up a sword and sets off with the assistance of a fistfighting healer who's handy in the

kitchen. You can choose to experience the story from either of their points of view.

Battles are in real-time and rather complex for their era, mostly because you're juggling

four characters at once and trying to coordinate between them. The voice acting's suspect,

but the whole thing's lifted up by a breathtaking Motoi Sakuraba soundtrack. And now that I'm

done summarizing Star Ocean: the Second Story, it's time to talk about Tales of Xillia. Or

is it X-illia? Kzillia? It's not a word that's used in the actual game, so I don't really

have a pronunciation guide. Y'know, we'll just call it "this game" for the remainder

of the review.

I get the feeling that any attempt to summarize the plot of this game will, by definition,

leave out about five hundred things I want to mention and which are crucial to understanding

a couple seconds of the plot. Suffice it to say, the story moves fast, from one conflict

to the next wrapping up the fates of a med student, a mysterious swordswoman, a dubious

mercenary, an orphan girl, a kung-fu nurse, and the most badass butler this side of Lurch.

And it all starts with a choice: Do you focus on Jude's side of the story, or Milla's? I

have an unabashed love of games that offer multiple viewpoints through their narrative,

like the aforementioned Star Ocean: the Second Story, or Mana Khemia 2, or heck, even Odin

Sphere. In the early game, though, the differences aren't that pronounced, but by the end of

the game the experiences (and storylines) split more and more, with Jude's story focusing

mostly on those around him and Milla's focusing on the world itself. There you go, your New

Game + is justified.

Mechanically, the battles are fast and frenzied, with your usually four-man team up against

around a half-dozen hostiles, or maybe just one freakin' aggravating moth of a boss. While

this kind of real-time battle is par for the course in the Tales series, this game kicks

it up a notch by allowing you to tether two of your characters together, who will work

in tandem by trying to flank enemies, provide bonuses to each other, and combine for massive

Linked Artes attacks, to go along with martial artes, spirit artes, spirit shifted spirit

artes, arcane artes, mystic artes, enough to make your head spin. For its credit, the

game offers a number of tutorials to explain just what the heck's going on in the heat

of battle, but actually understanding the mechanics will take a lot more practice. Input

mistakes are also fairly common, as it seems each button, stick, and trigger on your controller

does three different things depending on any of a billion circumstances.

The difficulty curve also takes its time in smacking you in the face; it's not until many

hours into the game where you hit a truly hard battle that you can't just button-mash

through, and took me a couple hours of rethinking my strategy and, y'know, actually learning

the intricacies of the mechanics. For its part, the game gives you a thorough level

of AI control through the Strategy menu, as well the ability to set up usage guidelines

for items that almost smacks of the Gambit system from Final Fantasy XII. Character development

uses a system of interconnected orbs that made me think "sphere grid" at first glance,

combined with a point-based skill capacity system that seemed like Final Fantasy IX on

steroids. Acoustically... well, it's a mixed bag. The

vocal work's a bit hit-or-miss, depending on whether or not you chalk Milla's utterly

stilted dialogue up to her alienation from actual humans. I suppose it's kinda endearing

after a while... a long while... awright, so it might be the voice-acting equivalent

of Stockholm Syndrome and if you have the sense to get the heck out of there while you

can I can't blame you. The rest of the cast are handled a bit better, even if they may

be complete weirdos. But that's of little concern in the face of the kind of sweeping,

epic Motoi Sakuraba soundtrack that you come to expect from the series. Swords and fantasy

and harps and big rumbling bass and frantic organ-laden battles everywhere, but in a very

welcome change of pace, a few moments of dirty, experimental jazz that seem a world apart

from what you were expecting. But that comes later.

Tales of... um... this game had me stapled to my couch, digging deeper and deeper, looking

for the next plot twist in a series of massive plot twists that - and I don't know if it's

just because I was recently playing Final Fantasy VIII, AKA the exact wrong way to handle

these kinds of things - all seemed to carry just enough foreshadowing, despite my only

seeing part of the plot. The one frustration I have, though, was that quests and side-events

gave no indication whatsoever of who to talk to, or where to find the NPC or event you're

looking for, save for a relatively tiny exclamation-point icon above their head. Still, at least you

usually get a lead-off skit that alludes to the sidequest in some way. Beats having to

track down a three-eyed alien woman in a random bar. I know I've made a number of references

to Star Ocean in these reviews of Tales games, but that's because... well, Star Ocean is

no longer a thing that exists, and Tales of Xillia (along with most of the rest of 'em)

gives me that same kind of high-energy RPG experience I so desperately crave. With a

side of seriously kick-ass soundtrack, and a generous scoop of believable character development.

Fries are an extra dollar-eighty, though.