of Xillia, there are two protagonists and at the beginning of the game you can choose which one to play. One is Jude Mathis, who at the time of the game is a medical student investigating a research facility and treating patients with suspicious injuries. Whilst there, he meets Millia Maxwell, the other protagonist who just so happens to be Maxwell's successor. The two of them then set off an adventure to stop the folks from Elympios creating a weapon powered by Spyrix (which uses the lives of the spirits!).

Millia Maxwell

It seems that the story is a stand alone, so no knowledge of the previous games is needed. However, if you are a fan of the series, it seems there is a lot of things tucked away in the game for you too.

What really interests me about Tales of Xillia is the fact you can choose from two characters at the beginning of the game. It seems that one story isn't better than the other and it is really just down to preference and how you want to play but from reading around it seems Jude's story is a bit better, whereas Milla has better battle music. So it's your call! 

The combat seems to be like any other Tales game, with a few added elements. I haven't really played any Tales of games so here is a video showing the combat! (It's better than me trying to explain it.)

As you can probably tell, it isn't a turn based system. It kind of reminds me of Star Ocean, which had some amazingly fun combat, so if you were hoping for a turn based system - don't be put off! Battles like this are usually fun and get really challenging so be open-minded! :)

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Get your own copy of Tales of Xillia at PlayAsia! (US only m'afraid! EU will version will be up in a few days so I will update this!) Though it seems this has no region protection so if you are really desperate for it, you're in luck!

Practise your Japanese and get the JP version!
And if you are a collector like me, get the game guide! Awesome if you can read Japanese then you have this awesome guide and really cool collectors item. I'm being serious. I think it's awesome.

Check out IGN's review of the game here!