Tales of Xillia character designs updated to show the size of the world

Tales of Xillia takes a break from the stylistic leanings of past Tales games in order to show off its expanded game world, according to director Hideo Baba.

Speaking to the PS Blog, Baba said he thinks the combat system is one of the most important additions in the new entry, but also noted the sudden visual update Xillia brings to the franchise.

"The portrayal of the game world and its atmosphere has also changed a lot too. In the previous games the characters were very deformed – they were much shorter," he noted.

"But with Xillia the team has tried to show the characters in realistic proportions so that we can really convey the huge size of the world more effectively. The player can really feel how large the world is now."

Xillia, the thirteenth mothership entry in the long-running RPG series, was the first to break away from the chibi or super-deformed look of past entries. It released in Japan in 2011, but is on its way to western PlayStation 3 consoles in 2013. A sequel hits Japan later this year.