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A tale of unwavering belief.note 

"Even if you present them with a more noble way, humans won't change. I've been watching them for two thousand years."

Tales of Xillia is the thirteenth mainline entry in the Tales Series. The game was released on September 8th, 2011 in Japan, exclusively on the Playstation 3. It received an international release on August 6th, 2013 in North America and August 9th, 2013 in Europe.

In the world of Rieze Maxia, humans and monsters co-exist with the Spirits, who grant their power to humans in exchange for protection. The most basic form of this is the ability to channel mana as Spirit Power, which can be used to power everything from street lamps to magical spells. Two countries vie for supremacy of Rieze Maxia: Rashugal, an empire whose extensive use of Spirit Power has granted it incredible prosperity; and Auj Oule, a developing country whose power comes from the control of monsters.

Jude Mathis is a bright young medical student studying in the capital of Rashugal. When a large number of patients are suddenly admitted to his hospital, he investigates the cause and encounters a mysterious woman called Milla Maxwell. Milla claims to be "Maxwell", the legendary Lord of Spirits, and has come to investigate a recent wave of spirit deaths within Rashugal. Together, she and Jude discover a horrific secret lurking in the heart of Rashugal, and are soon forced to flee from the military.

Other characters include Alvin, a smooth-talking mercenary with a secret agenda; Leia Rolando, Jude's childhood friend and trainee nurse; Elize Lutus, a timid but gifted Spirit Summoner with a talking doll named Teepo; and Rowen J. Ilbert, the dedicated butler of a respected noble family within Rashugal.

The battle system is a fusion of the Destiny (Capacity Points) and Symphonia (TP) styles featured in previous Tales games, allowing for constant combos as long as "Assault Counter" points remain. The most notable addition is "Link Mode", which allows two characters to coordinate their actions far more closely, protecting each other, attacking together and executing powerful tag team attacks called Resonance Artes. The Skit System from previous Tales games has also been expanded, now including more inter-party banter during battles and casual dialogue while wandering through the overworld. Since there has been an official name for them, but the game doesn't differentiate between the two "long" and "short" skits, the short skits have been called "chats".

A direct sequel to the game, Tales of Xillia 2, was released on November 1st, 2012 in Japan, and internationally on August 19th, 2014 in North America and August 22nd, 2014 in Europe.

You have been warned of very critical spoilers!


Trope associated with this game:

    open/close all folders 
    Tropes A-D 
  • Aborted Arc: Act 4 ends when Gaius hands Jude the key to the final dungeon and says "see you there," immediately ending the group's journey in Elympios and leaving the Elympios plot threads (The Otherworld Reactor Project, human experimentation, etc.) to voiced-over sub-events, or outright no resolution.
  • Action Girl: Milla is the most noticeable example of this in the game. She refuses to stay down or fail in her mission to protect Rieze Maxia from those who would seek to control the spirits and use Spyrix technology, believing it to be her duty as the Lord of Spirits.
  • Alien Sky: As seen in the game's opening and the night-time party chats before the final battle, there are two moons orbiting the world of Rieze Maxia and Elympios, one smaller/farther than the other.
  • Always with You: It is hinted in the ending for Jude's side that even though Milla now lives in the spirit world as the new Maxwell, she still watches over him and their friends.
  • Amplifier Artifact: Boosters. They work by forcefully extracting more mana from a person's mana lobe that is normal (or healthy), thus allowing the user to cast more powerful Spirit Artes. The drawback is that it shortens the user's lifespan.
  • Anime Theme Song: progress by the queen of J-pop, Ayumi Hamasaki.
  • Another Side, Another Story: The game allows you to choose either Jude or Milla at the beginning of the game as the "main character". Whoever you choose will get more scenes, their own set of Battle Theme Music, and you get to see their version of events when the party splits up. While Jude is a more traditional Audience Surrogate whose scenes focus on Character Development, Milla is more involved in the events of the plot.
  • Anthropomorphic Personification: The party theorizes that the Golden Mage Knight is the physical form of bloodlust.
  • Anti-Frustration Features: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise here.
  • Arbitrary Headcount Limit: While the party is limited to only four characters, the player can switch in any off-screen character during battle.
  • Arbitrary Mission Restriction: Of the optional objective variety. The player can earn a title for not using any Gels until a certain point in the game.
  • Arc Words: "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." Often followed by someone saying "Howe's Egg Principle", which is the name for the phrase.
  • Armor-Piercing Question: Milla gives one of these to Gaius during his Motive Rant. Gaius reveals that his plan is to gather and store all of the world's superweapons not only to gain strength, but to protect the weak from those who would seek to abuse them. Milla counters with a speech to the effect of "But you'll eventually die one day. And who's to say the next guy who takes the throne in your place will have the same ideas you do?" Gaius briefly falters at that.
  • Artificial Brilliance: When you partner with someone, the AI is actually smart enough to wait to attack until after, or during your attacking. This means you'll do more damage and also keep the enemy busy. Not only that, they'll make sure to heal you or buff you as soon as they can and even when not partnered, they will often move in a way that allows them better usage of their artes. They'll also do things like get you out of dizziness; and if you're knocked out on the ground and stunned, they'll snap you out of it usually right away. They also will guard attacks for you if a enemy is relentlessly attacking you.
  • Artificial Stupidity:
    • Despite the above, characters have a glaringly stupid tactic of running closer to the enemy when they use artes. Yes Rowen, stand closer to the guy with the sword.
    • Leia has a buff spell that gives a random elemental attribute to an ally's physical attacks. Not only does her AI fail to realize how unreliable this is, but she'll even cast it against enemies that resist all elements, where it will drastically lower your damage output. note 
  • Ascended Extra: In a sense, Driselle. She's a minor NPC character, and yet she gets to be part of a few skits on Milla's side of the story, during their imprisonment at Fort Gandala.
  • Authority Equals Asskicking: Both King Nachtigal and King Gaius are extremely tough bosses, with Nachtigal in particular being a Hopeless Boss Fight when you first meet him. (Gaius is arguably also a Hopeless Boss Fight the first time you fight him — the game proceeds in the same way whether you win or not, and suggests that your entire party is more or less equally matched with him.) Both, however, also have a certain degree of justification for this — Nachtigal fought in the army in his younger days, working his way up from foot soldier to general on merit alone, despite his noble birth (which, in fact, is the main reason he's king by now — when it came to a civil war between him and his older brothers, the army backed HIM.) Gaius, meanwhile, rose to power on a philosophy of Asskicking Leads to Leadership, and effectively formed his kingdom from a bunch of scattered Barbarian Tribes by virtue of being able to kick everybody else's ass — in a culture that greatly honors personal strength.
  • Automatic New Game: If there is no savefile present, the game starts up by letting the player check the settings and then proceeds immediately into the animated cutscene intro. A proper title menu appears once the player has viewed the Jude or Milla opening, depending on which route they picked.
  • Big "NO!": From Jude, when Milla appears to die at the end of chapter 3.
  • Big Damn Heroes: During the final boss battle, each party member that isn't Jude or Milla comes into the battle to assist them one by one, using their Mystic Arte for a Dynamic Entry.
  • Bittersweet Ending: The two worlds are saved, the well-intentioned antagonists are redeemed and Maxwell steps down, dispelling the schism. However, Milla turns down the opportunity to be reborn as a human, as she feels it is her responsibility to stay in the Spirit World as the new Lord of Spirits.
  • Black Magic: Spyrix machines. Unlike Spirit Power, which essentially recycles the mana by giving it to spirits in exchange for magic, a Spyrix burns up the mana completely and risks depleting the finite mana supply of the world, as well as killing the spirits used in the process by mana starvation. The most dangerous Spyrix machines (such as the Lance of Kresnik) even suck up the mana from every living thing around them (including Spirits) to power themselves.
  • Boob-Based Gag: The skit about "Bazongas" note . The "bazongas" are first alluded to in a random conversation between Elize and Teepo, the latter claiming she has to eat properly or she'll "never get big bazongas". Later, Jude asks about what Teepo means by bazongas, Rowen and Alvin tease him for his lack of knowledge, leading to Jude exclaiming TEACH ME ABOUT BAZONGAS!. Just as Rowen and Alvin leave, and within Leia and Milla's earshot. Milla brushes it off as Jude experiencing puberty (according to a book), but that does nothing to mend Jude's wounded pride.
  • Boy Meets Girl: Jude encounters Milla when he gets curious and sees her walking on water, then ends up pulled along into her mission. Milla gets eventually lost due to a Heroic Sacrifice but she comes back.
  • Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: After Alvin apparently sells the party out to Cline, Teepo offers this when confronting him:
    Teepo: You jerk! You tattletale! You... tattle-jerk!
  • Brought Down to Normal: Milla loses her elemental abilities early into the plot.
  • Call-Back: At one point in the story, very badly-drawn wanted posters are put up for Jude and Milla.
  • The Cameo: Amongst other DLC were costumes based off of previous Tales series characters much like Graces had prior to this, complete with said outfits changing the battle music and even adding cameo win-quotes. The pre-order costume set for the game had a Cless Alvein costume for Jude and a Stahn Aileron outfit for Milla. There were also Japan-only costumes based off of Star Driver and an internationally available set based off of The Idolmaster. As for the publicly available cameo costumes, all playable characters got one each. Jude has a Leon Magnus outfit complete with earring prop and "Leon - Irony of Fate" battle music, Milla gets Dhaos' outfit as well as his headband as a hairstyle item and the Narikiri Dungeon X remix of "Conclusion", Alvin fittingly has Kratos Aurion's Judgment outfit and hairstyle and "End of a Thought", Elize gets Mint Adnade along with her nurse hat and "Take Up The Cross", Leia gets Farah Oersted as well as her hairstyle along with "Inferia Battle" and Rowen oddly enough gets Barbatos Goetia complete with hairstyle and the Destiny 1 Director's Cut remix of "Coup de Grace".
  • Cast From HP:
    • The Lance of Kresnik seems to be the most horrific version of this. It sucks out the life energy of everyone around it so it can fire a Wave-Motion Gun. Even worse, Nachtigal is experimenting on his own people to improve the process.
    • On the smaller scale, Boosters are this as well, dramatically increasing an individual's mana output - at the cost of their life energy. However, as a soldier puts it, this cost is mainly only after long periods of use, and even then, how much depends wildly among the afflicted. After hearing this, Rowen is worried for Elize, knowing full well that Teepo is a unique booster prototype.
  • Chekhov's Gun: There are quite a few events that foreshadow the development of Spyrite technology. When Jude and Milla search for a Spirit Fossil to power the device that will allow Milla to regain the use of her legs, they are carrying out the exact steps needed to make a Spyrite device.
  • Combat Medic: Jude, intentionally, but his small pool of healing moves makes his status as one disputable. Leia, on the other hand, is a true qualifier, snice she has more traditional Tales healing spells.
  • Combination Attack: Link Artes. Several between characters, depending if they have the artes that compliment each other.
  • Contrived Coincidence: It's a little lucky that Jude's father just so happens to have technology that could heal Milla's paralyzed legs, even though it's painful stuff. For anyone else the plot would've stopped right then and there, but in her case, it saves a lot of time and effort spent dragging herself forward. Of course, it's justified due to plot reasons, such as hinting that Derrick is from Elympios, and the entire situation ends up being plot important later on.
  • Crapsaccharine World: The beginning of the game messes up the viewpoint of the entire game's struggle.
  • Deconstructor Fleet:
    • Undying Loyalty is deconstructed heavily in the game by essentially asking a simple question: at what point does ones loyalty become a problem? What happens when someone forms their entire identity around loyalty to someone or something, like a cause? It ranges from showing us someone becoming unhinged and borderline mad when the one they followed breaks the image they had of them or dies, to showing a person becoming a Yes-Man who lacks free will of any kind, to another finally having enough of their loyalty being taken advantage of and trying to get revenge on the person they feel is responsible for it. Without a Goal in Life beyond blind loyalty, such dedication is unhealthy and leads to someone becoming a tool rather than a person.
    • Also, the game deconstructs the Determinator trope you see in the Tales series when it comes to following your beliefs. What happens when you become so determined to follow your beliefs that you're willing to become the very thing you despise? Also, it shows just how empty simply focusing your entire life is when you follow your beliefs and nothing else. Gaius' goals and motivations lead him to nearly becoming the very thing he despises, all because he is strong willed and refuses to back-down from his views, leading him to be the games Final Boss.
  • Did Not Get the Girl: Xillia seems fond of this trope.
    • In the end, much to the sadness of both Jude and Milla, they cannot stay together. She must become the new Lord of Spirits to oversee the world continues on the correct path.
    • Also, Alvin and Presa.
    • As well as Rowen, who was going to get married to Nachtigal's sister, but she was presumed dead during a great flood. While she's eventually found to be alive and healthy, she has suffered amnesia and completely forgotten Rowen.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Jude does this to the real Maxwell through sheer determination.
  • Diesel Punk: Everything about Elympios. Trigleph especially feels like it was ripped straight out of a hardboiled detective movie.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: Direct-tethering, a method of channeling spirit artes, takes on a rather... naughty tone in a skit about it. Muzét's experience with Jude in that method made Milla jealous, and the following line didn't help matters.
    Muzét: "Jude was able to fill me up with loads of mana."
  • Dual Boss: The Final Boss is between two entities who also use the Link System like the player does. It's with a powered-up Gaius and Muzet.
  • Dub Name Change:
    • Gaius' Fauves get renamed as the "Chimeriad" in the localization.
    • The shell becomes the schism.
    • The Origin become Spyrites.
  • Duel Boss: Jude versus Alvin, Milla versus Muzét, Jude versus Ivar. The last one counts as a Wake-Up Call Boss as well if Milla is your main character, as it's highly unlikely you've used Jude much up to this point.
  • Dr. Jerk: Jude's dad is a combination of this and Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He does care for his son, but because of his professional and strict demeanor he comes off as rather hard-hearted. (It also doesn't help much that one of the people Jude is traveling with is responsible for him becoming a wanted criminal, and another is someone that Jude's dad is implied to have a bit of a history with and knows is bad news.) If you go purely by the main story, he's simply a jerk, but multiple supplementary side-quests show him privately proud of his son growing a spine and taking responsibility.

    Tropes E-L 
  • Easy Levels, Hard Bosses: Regular enemies tend to be fairly easy. The bosses tend to be a huge step up in difficulty.
  • Elite Four: King Gaius has the Chimeriad, all of whom are faced as bosses at various points in the game. They are Jiao, Wingul, Presa, and Agria. They also double as a Classical Elements Ensemble, since Jiao specializes in earth, Presa specializes in water and ice, Wingul specializes in air and electricity (and dabbles in fire), and Agria specializes in fire.
  • Epilogue Letter: During the ending, the characters tell their current condition after the final battle by writing letters to each other, with the exception of Milla, of course.
  • Eternal English: Despite being separated for two thousand years, Elympions and Rieze Maxians can understand each other so perfectly that the only giveaway that the stranded Elympions aren't Rieze Maxian is their inability to channel spirits. There is a subversion in that Rowen needs Alvin to translate a poster in Trigleph... but the Cypher Language of the Elympion and Rieze Maxian written languages are identical, only that one is in a serif font and the other isn't.
  • Evil Is Hammy: The hammiest characters in the game (namely Nachtigal, Agria, and Muzét) all happen to be antagonists.
  • The Fellowship Has Ended: Each of the party members went their separate ways after the ending, though they still keep in touch with one another.
  • Fighting Your Friend: Jude versus Alvin, after Alvin accidentially shoots Leia.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation:
    • After the events in Labari Hollow, Elize becomes sulky and Teepo loses his memories and personality. They still act like their old selves in post-battle celebrations and skits.
    • When the party is reunited in the final arc, on Jude's side. In the narrative Alvin is feeling shunned for what he did to Leia, and she herself can barely look at him. However, their fun hi-five victory pose will still trigger sometimes. On Milla's side, the party have some unique post-betrayal victory poses.
  • Götterdämmerung: Maxwell's creation of Rieze Maxia was this for Elympios, effectively leaving them with no alternatives to Spyrixes for basic necessities where once they could rely on help from Spirit Arte users. But then, in the ending, the Schism falls and The Magic Comes Back.
  • The Greatest Story Never Told:
    • Since the game has players choose between Jude and Milla, certain portions of the game won't be seen in either route. For example, in Jude's side you get to see what happened to the team when Milla pulled out a Heroic Sacrifice, the last fight with Ivar, and what happened to Agria and Presa at the Hollowmont while in Milla's side you'll find out that, around that time, she had revived as an empty shell thanks to the spirits. Generally speaking, Jude's side revolves around the many characters that stand in their way while Milla's side focuses on her mission and the nature of spirits. You do get explanations from other characters about what happens during splitting paths.
    • Nearly at the end of their routes, they have exclusive parts where the event is radically different while it takes place in the same location. Namely, on Jude's side you fight Gaius for a second time while in Milla's side you fight Muzét instead.
  • Green Aesop: The spirit-consuming spyrixes are a pretty clear reference to the conflict between nature and industrialization. Spyrites are basically renewable energy, offering hope to Elympios, which would otherwise die due to completely depleting its natural resources.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: Ivar becomes increasingly jealous of Jude, a flaw that continually bites him (and, eventually, the entire world) in the arse.
  • Guide Dang It!:
    • Some missions have a very specific timeframe they must be done or the quests are gone. The most jarring part is that while some skits tell you what you need to do, they don't tell you WHERE to go, meaning you can end up wasting a good while searching for a NPC and miss out on some very good interesting side quests.
    • There's another side to this too. While the skits that hint at sidequests are an attempt to avert this, the hint skits themselves count for 100% Completion. The Guide Dang It! here is that doing certain sidequests too early can result in some hint skits being lost. And it's often not obvious which sidequests can safely be put off until later and which will disappear after a certain point.
  • Handshake Substitute: Alvin and Leia do a complicated one.
  • Heel–Face Door-Slam: After his defeat, Nachtigal listens to Rowen and genuinely seems to be interested in joining his friend together to lead the country again, when he's abruptly killed by Gilland.
  • Heroic BSoD: Jude has one, bordering on a Despair Event Horizon, when Milla sacrifices herself to save the party. He only snaps out of it when Alvin shoots Leia.
  • Holding Hands: Jude and Milla in the ending. They have to say goodbye because of Milla becoming the Lord of Spirits of Rieze Maxia.
  • Homage: Howe's Egg Principle? That's really something Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes fame said. Verbatim.
  • Hopeless Boss Fight: The first few rounds of the fight against the real Maxwell is one, as no matter how strong the party is the boss will hit them with his Mystic Arte (which ironically doesn't do much damage to a properly equipped party) during the fight to result in a cutscene of the party getting back up and attacking again a total of 3 times before the fight the player can actually win begins.
  • Hotter and Sexier: The skits seem to have taken this route. From Milla asking if Jude has an Oedipus Complex, to a discussion between Jude, Alvin, and Milla about bondage, and even acknowledging that orientations other than straight exist, this is definitely one of the more risque Tales of titles.
  • Innocent Innuendo: Milla comments, in one of the post-fight commentaries, that Jude has really big hands. She's just commenting on how strong his unarmed attacks are, but Jude clearly picks up an entirely different subtext.
  • Innocuously Important Episode: The Tatalian Abyss sidequest late in the game introduces miasma, a toxic gas older than the world. In this game it's just a random sidequest that doesn't affect anything else except for getting Milla's Devil's Arm, but miasma ends up being very important in the sequel.
  • Instant Expert: Milla, very much so. With just a bit of instruction from Alvin, she goes from an inept fighter that can't even swing her sword more than once in a row, to an extremely skilled swordswoman the equal of any Tales protagonist. In a skit shortly afterward, she comments that she's finally getting the basics of swordplay down, and that the trick is to view the sword as an extension of her body. A flabbergasted Alvin informs her that's not the basics, but rather the final part of mastery.
  • Instant Runes: While typical of a Tales game at this point, this iteration makes the runes from Abyss look like preschool art projects. Milla's "Elemental Mastery" in particular forms four gigantic runic circles that she blasts the enemy with.
  • In Medias Res: As compared to the previous game's Prolonged Prologue, this game's story dumps you into the action immediately, with explanations of what's actually going on and how we got to that point coming later. This is to the point that the game actually skips over the OP and title screen when starting up until you pass a certain (very early) point in the game. This is even more apparent if you're on Mila's story: while Jude gets a bit of time to wander around Fenmont Medical School and talk to NPCs for some backstory, Mila's throws you right into the middle of an action sequence.
  • Intimate Healing: "Direct tethering" is apparently this, as it allows a human to provide a Greater Spirit with mana. Naturally, Jude fails to realize this.
  • Kid Hero: At 15, Jude is one of the younger protagonists that the Tales series has seen along with Kyle and Ruca; the standard Tales hero age seems to be 17.
  • Last Lousy Point:
    • For those going for 100% skit completion, "The Gel Abstainers" is likely to be this. While most of the other "Misc" skits are fairly obvious and easy to get through normal playing (have the party all reach a certain level, have the main character's stats exceed a certain number, eat a certain food item), this one requires you to never use a single Gel until you reach Xian Du, which is roughly one third of the way through the game.
    • The sub-event skits might end up being this too, since doing certain sidequests too early can cause you to miss some.
  • Lethally Stupid: Ivar. He constantly gets in the way of protagonists and causes trouble solely due to his own massively overblown ego and trusting information that has been shown false before, and even activates the Lance of Kresnik very nearly killing everyone in the area including Milla which leads to the situation that requires Milla's Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Level-Up Fill-Up: Anyone who has learned the skill "Level Restore" gets the benefit of this.
  • Limit Break: The fan favorite Mystic Artes attacks return once again; introduced via full-body cut-ins (ala Tales of Graces).

    Tropes M-Z 
  • Magical Incantation: Incantations act as proof of a contract between Spirits and Channelers, allowing them to use their arts... except for Milla, who simply infuses her desires with the mana she offers, which is more of a threat.
  • Magic Knight:
    • Milla is what happens when a Magic Knight is designed to excel in both swordplay and magic without Competitive Balance holding him or her back. The only thing stopping her from becoming a One Woman Party is her lack of a self-healing ability.
    • Rowen is also a Magic Knight, though on the sliding slide of magic versus melee, he skews closer to the former.
  • Magitek: All technology in Rieze Maxia can be explained as applied Spirit Artes. A Spyrix is a more nefarious example. Spyrite, which is developed during the events of the game, is basically a spyrix without its one glaring drawback.
  • Macguffin Delivery Service: Milla tries to avoid being this. Unfortunately Ivar doesn't.
  • Megaton Punch: Milla can smash people around with giant summoned fists made of stone.
  • Money Is Experience Points: you can level up shops by spending money on their items. You could also donate money to give a higher portion of experience than you would by buying items.
  • Mood Whiplash:
    • If playing Milla's path first, sometime after she returns to life and rejoins the party, you will get a skit that casually informs you that the rest of the party fought and killed Agria/Presa in her absence. Oh, and that Alvin nearly killed Jude and Leia. This skit triggers quite randomly, dampens the levity of her return and may leave the player saying "what?". And because the skit is optional and doesn't always pop up, you'll get awkward interactions between characters for seemingly no reason. The most jarring is probably the after-battle skits featuring Leia and Alvin, because their friendly banter and secret handshakes have turned into awkwardly avoiding making eye contact or directly speaking to each other, and if you missed that skit this appears to be happening for no reason whatsoever.
    • On Jude's path, there's the scene of him and the Lord of Sharilton talking, who is offering his help however he can, while asking for Jude help against Nachtigal, shortly after his sister and Elize drag Milla away for some shopping. Cline is shot by an arrow, just as he offers his hand to Jude, and dies of his injury.
  • Multiple Game Openings: Depending on whether you choose to play as Jude or Milla the story starts at different points, and later on which branches you'll take and what bosses you'll meet.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Alvin, after accidentally shooting Leia. However, Alvin then blames Jude, leading to a Duel Boss battle between them.
  • My Rules Are Not Your Rules: The bosses in Xillia blatantly ignore the rules of the game's battle system. For example, according to the in-game tutorial, you have to link in order to enter Overlimit and must link Mystic Artes from an Arcane Arte. Prepare to grit your teeth in frustration as bosses freely enter Overlimit without linking, and relentlessly spam their Mystic Artes. Ivar, in particular, can whiff his Arcane Arte completely and still perform his Mystic Arte as though it had connected. While Wingull skips using an Arcane Arte altogether and simply spams his Mystic Arte; ofttimes back-to-back. Particularly obvious when you fight your own party members in the Arena, and they can use their Mystic Artes without linking. The exact same ones you need to be linked to use.
  • Mythology Gag: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise here.
  • New Game Plus: Once you beat either Jude's story, or Milla's, you get access to the New Game Plus option. Based on how many Grade Points you received in the first completed playthrough(which you get from getting titles), you can give new attributes to your new save file, such as XP boosts, regaining the levels your party had at the end of your last save file, etc.
  • No Ontological Inertia: If Maxwell dies, the schism will disappear.
  • NPC Random Encounter Immunity: Justified by the existence of Lilium Orbs, which give humans enough power to combat monsters (and facilitate the Character Level system). People are strongly discouraged from leaving town without one; Jude wasn't allowed to go to medical school without one, and he'd have been safe on a boat for his whole journey. Luckily, Lilium Orbs are fairly common.
  • Numbered Sequel: Not in the conventional way. Xillia is the thirteenth title in the mothership series. And if you're familiar with Roman Numerals the first for letters in Xillia is the the Roman Numeral for thirteen(XIII).
  • Official Couple: Jude and Milla.
  • Older Than They Look: Jude's mother Ellen is 51 years old, yet could easily pass for her forties or even thirties.
  • Otherworldly Technicolour Hair: The humans in the setting largely have normal hair colours of blond, brown, black, and grey from aging, with all odder colours associated with the supernatural spirits, like the Great Spirit Muzét, who has teal hair. Milla Maxwell, the Lord of Spirits temporarily taking human form, is otherwise blonde with an errant strand of hair styled green by the Great Spirit of Wind, Sylph. It's later revealed that Milla was Human All Along, and when she dies and reincarnates into a spirit herself, her blonde hair turns entirely green.
  • Peninsula of Power Leveling: Old Vicalle Mine. A somewhat early sidequest is likely to send you there: while the enemies are strong, they're far from impossible to beat at level 25 and can give over a thousand experience points in a single battle. Add XP-adding dishes to the mix, and, well... Xagut Floodmeadow too, if you go there as soon as you reach Nia Khera.
    • The War Sequence at Fezebel Marsh. The game counts the entire fight, those dozens and dozens of soldiers, as one battle. And there is a food that increases experience gain by 100% for a single fight. You do the math on that.
  • Penultimate Weapon: Despite what the game tells you, the unawakened Devil's Arms are far from the strongest weapons in the game. By the time you're strong enough to defeat the Devil's Beasts guarding them, it's possible shops may be selling stronger stuff, and you can't awaken their full power until after beating the game, making them more of a Bragging Rights Reward.
  • Plucky Comic Relief: Ivar. He's hyper, he moves like typical western cartoon characters, and has comical SFX going in for him.
  • Pokémon Speak: In the Japanese version, the Gentleman enemies exclaim "Gentleman!" upon noticing you. (In the English version, they say "Hello there!"). Also a case of Gratuitous English.
  • Red Herring: When the party is aware of side effects from booster overuse, the camera pans to Elize for a few seconds, and a skit has Rowen suspecting possible side effects in Elize. In the end, Wingul is the one who succumbs to overusing his booster.
  • Relationship Values: A mild case. The order your four remaining party members enter the final boss battle depends on their total link time.
  • Spell My Name With An S:
    • Certain characters had the spellings of their name changed for the western version, but not the pronunciation. For example, Elise and Tipo are now Elize and Teepo.
    • Jude in the German version is spelled as Jyde. Somewhat justified as Jude is the German spelling for jew.
  • Scenery Porn: The game is really beautiful, whether it's the anime cutscenes or in game scenes. Then again, the anime cutscenes were produced by ufotable.
  • Ship Tease: Invoked by some of the titles you can earn going through the game, to earn grade. "Jude and Milla have spent so much time linked together that people are beginning to gossip", for example. They have a title for every pairing of the main characters, and each involves their names with a heart between them.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Professor Haus (pronounced House) is a highly accomplished doctor at Jude's medical school. He performs unethical medical experiments and doesn't like to see patients. Sound familiar?
    • One of the skills Elize learns allows her to cut the party's battle-escape time by 80%. It's called Chicken Run.
    • Jude quotes Sherlock Holmes at one point: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." Milla and Rowen later repeat the quote.
  • Significant Reference Date: Supplementary material marks the creation the Schism as occurring in the year 2011 of the Elympios calendar, the same year the game was released in Japan.
  • Spock Speak: Milia's speech is extremely formal, avoiding contractions and expressions of speech, and she constantly refers to human behavior with a mixture of wonder, bewilderment and, occasionally, disappointment.
  • Suave Sabre: Rowen is a Magic Knight who uses almost exclusively Rapiers and Sabres in battle. This fits heavily with his Battle Butler theme, accentuating his intelligence and his elegance in battle.
  • Suspicious Videogame Generosity: Usually there are save points at the ends of the areas between cities and dungeons. Then, in the middle of the Lakutam Highroad, there's a save point for no apparent reason. Following that is naturally a small event and a boss.
  • True Companions: The main characters.
  • The Unreveal: At the end of the Pretty in Pink sidequest, the player never gets to see what the cute pink thing is.
  • Walk and Talk: The first time you arrive in Nia Khera the party walks through the village during some exposition, with the camera following behind them.
  • Wave-Motion Gun: The Lance of Kresnik. Except it's not the type that blows stuff up.
  • Wham Episode: The start of Act 3: "It wasn't a weapon." The end of Act 3 ( Milla's death) and the party's confrontation with the real Maxwell also qualify.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Subverted. Alvin's attempts to snap Jude out of his Heroic BSoD while suffering from a breakdown of his own lead to him almost killing Leia.
  • White-and-Grey Morality: All the antagonists in the game are varying degrees of sympathetic, and all tend to either have a Heel Realisation or Alas, Poor Villain moment after being defeated by the party.
  • Wholesome Crossdresser: Milla's Stahn and Dhaos costumes.
  • Xanatos Speed Chess:
    • Wingul and Rowen play an almost literal one, reenacting The Battle of Fezebel Marsh to see if things could have gone differently if Wingul was the enemy tactician.
    • Jude's uncanny ability to see things and plan at a moment's notice may be the first stages of this.
  • You Shall Not Pass!: Muzét tries to pull this in the Temporal Crossroads on Milla's route. Appropriately, after you win, Jude and Milla say "We shall pass!"

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