Tales of Xillia: Two Heroes, Two Designers
The 15th-anniversary title split its own cover down the middle: two protagonists, two house artists, one story told from two sides.
Tales of Xillia arrived on PlayStation 3 on September 8, 2011, North America followed on August 6, 2013. Medical student Jude Mathis crosses paths with Milla Maxwell, who claims to be the Lord of Spirits, as she raids a military laboratory; the game lets you choose whose shoulder to stand behind, and the story’s other half waits for a second playthrough.
THE DOUBLE DESIGN
A first for the seriesJude by Fujishima, Milla by Inomata
Xillia was the first mothership title to combine the series’ two house designers: Kosuke Fujishima drew Jude’s side of the cast, Mutsumi Inomata drew Milla’s. The two artistic dialects that had alternated for sixteen years share one party, the anniversary made visible.
No more chibi in the field
Xillia was also the first Tales to abandon the series’ classic super-deformed field proportions for realistically proportioned characters throughout, a visual coming-of-age that every later entry kept.
Fighting in pairs
Its battle system links two characters into one unit: partners flank, guard and fire combined artes together. The link system made the party itself the mechanic, appropriate for a game built out of pairs.
THE SEQUEL WITH A DEBT
Xillia 2, 2012Ludger and the bill
Tales of Xillia 2 (November 1, 2012; North America August 19, 2014) opens with its hero, Ludger Kresnik, surviving a disaster and waking to an enormous medical debt, repayments gate his progress through a story about destroying fractured parallel worlds to save the prime one. It is the series’ strangest and most adult frame.
Choices that cost
Where Xillia split viewpoints, Xillia 2 splits decisions: dialogue choices, a silent protagonist by design, and endings that turn on what the player refuses as much as what they choose. Daigo Okumura designed the new cast joining the returning party.
The remaster
In October 2025 Xillia became the second title in the 30th-anniversary Remastered Project, the anniversary game, remastered for the next anniversary. Its sequel remains, for now, a PS3 disc.