VideoGame Good Tales, Bad Anniversary
The plot is okay, though several revelations are basically the same from previous games, so the veteran players may be disappointed, as it feels like Xillia's plot brought nothing new to the table, only copying from older games. The pacing is okay, though it is very obvious where the team ran out of time to complete the game and everything is suddenly dropped, with the final dungeon being the next, mandatory location. Though I personally have found something they could have cut and spent on dealing with pacing issues.
I am also one of the people who thinks the shilling Milla gets is horrendously inappropriate, too much and has no place in the game. She has done nothing that I haven't already seen previous Tales characters do, male or female. Now, I have played Tales since Phantasia in the '90s. And I have noticed, over the years, that Namco seems to really love its heroines, which is understandable since they are their creations. But Milla is the epitome of unnecessary shilling that should have been cut out.
Aside from Milla, the characters are pretty decent. Elize is adorable and very sweet, very fittingly childlike and can easily be The Heart of the game that can pull the player in for caring. Holding Rowen's hand when scared? I cared. Alvin, though, really needs to set his priorities straight.
Unfortunately, I found the music of the game to be forgettable 99% of the time. The only part of the soundtrack I remember, is the Opening.
Separating the game into two routes is a nice idea, but unfortunately, aside from a slight diversion here or there, it doesn't do much. 95% of the time, you're playing the same route, with 2.5% of the rest being forced to do the 'Jude' route when you are playing the 'Milla' route and the other 2.5% are the difference. Which really, honestly, only involves a short sequence in the beginning of the fourth arc.
Battle system is interesting, though relies way too heavily on the Link Up system.
Your Grade depending on how many titles you have done (and things you have completed in the game) is not okay for me. I don't want to have to do majority of the game content and get close to 100%, just to carry over decent things for NG+.
Is it a good Tales game? Yes. A good 15th Anniversary title? Definitely not.
VideoGame Ultimately Good
First off, the game has admitted to having a rushed anniversary production schedule, so some things aren't as good as they could have been (one in particular being every 'seahaven' locale is the exact same). But of course, there's more to Xillia than that.
Character-wise, it's fairly diverse for our heroes: normal medical student who is initially hesitant to fight, smooth-talking mercenary with mysterious motives, a (powerful) little girl who just wants friends, a cheerful childhood friend with a staff, and a legitimately old respected butler - you're bound to like most of them.
The one kink could be Milla, the resident God in Human Form: aside from an absolute fascination with the human body, her entire mindset revolves around getting her mission done, period (frequently through impossible/insane/no-empathy-yet-ultimately-means-good actions). This will either make her a Badass Action Girl with some Adorkable-ness or... well, the YMMV tab covers that. There's very little middle ground for her, my opinion being the former.
Story-wise is interesting, revolving around Milla completing her most basic mission: protecting spirit-kind, who have been dying recently - naturally problems arise, but this won't stop her or the others. It's presented in two sides, from the perspective of Milla herself and Jude... the core story is the same for both, but certain scenes/side quests/ boss battles will be different, depending on who you choose. So at the least, you'll have to play twice to get all the details.
Gameplay-wise? In a word, explosive.
A key theme of the combat is linking, allowing yourself and a partner to work together in battle, breaking guards and disrupting enemy attacks - the AI's fairly good at it too. And you're allowed to indefinitely switch between in-battle characters on-the-fly, in addition to near-instant switching out a member for one of the two backups. Theoretically at end-game, you could switch+play as all six characters in one battle (linking included). And you'll need this teamwork, because the bosses aren't easy to 'stun-lock' to death - plus later, linking is essential to using Mystic Artes.
Fair warning though: linking nullifies any player-control for the linkee (linker is unaffected), so it's not recommended for 3-player and up.
Ultimately, I say give Xillia a try, and see what you think.
VideoGame Great gameplay, story a little rushed.
Firstly, I'll get my main gripes with the game out of the way:
The plot is amazing up until the halfway point, but after that it was very clear the writers were struggling with the Cosmic Deadline. The story suddenly moves at a rapid pace and a lot of the details are either abandoned or rushed through. This also results in the much-hyped "second world" you visit being dissapointingly small.
Another issue I have is the "Another Side, Another Story" is kind of unbalanced. You choose at the beginning whether to follow Jude or Mila as the main character, with the idea being that each will see things the other doesn't. The problem is... there is NO REASON NOT TO CHOOSE JUDE'S STORY ON A FIRST-TIME PLAYTHROUGH. Mila's seems very definately meant for a second playthrough, with some segments being a lot more difficult than Jude's. The problem is the game doesn't tell you this. The real issue here though, is plot. Early on the two stories are treated equally, and Mila gets a really interesting exclusive sequence. But the final "route branch" is kind of annoying. Play as Mila, and you miss out on FOUR extremely plot-relevant boss battles, including the Tales staple "Fighting Your Friend" moment. To make up for this? Mila gets..... one exclusive boss. And it's a frustrating That One Boss at that. The amount of plot you miss out on in her story is just massive, it's actually flat-out impossible to get the "religious skit viewer" trophy in Mila's story because the number of Jude-exclusive skits VASTLY outnumbers Mila-exclusive ones. This could have very easily been remedied, but the details are spoileriffic.
The game's main strength, I feel, is just how un-black and white it is. I don't think I've seen a better example of "White and Grey Morality" in a game before. All antagonists are deep characters with legitimate motives for what the do, and no-one is ever presented as pure evil. Many are genuinely good people who happen to be going about things the wrong way. I know the Tales series often does this, but here it's really prominant. The main party is a lot less eccentric than, say, Graces. whether this is a good or bad thing is up to you. Skits are still hilarious. I also feel the game does its global warming aesop a lot better than Vesperia did. The gameplay is the game's main strength, most has already been explained above.