Tales of Xillia liveblog!! (complete)

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I will update this post with more comments every time I resume playing, so if you're curious about what I'm doing/thinking, or what's happening in it, you can always click and read through.


Latest: FINIIIIIIISHED

Comments

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OPENING CINEMATIC

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Milla in a throne. Meditating? DRAMATIC. We should be lucky we're not getting a glimpse up her skirt.

THEN A SNAKE

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The game now makes me choose between playing Jude and playing Milla. I'm supposed to pick Jude, right? I'm picking Jude. :|a

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Jude is agreeable to this.

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Jude arrives where he's supposed to be, ruining his classmate's life. I mean, knocking him over. He decides to go back and help this time, collecting papers.

It turns out Jude is training under Dr. House. That's going to suck, man. I hear he's a little crazy.

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Other student: Aren't you in a hurry?
Jude: Don't worry. Aren't you in a hurry?
Other student: OH SHIT YEAH I AM /busts out of there
Jude: OH SHIT I'M IN A HURRY /runs off

It's good that these future doctors are really together.

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"You're a minute too late! We just sold out of rappig burgers."

This is some sort of dystopian nightmare for Peony

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THIS IS SO SAD

THE FIRST OTHER TALES GAME TO HAVE RAPPIGS

AND THEY'RE A COLLEGE-KID DELICACY

/sobs forever

I miss when it was the pork equivalent of Sketchy Chicken......

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Jude: Tardiness won't get me any extra points with the professor. Let's see... What building was he in again.

Jude, honey, that's not a good sign.

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Seriously he's so Flynn right now. It's adorable.

But he's not as competent as Flynn. :|a Needs time to grow into his Flynness.

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He refuses to go wandering like I want, so I send him to the correct building. Haus House was just leaving, though, because Jude is the latest of late, and he was asked to join in some top secret research. He asks Jude to take care of things here until he gets back, because of his amazing professionalism.

House signs his class credit, so he's clear to graduate once his thesis is complete. He will be House's assistant once he graduates, and Jude lights up like an adorable Christmas tree.

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Another doctor here is saying that Dr. House has incredible talent, but his ethics might not be on board.

JUDE WHY ARE YOU ON THE WORLD'S FLUFFIEST EPISODE OF HOUSE?

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So Jude is doing the doctoring alone today. He takes care of some patients, musing that there's been a lot of spirit channeling failures lately.

Patient: I was able to draw out mana like usual, but then, it was like the spirits ran off or something!

HMMMM.

Anyway Jude is too fluffy I can't stand it.

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:|aaaaa

I like "mana lobe". That is all.

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Like the fourth person in a row teases Jude for being such a pushover, and for filling in for House while he slacks off, not doing his job. Then a student comes in looking for House become he won a big research honor, and Jude realizes that he should've been back already.

Jude volunteers to go get him, and puts on his Artwork Clothes.

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Holy cow is this scenery beautiful.

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It's a really lovely world.

There's an ethereal quality to the city but it's also BIG and... There's a real sense of space.

In Vesperia, you kind of had to extrapolate the Capital in your mind. You know? Because the noble's quarter couldn't really be just one screen and the lower quarter was probably more than that, too.

This has more and bigger "rooms" in, I assume, each location. It's still not the size of a literal city, but it's also just supposed to be a "college" campus really... probably... and even if not, it's still BIG. And it feels it. That sweeping big vista when you came out into the courtyard...

The glowing sky and the completely free camera makes me feel like this is what it would be like to actually live under a barrier. (Which doesn't help my sense of displaced Flynness.)

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Me: /running around the city
Me: I'm disappointed by the lack of skits.
Me: So far Yuri or Luke would have had like five skits talking to themselves.

Jude: /SUDDENLY STARTS TALKING

Me: AHHHH

Do these skits activate themselves?!

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I'm not sure how I feel about self-activating, possibly self-aware skits.

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Random NPC: I worked with the king when I was young, but he's a changed man now.
Random NPC: IF ONLY HIS BEST FRIEND HAD STAYED BY HIS SIDE...

HMMMM I wonder if that comment will be relevant to anything ever

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Some dude in the item shop keeps yelling "MUTTON! FRESH MUTTON!" and no one is selling mutton and I just left to make it stop

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Jude informs me that lumen petals are hard on his sinuses.

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So Jude goes to find Dr. Haus but when he gets to the research lab, they say he already left. Jude checks the sign-out sheet and the gibberish block of kanji written there do not match the handwriting of the gibberish block of kanji on his credit sheet.

Jude is suspicious, but the guards turn him away. What will he do now?

Fortunately for him, the plot has come to get him.

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Specifically, all the lumen trees suddenly stop glowing; some sort of problem with the spirits. Then he sees Milla down below, walking on water. His credit sheet lands on the solid trail she's left behind her on the water, so he goes down to get it, but ends up... well. Kind of trapped. The illuminated path is disappearing bit by bit.

Jude: Uh... hi.
Milla: Shhh.
Jude: ...I'm Jude.
Milla: Shhh. Or I will have to hurt you.
Jude: You'll have to WHAT? I'm sorry, who are you? And what are you doing here? Are you breaking into the research facility? Because you're not allowed inside and the guards will--
Milla: WHAT PART OF SHHH OR I WILL HURT YOU DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND? /drowns him

It's awesome.

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Jude immediately runs into a guard in the sewers of the research facility and is super fluffy at him, and the guard is like, "I SHOULD BE TAKING YOU TO SECURITY, but you're just so damn cute. Come on, bb, I'll take you to the exit."

Oh my god

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Flynn

Jude used "Is this NOT the way to the bathroom?"

It was SUPER EFFECTIVE.

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Jude climbs out of the sewers, but there's "lots of places to hide a professor" someplace this big. :( He will just have to ransack the whole place while being adorable and adorably killing dudes.

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:|a Professors are too big to fit in barrels, right??

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He stumbles into a very dark lab. Haus looms out of the darkness, suspended in liquid, and begs incoherently for someone to help him, he's been drained of mana and he can't go on-- and then he apparently dissolves.

The lights come on and Jude stares in horror at all the tubes with people floating in them.

Then he is interrupted by... let's be real, by a gender-swapped Zagi in a female version of Dist's outfit. Just what was missing from this game. More Zagi. Anyway, she leers about his horrified expression and then attacks him.

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Just when things are looking grim, Milla arrives and blasts her. This just makes Zagette angry, because that's what happens when you blast a Zagi. So then Zagette is like, "I'LL RIP YOUR PRETTY FACE TO SHREDS," and Milla is like, "I'd prefer if you didn't," and then we both fight her, and she goes down like a ton of bricks.

That's just what happens when you... summon... Efreet in battle. Jude gapes.

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Milla: I told you to go home. Don't tell me you live here.

I CAN'T TELL IF SHE'S BEING SNARKY OR EARNEST BUT EITHER WAY IT'S AWESOME.

Jude fumbles and apologizes because fluffmonster, but Milla has no real interest in his answer. She wonders to herself if these people in jars are the work of the spyrix, connected to the disappearance of the lesser spirits, and Jude is like, "WAIT, WHAT, SPIRALS, DISAPPEARING SPIRITS, WHAT?"

Milla: GO. HOME.

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It's really hard to tell re: the snark/earnestness. :|a

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But Jude can't exactly go home, because the guards won't let him just walk out, so even with all her ignoring and mumbling about things he doesn't understand, he asks Milla if he can go with her, and she actually smiles and approves of this.

"If you stick with the person who saved you, then you won't need any more saving. Clever boy."

Jude slowly fluffs up in response to praise. There's too much adorable in the room when Milla is nice to Jude! GET OUT, ADORABLE.

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SKIT: Jude is so alarmed at being attacked, as a civilian. I pause for a long moment because Jude asks, "Did you kill her?" and I know the answer to the question is no, and it makes me physically sad just thinking it. The answer is actually "idk man humans are so fragile", which is a slight improvement.


ALSO A SKIT: Milla wants to know if Jude is done here, which makes Jude sad in the face, because Haus is super dead. Milla ends the conversation by talking to her imaginary friends.

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/snicker

Yeah, Zagette has to come back and obsess over Milla, The One Who Beat Me. Is it a Tales Of requirement that creepy stalkers all be gay?

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As we're walking out, their Lilium Orbs start shining. Milla is like, "What is this anyway? My handmaid told me to take it," and Jude explains that they're blastia, but they're connected to leveling up bonuses. Oh god the sphere grid looks so complicated. /lies down to die--

Ugh, I have to choose which stat to level up TOO MUCH PRESSURE

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Remember the Final Fantasy XIII sphere grid, and how it was essentially just the illusion of choice, exactly like the Final Fantasy XIII dungeons?

I almost sort of miss that right now.

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Milla: So I imagine powerless humans never leave home without them.
Jude: You talk about humans like you're not one yourself.

THE END.

Can't... get ahead of the plot, even though that was technically a mandatory plot conversation.

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SKIT!

Jude: It must be weird having the same last name as the Lord of the Spirits, huh?
Milla: No. I am the Lord of the Spirits.
Jude: What?
Milla: I am Maxwell, Lord of Spirits.
Jude: Nope.
Milla: I made myself look human.
Jude: WHAT?

More obviousness cockblocking, or actual establishing of the obvious? I can't tell.

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Hahaha HOLY SHIT Milla has TRIPLE DIGIT stats, like 300-500 in everything

Jude has 30-50

She is going to get neutered SO HARD, just. PREPARE YOURSELF for the fon slot seal, Milla, it is going to be a doozy.

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SKIT: Jude has a sad about Haus being dead, so Milla grabs him.

Jude: ...What are you doing.
Milla: I'm cuddling you.
Jude: ...What.
Milla: I read it in a book. When humans are sad, you must cuddle them.
Jude: ...What book was that.
Milla: A Mother's Touch, A Mother's Voice.
Jude: ...That sounds like a child-rearing book. I'm not a baby.
Milla:
Milla:
Milla:
Milla: Humans are so complicated.

He reassures her that he is in fact comforted somewhat and she decides that the technique does work after all.

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Damnit I accidentally stumbled upon the plot first thing. They found "a spyrix weapon", the Lance of Kresnik, which is the name of a sage from the heroic age. Milla is not amused that this thing is named after Kresnik, and she summons the four great spirits to destroy it, but Zagette is here to ruin everyone's day.

The weapon drains their mana lobes somehow, and the Four Spirits tell Jude psychically to take Milla and run. Then Jude gets damseled, and Milla goes to save him but ends up spiritless and damseled herself, and they both fall into an abyss!