Tales of Xillia: Should You Play as Jude or Milla First?

Tales of Xillia Remastered is officially out, and new players going into the game will have to decide between playing the game as Jude or Milla first. But which one should you choose first? And why?

Well all players are free to pick whichever one they like; however, we strongly recommend Jude first, and for multiple very good reasons.

Choosing Jude over Milla:

When selecting Jude as a playable character, players will be able to play through an extended prologue section. This introduces the world and characters and sets Jude out on his adventure. He does eventually meet up with Milla, and the two share the leading role. However, choosing Milla as a character will completely skip this intro. The game will start the moment the two meet, leaving quite a bit of context left out.

Milla's Point of View Misses Out on Context and Spoils Plot Twists:

Moving past the intro, Jude keeps a lot of his own motivations for his adventure to himself, with internal monologues he doesn't share with the rest of the party. The only way this dialogue can be heard is by playing as Jude himself, with Milla being left completely in the dark. From her point of view, Jude's actions do not make a lot of sense, and his decisions often come off as childish. To make things worse, when Jude splits off from the party, his story sections often contain key plot points where Milla's viewpoint contains less information while also spoiling specific developments earlier than originally intended.

You Play as Jude More in Both Stories:

As surprising as this may sound, both stories see Jude taking the spotlight. Not only does Milla miss out on the intro, as well as a multiple-hour-long chapter in the later part of the game, but she is also unplayable during a large stretch as well. This section of the story is key, and rather than skipping over it like the other two sections, the game simply shifts its focus over to Jude. During this point Milla is unplayable, but she does continue appearing in cutscenes.

You Can Still Play as Milla in Both Stories:

One thing new players may not realize is the fact that choosing a character does not decide who you play as in the game. In fact, you can play as any of the party members, with any character in the "lead" spot as long as they are available. Choosing Jude's story or Milla's story doesn't determine your character; it just chooses the viewpoint.

(Yes ALL of these characters are playable.)

We Recommend Playing as Milla in New Game Plus:

To 100% complete the game, two playthroughs are required. 

Going through a second time as Milla makes it very clear that her story was both an addition late into the game's development and intended to be played as part of the game's "post-game" content.  

Tales of Xillia's rushed development caused some of the Tales of series staples to be left out of the game, and Milla was added in as a way to make up for this. Of course, Tales of Xillia 2 would also release later with the "missing content," but it was an entirely separate game. As previously mentioned, Milla's story does spoil plot twists much earlier than Jude's story, and there are scenes that reinforce pieces of information players would have first discovered while playing as Jude. 

The large gaps in the story Milla misses out on also make a lot more sense to players who have seen the complete story beforehand, while newcomers will be left wondering exactly what happened without ever getting a real answer from Milla herself.

But it is Your Choice:

Despite all of this, the game is designed in a way where either character's story can be chosen. Milla's adventure is, in fact, multiple hours shorter than Jude's, but that also means players can get to the end quicker. Once the ending is reached, they can then go back to Jude's story to get the complete picture, and finally learn the answers to the many questions left open by Milla's adventure.