Watching and listening to series Producer Hideo Baba talk about his beloved Tales franchise will make anyone want to pick up a controller and play whatever lands on these shores. The latest in the long-running franchise (which started on the Super Famicom back in 1995), Tales of Xillia breaks new ground for the series by combining the distinctly different art styles of the series two key character designers (Kosuke Fujishima and Mutsumi Inomata), blending them flawlessly in a larger and prettier overall game. Toss in “Empress of Pop” Ayumi Hamasaki singing the theme sone, a refined battle system and the usual Tales quality bumped up to a nice PS3 shine and you get a game fans should be more than pleased to play…

I got a chunk of hands-on time after the presentation and found the game to be a joy to play and absolutely gorgeous. One thing Baba noted early in his often whimsical presentation was that the team continues to make these types of games because of their tradition among Japanese fans, a love for the genre and as a way to push themselves to do more with each new game. He also noted that he loves larger Western and Western inspired role-playing games such as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Dragon’s Dogma (and you should too!) just to make it clear that he’s not blind to the successes of these styles of games. What’s clear when you see the quality of Xillia and see it in action (and hopefully PLAY it) is that this is a dev team at the top of their game and this will be one of their best games to date.

As for the rumblings from some fans about NOT seeing certain older games on assorted consoles or whether or not we’ll see a PS4 or Wii U tales game (given the success of Tales of Symphonia on the Game Cube), Baba wisely noted that the team is dedicated to one platform at a time these days and they’d probably stick with the PS3 for the time being and ease onto a new console if they felt the time was right. It’s too early to announce any PS4 plans, but you can be sure that if there’s a new Tales game on the way (after Tales of Xillia 2 makes it stateside on the PS3, of course), Sony’s console will probably be the one that gets it.

My take on Symphonia’s big sales on the Game Cube were that it was one of a relatively small number of great JRPG’s released on that system and the ONLY Tales game, so of course it would do well among genre fans, some of whom bought that console solely for Symphonia and a handful of other exclusives. Baba also noted that the best way to make sure fans have the opportunity to see some of those older games down the road is to BUY this one when it comes out, play and enjoy it.

While the standard edition is bound to be a hit, the Collectors Edition is already drawing some major attention for that exclusive 100-page artbook and Milla Maxwell figure packed inside the box.

If you’re still cranky about not seeing more of the older games popping up when you want them to in English… well, there are always Japanese classes to take and systems to buy if you’re REALLY going to call yourself a true fan of the series. it’s to be remembered that it’s not the easiest nor cheapest thing in the world to localize EVERY game in the series that didn’t make it out here those snappy fans want. I’m sure some sort of crowdfunding would prove this at the end of the day, but there’s a great deal more to getting an old game out than throwing a wagon of money at it with fingers and toes crossed hoping for the best of all worlds. For now, Xillia is the Tales game you need to focus on – anything else the future brings will come as a result of how well THIS game does at retail…