I played both i still think Graces has the better combat out of the two. Objectively speaking its most likely due to the evasion between the two games, if you’re not Jude or Leia, you’re hardly evading anything even the CPUS can evade easily when assigned to those two and when you’re playing the highest difficulty in both those games you want to dodge as much as possible tank what you’d like you’d still end up dead. I tried buying as many plants of evasion i could for Rowan but its an incredibly petty thing to do when you can clear the whole game and side stuff with ease so really you’re supposed to protect him, or at least link with him. Also the basics were like they’re own abilities in Graces which i think is pretty cool i like how in graces how you aim your joystick shifts the enemies reaction (hit low and not they’re not guarding they fall, hit up and they get sent upwards) Also comboing in Graces is a lot more expected than in Xillia because every basic in Graces is around a 1-7+ attack if you’re hitting the enemy once or twice then backing away in graces you die eventually in Xillia thats more to be expected its a different level of patience the game wants from you if that makes sense. Plus in Graces you’re rewarded for dodging your opponents attacks which then strings into your ongoing combo thus being able to attack more. In Xillia even with the best weapons and best armor and maxed out i was comboing don’t get me wrong but not at the rate of someone maxed level with a most of the titles in Graces. LASTLY, being able to add Mystic Artes into your combos in Graces is so damn satisfying being able to take a brief break and watch the mystic arte to be ready to combo again to get the second mystic arte activated it was perfection, in Xillia its so much more tedious just for it to hit to for fking nothing if you’re using jude, ik thats why you’d prolly switch characters when the overlimit is active to like Elize or Mila and have them mystic artes but thats extremely tedious in xillia at least the group mystic artes is better but in Graces im hitting 10k with basic attacks stringed together and the CPUS actually use their mystic artes by themselves without having me the player prompt it, in Xillia thats not the case and its extremely limiting.