That pic of Milla up there is fantastic. I really love your style. And you said it's just a doodle? It definitely isn't! I wish my doodles looked like that, lol.
Anyway, I finally popped Xillia in for a little bit as I needed a rest from my studies and the stress that comes with it (busting shit up in a game helps, I guess). The reversible cover is kinda nice, but I prefer Tales of Graces F's more.
Right off the bat, it is absolutely gorgeous; far better in person than screens or videos. I get the feeling that the first town is supposed to give the player the feeling that this Tales game is going to start off with a bang in terms of visuals (I heard that it gets somewhat lacking later on). The animated scenes are really awesome... love Ufotable's work here. Beginning the game was also interesting in that it didn't go right into the OP and the title screen. The character models for that selection screen were also very nice to look at. The menu UI is also very pretty. Coming off from Graces F, it's a nice change and it looks really damn slick in comparison.
It's really interesting in that I was not feeling this game visually at all prior to release, but now that I'm seeing it for myself, I think it looks good. Milla's prologue scene was pretty intriguing, but I decided to stick with Jude since that was my original plan.
I fought a few battles in the Institute, which were pretty neat... mostly because of Backstep. Backstep is incredibly cool, and I think it keeps the battle flowing better in terms of offensive attack. I might have to play Legendia a bit again to see how he stacks up against Senel, but it seems like he "feels" better (ie: less... "sluggish" than Senel, I guess). I'm on Elart Road at the moment, got Alvin, and Link Arts seem interesting enough. I like that you can swap links with the D-Pad as well. I'll need some time to work with it and see what I like about it and what I dislike about it, though. So far it seems pretty fun. Milla can paralyze, Jude can recover and Alvin can break guards. It kind of seems like a nice dynamic. If you ask me, battles seemed to get better after you got Link Arts.
I also got a Milla charm. I really wanted a Jude one, but I don't mind Milla too much. I have to remember to input my FIVE for her costume, as well as the other DLC that the game came with.
I'm liking what I've played of the battle system. It certainly isn't Graces (and I really liked Graces'), but I hope it shapes up to be something really cool. I think I'm going to let go, give it a chance and have some fun with it before I compare the system with Graces'. Also, it's really nice maining another martial artist.
It's too bad I won't be able to get more time into this until Friday, though.
