Right on cue with the website reveal, Namco Bandai has just released the first trailer for Tales of Xillia, and there's quite a bit of information in this one, unlike some of the previous reveal trailers for other games in the series. This follows the magazine scan leak just hours earlier.

The game will utilize the contrast between light and shadow, which will lead to the game having a different art style direction than Vesperia's anime-style graphics or Graces's watercolor-style graphics (it could be more of a hand-painted or oil painting-like feel if the concept artwork is any indication). Baba stated that when he saw some of the concept artwork images running on actual hardware he was very impressed.

The graphics look quite impressive and appear to build off of Tales of Vesperia's improvements, but this time with a fair bit more effort put into the game's environment. In battle, it looks like aspects of Team Destiny's battle system, such as Around Step, are taking part, with the male character at one disappearing and reappearing behind an enemy. The male and female main characters can also combine their Artes together, a first for the series.

The trailer also reveals that ufotable, not Production I.G., will be in charge of the animated cutscenes. Motoi Sakuraba, the composer for the majority of the titles in the series, will be solely retaining his role.



What appears to be the game's official staff list has also been revealed, which can be found below:

Character Design: Mutsumi Inomata (ToG), Kosuke Fujishima (ToV)
Animation Production: ufotable
Music: Motoi Sakuraba
Theme Song Artist: Ayumi Hamasaki

Lead Game Design: Yoshimasa Tanaka (ToH)
Battle Game Design: Kenji Anabuki (ToV)

Lead Programming: Toyokazu Endo (ToV)
Sound Programming: Shuji Ikegami (ToV)
Lead Scripting: Satoshi Kohama [sp?] (ToG)

Lead Character Model Artist: Masahiko Musha (ToV)
Lead Monster Model Artist: Satoshi Nakamura (ToV)
Lead Map Model Artist: Yuko Kajihara (ToV)

Lead Event Demo Artist: Hisato Ito (ToG)
Lead Effect Artist: Natsuko Taki (ToV)
Lead 2D Graphic Artist: Yuri Suzuki (ToV)

Scenario Writer: Daisuke Kiga [sp?] (ToG)
Storyboard & Event Direction: Yasushi Shibu (ToG)

Art Director: Daigo Okumura (ToV)

Director: Naoto Miyadera (ToS/TotA), Asana Inoki (ToS:KoR)

Production Producer: Shinichiro Okamoto
Producer: Hideo Baba