I'd say this is probably a 3.5 for me. 3 stars feels too low, but 4 stars now seems too high.

Finished this up yesterday (12/7). I played the first week after release, but then got kind of busy for a few weeks, and didn't play again until around Thanksgiving.

I'm not really going to go into too much depth here, but wanted to get some basic thoughts down, as it's been so long since the original.

Time: ~46hrs.

Completion: Played Jude's route, with a guide. Completed all sub-events, skits are at 206/220 (pretty sure the rest are just Milla route-specific, as the routes don't really diverge that much, far as I know), fought all Devil's Beasts/got the Devil's Arms and unlocked the bonus dungeon but did not visit it after finishing the game. Completed skill tree for all characters.

When Tales of Xillia first dropped in the US in 2013, it quickly became my favorite Tales game. I'd started with Symphonia on GameCube back in the day, which will always remain the nostalgic comfort food of the series, and had probably considered Vesperia my favorite at the time pre-Xillia.

When Berseria came out, I had a hard time determining a favorite between the two, so I've sort of considered them tied for years now, though, honestly, Berseria was probably slightly higher.

Now that I've replayed this, it'll take a replay of Berseria to be positive, but I think this one has dropped down.

I still adore Jude, even if I realize more now how somewhat aimless he actually was in the first half or so, and I appreciate the party overall a lot more than I used to. The story, however, is so much weaker than I remembered. Major reveals happen over halfway through, we learn about a barely-there other world with like three locations to visit total, and suddenly our party has a "goal" which is really never discussed. It's just suddenly stated and now there's a new antagonist because of it, and no one bothers to explain why this is the route they want to go even though it's pretty goddamn important. It's honestly really poorly done, and I was probably just less critical of it 12 years ago at 22 years old, in the time before I was really analyzing these sorts of things in my personal hobbies and for my career.

The combat is still a lot of fun, and it was nice to return to the link system. It's fun to play as our sweet Dr. Punch Boy Jude, and he's really well-rounded, with some basic healing and Artes that can work for all kinds of situations--knocking enemies down, launching them up, hitting them when he's midair, knocking them back, etc. Most Tales main characters have some good variety to their Artes, but Jude feels very natural and comfortable while also offering a lot of options to fit your play style.

I didn't use any gels in or out of battle until a certain point (like 10-15 hours in?), which is the only way to get the ol' Tales "I Hate Gels!" (or similarly-titled) skit. At that point, I turned auto-item on for all party members, set the items to be used, and my party proceeded to...never use a single item in the entire playthrough. There are titles and trophies tied to this but in my records, it's sitting at a nice 0. I guess by that point, Elize was healing so rapidly and we were recouping TP so quickly that they never met the threshold set for use, but the party also never used Life Bottles or Panacea Bottles, opting for spells instead. Whatever.

Dungeons and whatnot are very simple, and there aren't really any puzzles to solve. I remember coming to the original game after Graces f, which has insanely tedious puzzles even with a guide and being like, "Wow, this is new." With the new feature of all treasure chests/Aifread's treasures being shown on the mini map, it's basically impossible to miss any, whether you're on the field or in a dungeon. Another great new feature is toggling a dash by pressing the left stick. The Winged Boots are still an in-game item, but this dash is like a fast forward button for movement and was much appreciated.

The grade shop is also available before you even start the game up. Even though I've played through the game before, I wanted to play this as a mostly-fresh run, so I only turned on extra gald and the increase to item carry limit (99 each instead of the standard 30 or whatever it is).

This is absolutely still an enjoyable game, even if my opinion of the story has changed for the worse. There are a lot of beautiful locations and music tracks throughout, and Jude is still one of my favorite video game characters ever. I'm going to eventually do a Milla route run because I've never completed one before, but not right away.