I’m generally more of a fan of turn-based battle systems (as evidenced by the games we’ve made), but so far, I think Tales of Xillia may be my favorite RPG this year.

I think a big part of it is that Tales of Xillia feels like the complete package:

It’s on the PS3 and had a decent budget so it has pretty graphics (unlike most RPGs I’ve been playing this year which have been for the 3DS and so are inherently limited with their visuals).
The music is good & voice acting is well done & plentiful.
Combat is fast-paced & a lot of fun.
Story isn’t anything amazing but the characters are enjoyable (even if they are mostly archetypes).
LV-Up systems are plentiful (your characters, your overall player rank, and the shops) & entertaining (the character LV-Up system feels like a less intimidating version of the Sphere Grid).
Maps have a good amount of variety & are chock-full of secret treasures.
There’s a clear linear core story path to follow, but there’s also plenty of optional content that you can do.
Frequent character skits & cutscenes help to add variety.
And I assume the game will have good replay value thanks to the dual protagonist system & the typical Tales New Game+ options.

In contrast, most of the other RPGs that I’ve enjoyed this year have had one or more major issues that dragged down the overall experience. For example, Ni no Kuni was a blast… until I got additional party members and had to deal with some of the worst ally AI I’ve ever seen in an RPG. Shin Megami Tensei IV has some great gameplay & an awesome soundtrack… but the story & characters are incredibly boring and the game doesn’t feel as tightly balanced as other games in the series. And so on.

How about you? What’s your favorite RPG of 2013 so far?

11 Responses

  1. As of right now I am at the final fight with optional quests. I am doing the quests. Compared to other Tales of games, I would actually have to say this one is one of the worst. Symphonia, Vesperia, Abuss, Graces, all of these games own it in humor, character depth, extra things to do, and most importantly, variety in maps.

    In Xillia, dungeons put me to sleep, the fields leading to dungeons put me to sleep. Combat gets boring because there just isn’t enough depth to it. There is stuff you can do, like linking different arts during overdrive, but I have yet to need to do it. The hard difficulty lacks enough reward to make it worth the hassle as it is a huge upgrade from just the difficulty before it, starts with a C, can’t recall the full name at the moment.

    The store upgrade system is annoying. It is interesting, but the x3 modifier kind of ruined it for me. I can’t stand to give materials to stores with only a x2 multiplier and I went through long stretches of game before I ever saw x3 multipliers so I would go long periods of time with no gear upgrades. And when I finally did upgrade the vendors, they would get like 5 new weapons per character, and I only needed the strongest, unless it had an elemental attribute I didn’t feel like messing with.

    The combat system requires very little actual strategy, and that made me sad. In Graces F, I literally had to run around normal monsters and get in combo’s as I could. I had to play smart, avoid laser beams, slam attacks, and had to basically play defensively until offensive openings happened. I did this because I played on the hardest difficulty in all situations save on bosses, and these annoying roper enemies in a cave halfway through the game. You feel the higher difficulty is worth the extra challenge in Graces, and in most previous Tales games that had a difficulty toggle. It is severely lacking in Xillia.

    I said it once, but I feel I need to expand on one things I disliked. The field maps, port maps, and various similar dungeon maps were a huge let down in this game. Most of these areas lacked any soul, so to say. They all looked similar to a fault, and exploring them became a chore fast which is when I started abusing the holy bottles. I got tired of hunting for holes in the walls, sparkles, and bags in every single area, but I am a completionist, so I did it. The maps in this game bring back a horrible memory of Final Fantasy 13 maps, which are arguably one of the top 2 reasons so many people felt so let down by FF 13. You go from point A to point B, with little to no exploration allowed, other than hugging the field walls to hunt for sparkles, bags, and holes in the walls.

    This isn’t a bad game, but it is a bad Tales of game. The only character I feel had real depth to him was Alvin, the other characters had ok character building, but nothing really made you cheer them on. The second closest for me was Milla, but that could be because I picked her at the start of the game.

    I feel this game had a bit too much Final Fantasy 13 and Star Ocean 4 in it. It had FF 13’s map issues, and Star Ocean 4’s story and plot twist issues. The big plot twist in Xillia just didn’t wow me, or even make me care. All it gave me were more palette swapped enemies to kill, which is another problem this game has.

    Getting to that last point, the palette swapping in this game is past insane. Also, since they chose to go with more realistic graphics, as far as proportions are concerned. it is hard to love the characters. The enemies are even worse with pretty bad design. The weapon beasts were lackluster, and this game in general felt like it was embracing the Western issues of dark colors mixed with ugly like puke green and brown. None of the monsters had the colorful, menacing presence they did in other Tales of games. Even the gentlemen monsters, which were just plain funny in past games, were a shadow of their former selves in this game.

    Anyway, thats enough bashing of this game. I am enjoying it for what it is, a game that is better than a first person shooter to me, but as a Tales of game, I feel let down by it. If I was to recommend a Tales of game to somebody, lets say a family member, I would recommend Graces F for modern day games, as that game is a true Tales of game through and through.

    As for the best rpg this year, hmm. Would have to get back to you on that. I have both 3ds shin megami tensei games to play, Etrian Odyssey 4, need to finish Time and Eternity (though that would be far from my top pick), and need to see if I have any others sitting about.

  2. I’m playing SMT IV and Xillia at the same time (shoot me now), and it’s amazing how fundamentally different their pacing is. SMT IV has you doing stuff all the time. Xillia is a long slow trek between places, perhaps because story scenes are so expensive.

    I really enjoy Xillia, but I also have massive problems with some of its central conceits. I’d say it’s the best RPG of this console generation, but that’s not saying a whole lot (when the previous best game in my book, XIII-2, was about tenth or so over the time-frame to indie and handheld games).

  3. Xillia’s that great, huh? =O Gotta admit, I’ve been anticipating it ever since I played Tales of the Abyss, and all signs have indicated it’s one of the better Tales of… titles. Alas, I gave my PS3 to my brother some time ago. =/

    Favorite RPG of 2013 so far has been Soul Hackers on 3DS – granted, it is also the only RPG of 2013 I’ve played thus far (being between jobs totally bites x.x). Soul Hackers is solid, solid, solid: solid SMT mechanics; solid SMT characterization; solid SMT aesthetics; solid SMT soundtrack…SMT IV, which I’m hoping to play next, looks to be fairly amazing as well.

    Favorite RPG that I’ve played in 2013 regardless of release year has to be BoD VII. Not exaggerating: that game hooked me from beginning to conclusion. The innovations implemented into the ol’ turn-based mechanics are superb, and the game has both a killer soundtrack *and* appealing characters (Erik may be…debatable…to me, but Dem, Sara, and Lita are ace and leave me wishing more fanart of them were around). Plus, the “Barrel!” reference to the Atelier series spurred me to SHOUT WITH JOY! That was rad~ Should be a blast to mosey on over to CSTW next. ^.^

  4. ToX can’t be RPG of 2013, since it’s release date is 2011 Lol xD
    I only have the jap version right now, and I can tell it’s a nice game. I’m a Tales of Otaku, so in my eyes ToX didn’t meet my requirements for “Teh best RPG”
    For Best 13, It’s definetly Precipice of Darkness 4, haven’t played many RPG’s in ’13 though.
    The one RPG I enjoyed the most this year was Tales of Xillia 2.

  5. For me the best game of 2013 so far is Skyrim. I know it’s not a 2013 game but because of its amazing modding community it is probably at its best now in 2013. There are literally dozens of high quality mods adding hours and hours of quality story and gameplay.

    For handheld the 3DS has owned me with Etrian 4 and now SMT4. I love the mature and deep storyline whereas in Etrian i enjoy the combat and deep itemization. I like RPGs with stories but also enjoy Roguelike or heavily itemized games with little story (crawlers etc).

  6. I haven’t played Tales of Xillia yet due to a lack of time, but my favorite so far is probably Shin Megami Tensei IV. It’s a typical Shin Megami Tensei mainline game, so I didn’t expect much out of the characters anyway, since the side characters are almost always given insanely chaotic/lawful personalities as opposed to a well thought out character with some inclination toward them(to reference another SMT game, Devil Survivor’s Naoya has a decidedly neutral yet mysterious personality until pretty late in the game). Plus if you can look past the story being a bit meh(and the godawful endings), the game is tons of fun.

    Second favorite is yet another SMT game, Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers. It’s got a pretty weird story since it was designed around the idea of a virtual reality-type thing in the mid-90’s when this idea became feasible. But the mechanics are exactly what you expect from a Shin Megami Tensei game, and that makes it already pretty high on my list.

    For a not-Shin Megami Tensei choice, Ni No Kuni was pretty fantastic, but I had the same problem with the fact that the AI is godawful. But it was tons of fun up to that point and was great all-around.

    And even though it wasn’t released in 2013, in the past 365 days I’ve most enjoyed Persona 4 Golden for obvious reasons.

  7. Miguel, for what it’s worth, the first Tales game that I actually enjoyed was Tales of Vesperia back in 2008. Didn’t really care for any of the games in the series before then.

  8. I have Xillia sitting on the shelf and I’m anxious to check it out. Shin Megami IV and Dragon’s Crown are taking up my time at the moment. Dragon’s Crown is repetitive, but it reveals all of its features slowly (6 hours in before I could connect to the multiplayer network!). It’s getting more interesting.

    It’s not entirely a 2013 release, but I went through Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen and thoroughly enjoyed it. They combat was interesting, the pawn system was fun, it’s a huge world to explore, and the expanded content pushed me to the breaking point. I loved it. Skyrim and Dark Souls didn’t come close to hooking me like Dragon’s Dogma did. It was the best [re]release of the year for me.

  9. I had some experince with the Tales games back in the PS2 and honestly I wasn’t very excited about them, but maybe it’s time to revisit the old games 🙂

    Miguel C.

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