When Japanese gamers got their copies of Tales of Xillia earlier this year they couldn't help but notice that there were some features missing that had been included in previous Tales of releases. Thanks to an interview found in the full official Tales of Xillia guide those thoughts have been confirmed straight from Hideo Baba himself.

Tales of Xillia utilizes 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. Baba stated that when he saw some of the concept artwork images running on actual hardware he was very impressed.

According to the interview many planned elements were forced to be discarded due to time constraints, including the following:

- A hot springs event.
- An area similar to Nam Cobanda Isle, which was featured in Tales of the Abyss and Tales of Vesperia.
- Gaius and another character (those who played the game know who) would have been playable.
- Secret Missions similar to Tales of Vesperia's. It turns out that some of these were left on the disc according to those who peaked inside the game's code.

Whether this signifies a Director's Cut re-release is up to the reader, but it does appear there would be quite a bit of extra content that could be added to it if this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Tales of Xillia was released back on September 8 in Japan exclusively on the PS3. No word has been given on a North American or European release.