I think its one of the best.
Xillia wasn't too bloated, and fast travel is opened like straight away. There are 2 types of Tales games, ones with long and tedious dungeons (eg Destiny, Graces), and ones with very short dungeons like this one. I tend to enjoy the games with shorter dungeons more, though I love Destiny for being my first Tales games. Xillia is quite fast paced with shorter dungeons etc, I think you can beat it at around 25 hours.
A bit light on content, and Maxwell's campaign doesn't make sense if you start with it but solid combat system and I generally had a good time on PS3.