Tales of Xillia

• Choosing Jude at the very beginning is apparently the more classic JRPG story approach.

• The tutorial system says that as long as one segment of the linked artes gauge (On the left side of the battle screen) is full, you can pull off a linked arte. However, they mean that as long as one segment has been filled during the current battle. Any segments you've filled in previous battles don't count, unless you filled the segment and then didn't use it in that battle. The crossed swords icon at the top of the gauge must be flashing for you to use a linked arte, basically.

• Random treasure (Blue and white bag icons, on the mini map, or sparkling points and sacks, in the game world) have a chance of respawning when you re-enter an area, which is why they're marked on the mini map for you when you first discover them.

• Expanding shops applies to all shops of that type (Weapon, armour, etc.), so feel free to expand a shop in any location - the benefits will apply at every shop of that type elsewhere in the game.

• It seems that materials are only used for expanding shops and side quests. In the cases of side quests the materials you need can usually be found in the surrounding area, so there's not much need to hold on to all the materials the game throws at you. Just use them to expand shops.

• If you encounter a monster while another monster is very close by, you'll enter a linked encounter battle. Food items which give you an increase of something per battle still treat these linked encounters as one battle. So if you're grinding and using a food item which gives you more EXP per battle, make sure all of them are linked encounters and you'll get more EXP than you would have with a single battle, but won't use up the food item any faster.

• I have personally being getting every upgrade on the Lillium Orb. That is, I'm not beelining for certain skills or artes, but upgrading every level fully before moving on to the next. So far I have not encountered any problems doing this, and it is apparently possible to max it out fully as long as you reach max level (99).

• A certain character (
  Leia
  ) can unlock a spell called "Elemental Impulse". It gives your ordinary attacks an elemental attack. The description says that which element you are assigned is the "luck of the draw", but I've found that when I use a shortcut to tell her to use Elemental Impulse, it always gets used on me and I am always given the element that my current target is weak to. It only costs 10TP to cast, so I've found it pretty useful to hit the shortcut for it as soon as a battle starts, and do much more damage.

• Pay close attention to the list of buttons and what they do, at the bottom of menus. Some useful features like the auto-item list are hidden away and not explained very well, and these button guides can help you discover new menus and screens which might be helpful.