We are so back: Bandai Namco revives one of my favorite JRPGs with Tales of Xillia Remastered coming this October, but with a Switch port that somehow runs worse than the PS3 original

Tales of Xillia Remastered
(Image credit: Bandai Namco)

Confirming a small YouTube leak, Bandai Namco announced that Tales of Xillia Remastered is the next in its growing line of JRPG refreshes, and it's coming to all platforms on October 31.

Tales of Xillia Remastered will launch on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC (Steam), and Nintendo Switch (Switch 2 was not specified, though Switch Lite compatibility was confirmed).

Tales of Xillia follows dual protagonists Jude Mathis and Milla Maxwell through a sci-fantasy world infused with mana and spirits. You can select Jude or Milla as your main character, changing your perspective for the story. Its action combat system, which is still one of my favorites in the whole Tales series for its build-a-combo flow state, helped pioneer and advance the link attacks that have come into play, in some form, in many entries.

Tales of Xillia Remastered – Announcement Trailer - YouTube Tales of Xillia Remastered – Announcement Trailer - YouTube
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The reveal trailer was light on the specifics of the remastering. A separate video message from producer Yusuke Tomizawa notes that "adjustments and improvements will be made to the graphics," and the polished textures and character models are plain to see, but frame rates and other numbers weren't mentioned.

Tomizawa advised curious fans to check the official product page, so I looked there as well and still couldn't find the magic words: frame rate. For that, we must turn to the newly minted Japanese product page, which brings generally good news unless you're a Switch-only gamer.

The translated Japanese specs table explains that Tales of Xillia Remastered will run at 60 FPS on PS5 and Xbox Series X at 4K resolution (or 1440p on Series S), with options for 30, 60, or 120 FPS on PC with support for up to 4K resolution (16:9 or 16:10).

With PC system requirements rivaling a baked potato – we're talking GeForce GTX 650 and an Intel i3-8100 for recommended specs – hitting 60+ FPS on PC ought to be fairly trivial.

The Switch version, however, is targeting 30 FPS across the board at 1080p docked and 720p handheld. This is actually a significant downgrade from the original PS3 version of Tales of Xillia, released over a decade ago, which ran at 30 FPS in towns and during exploration, but at 60 FPS during battles. Again, Switch 2 was not mentioned.

Here's another curious limitation: all other platforms support up to 99 normal save slots, but the Switch is limited to just 30. This won't matter in practice because you can just update rolling save files, but you're kind of twisting the knife there, Bandai.

Tales of Xillia Remastered

(Image credit: Bandai Namco)

The Switch is a fair bit more capable than a PS3, so I can only assume we're sliding backwards here because the remaster was tuned for more modern systems and then hacked down to size until it could fit on Switch. This certainly isn't the first disappointing Switch port, but with the Switch 2 out and packing noticeably beefier processors, it will hopefully be one of the last.

These are all frame rate targets, for the record. For all platforms, Bandai notes (via machine translation) that the frame rate may "fluctuate temporarily" depending on what's happening in-game. I definitely remember seeing some frame drops in the original game during certain fights or attack animations, but surely those will be polished up here in the year 2025. Surely.

Additionally, Tales of Xillia Remastered adds several quality-of-life features not seen in the original 2011 release (2013 globally), essentially bringing the game up to speed with the latest Tales of releases.

Those features include destination icons that indicate where to go for set objectives, a skip function for scenes and conversations (I did basically all the side quests in the original, and I would've killed for this at the time), a battle setting that straight-up disables enemy encounters out in the field, and "early access" to the New Game+ "Grade Shop" which unlocks game-breaking modifiers like double damage.

A separate Bandai EU product page also mentions a retry feature for regular battles, subtitled battle scenes, a dash toggle enabling faster overworld sprinting, icons for newly discovered sub-events or newly learned Artes, and key binding customization.

The 40+ DLCs released for Tales of Xillia, adding costumes, items, and "other fun extras," are also included in the remaster.

Pricing details have not yet been announced, though we do know there will be a deluxe edition that adds a digital artbook and soundtrack, additional battle music from previous Tales games, and a bundle of herbs that can boost your base stats. (Update: the base game is $40 USD according to early listings, which tracks with JPY conversions.)

Final Fantasy 10 and Kingdom Hearts writer Kazushige Nojima is "delighted" to learn his games have made you all cry: "There's nothing more joyful."

Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.

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