This July 31st, Namco Bandai held a shop demo and talk show event for Tales of Xillia in the Yamada Denki Labi 1 in Ikebukuro, Japan. This is a short report on the events that transpired this day.
This event is to be held at 5 different towns in Japan, with this one in Ikebukuro being the second one. The first one, which was held yesterday (July 30) in Osaka, is reported as a big success.
The talk show part is hosted by none other than Hideo Baba himself, the game's producer. He starts off by introducing the game and its background to the fans, followed by the showing of the game's 3rd trailer on screen. Baba states that this PV actually has a part of Jude's opening in it. He also said that before the game's release, they're hoping to deliver at least 1 or 2 more new trailers.
Baba then proceeds to talk about the game being the 15th anniversary title. For this, they wanted to try something new, hence ufotable was chosen to do the openings. Afterward, he also introduced the game's pre-order bonuses, namely the one of four Jude or Milla mascot charms, the codes for the Cless and Stahn costumes for Jude and Milla and the codes for the 10 PS3 custom themes.
Afterward, the hands-on demo for the game began. Baba explained a bit on the Rereal Orb system, saying that it really allows much flexibility in creating your own unique character build. That said, there is an option to go with the AI's recommendations when it comes to developing the system, for those who don't want to bother much. Also in the game are accessories. In the demo, they had Alvin wearing both a tiara and a pair of sunglasses (and at some point, Jude had them on too). Like in the other recent games, accessories also become a part of the events, hence Baba jokes that some serious scenes may just become a laugh because of the accessories.
At the end of the show, one lucky person went home with a Curry Plate from Tales of Cafe and 15 others got posters signed by Baba. He is especially happy and grateful that a lot of people came to the event despite the bad weather. Even though there's still the Tokyo Game Show, Baba feels it would be too late since TGS would be after the game's release. Whether it's the 16th year or the 17th year, the Tales of Series will continue, and that he hopes the fans will still support it then.
The demo itself spanned around 10 minutes long. The loading times were quite fast and the camera movements were smooth as well. Battles were fast and somewhat showy. All in all, the game seemed great.
