by OL » Fri Feb 21, 2014 4:32 pm
So just about everything in Xillia feels like a big step up for the Tales series, but I do have one complaint: something about having a free-moving camera makes the world seem a lot... smaller, I guess, than earlier games.
While wandering around the worlds in Vesperia, Abyss, or any of the others, it would take you to a world map where you could see the huge expanses of land you were crossing. And when you entered cities, the games utilized fixed camera angles to show off the size, splendor, and population of them. Xillia, on the other hand, allows a completely controllable camera and has no explorable world map; rather, it has connecting areas with enemies in them that never feel all that large or grand.
I'm sure the game will eventually feel a lot bigger, as Tales games always hit a certain mid-point where earth-shattering shit starts happening. But it's only a little disappointing that a freely-controllable camera -- something that should have improved the atmosphere tenfold -- in making it all feel a bit smaller.
It's especially strange, since a game like Final Fantasy XII, for example, uses the same kind of camera, but still feels a lot bigger and more epic. Of course, the cities in XII were appropriately large and expansive with tons of people wandering around, while the ones in Xillia consist of maybe two or three areas that can each be crossed in 20 seconds...
I dunno, it's just not improving the atmosphere like I had hoped.
Not to take anything away from the game of course; I'm having a blast either way, as I always do with Tales. I keep imagining what another remake of Phantasia would be like with this battle system and these graphics. Would be incredible.