Tales of the Abyss is still a fun little RPG for anyone who has missed out on the series so far.
Game Title: Tales of the Abyss
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Developer: Namco Tales Studio
Publisher: Namco Bandai Games Europe
Genre: Role Playing
Age Rating: CERO: All Ages, ESRB: T, PEGI: 12
Release Date: June 30th 2011 (Japan), November 24th 2011 (Australia), November 25th 2011 (Europe), February 14th 2012 (North America)
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Game Score: 8.5/10
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Summery:
Tales of the Abyss is still a fun little RPG for anyone who has missed out on the series so far.
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Although Namco's Tales Series has been keeping it's popularity reasonable between Japanese and Western gamers, but it has been over 2 years since Tales of Vesperia and Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World became the last instalments of the series to be localised outside Japan. Thanks to plenty of fan support over the past few years, Namco is persuaded to not only give their announcement for Tales of Graces to come out in English on the PlayStation 3 but to also bring their PlayStation 2 title Tales of the Abyss to the Nintendo 3DS. It was released in Japan in 2005 with a North American release a year later. One thing to say is that although the game is outdated by future instalments in the series but anyone who played this back in the day would have loved it and favoured it instead of Final Fantasy XII.
Tales of the Abyss takes place in a world called Auldrant where the game introduces it's main character Luke Fon Fabre, a son of a noble family in the Kingdom of Kimlasca. He loses his memory due to his kidnapping and he spends his days confined to his manor which leaves him spoiled and unaware of the dangers around him. A mysterious assassin named Tear soon breaks into his manor and upon contact causes what's called a Hyperresonance, transporting the heroes into the outside reaches of the world. Luke will soon discover the dangers of the outside world such as the war that rages between his country and The Kingdom of Malkuth, a group called The Six God Generals are planning their own schemes against a prophecy known as the Score and Luke would soon learn the truth about his identity.
Tales of the Abyss has a very excellent storyline that has amazing characters that you can get attached to and the script and translation are well written. The English Voicework is pretty good for English Dubbed standards but you'd wish they could have included the Japanese Voice Track as well. As for the characters Luke's kidnapping leads to him being very spoiled but it's amusing for the characters to respond and tease to Luke's behaviour. Guy develops a natural phobia around Women, Tear is cold hearted but has a weakness with cute animals, Anise falls in love with Luke for his title and Jade Curtiss the Necromancer who knows how to lighten up the mood when things get to serious and the list goes on.
One of the series staples is the voice chat Skit sequences which do provide some useful tips as well as some hilarious idol chats like Guy constantly getting picked on by the women or Luke who keeps on mourning about the events that he isn't aware of. However in the English version there is simply no voicework during any of these sequences much like Tales of Symphonia on the Gamecube. This makes all those sequences very lifeless to watch and it's sometimes hard to keep with the characters speeches of dialogue. At least you can skip them anytime if you don't feel like watching them.
Tales of the Abyss on the 3DS has the top screen showing the gameplay while on the bottom screen it shows the interface commands and also on the World Map the bottom screen works as map to show where your are. If you do feel lost then you can always look on the map alongside your Quest Log to see where you need to go next.
Like the rest of the series Tales of the Abyss expends into a massive overworld where you'll run into monsters you can touch monsters to start battles at your own pace, you'll find search points throughout the world that will give you some materials, there's towns to visit for you to rest and buy equipment, items and food, dungeons to go through and a boss battle to fight at the end. There is also some optional side quests that you can take part in to earn some sweet rewards like rare items, extra recipes for cooking, Titles and unlockable costumes such as a Maid, a Berserker outfit, a smart party suit, a devil outfit or the famous battle ready Swimwear in which the characters don't feel cold wearing them outside. Most of these optional events can only be done by talking to the right NPC's before a certain event triggers so you'll most likely be wondering around talking to people to figure out how to beat them. There's also a trader in one of the towns where you trade all your materials found to and you can get very special items depending on the ones you trade in.
In the dungeons you'll walk your way through each area again to fight monsters which do respawn when you reenter a room, treasure to find and also there are puzzles to solve like moving blocks, lighting up dark places and breaking blocks. These puzzles are solved by using your pal Cheagle Mieu's power of the Sorceress Ring. You can switch between Meiu's different abilities using the R button alongside the Circle Pad or D-Pad and you can use the Sorceress Ring by Pressing X. Meiu's voice can be a annoying but it's hilarious when Luke beats him up.
Towns do their usual deals in providing hints to your next destination as well as helping you out with facilitates mentioned above. As for as content goes Tales of the Abyss will take about 50 Hours or more to beat roughly. Completionists will be able unlock a New Game plus option for anyone who wants to retake the game again with retainable game status from your last game and you can add different challenges so there's plenty of reasons to play it again and again.
Tales of the Abyss's strong point is the battle system dispute being outdated compared to the Xbox 360 title Tales of Vesperia. Abyss's combat system is called the Flex Range Linear Motion Battle System which for the first time in the series allows you and your allies to freely roam around the battle arena instead of being limited to a single plane. Once unlocked by Leveling you can switch to it by holding the L Button alongside the Circle Pad. Your main controls are A for basic attacks, B for Artes, Y for Blocking and X for bringing up the menus to change Strategy, Artes and use an Item. There are 3 control options that you can switch to any time, they are Auto where you let the AI handle the fighting, Semi Auto where you can attack the enemies with press of a button or Manuel where you can take control the character yourself. Manuel is fun to use but it takes plenty of time to get used to. Semi Auto is the control I recommend using.
You take 4 different characters out of the available 6 into real time battles, each character has their own unique skills that are called Artes. Artes are magical and strike abilities which can all be chained together to deliver punishing combos. Artes can also be labelled by Base and Arcane. In this version you can assign Artes to the Circle Pad but also to add Shortcut commands to the Touch Screen to give quick commands to your allies. You also have a Strategy setup which you can edit their formation and change their behaviour in battle. Sure Tales of the Abyss's combat is indeed a button masher but however there are ways of adding more variety to make your battles challenging.
Your battle potential can be enhanced with Capacity Cores which can give some extra stat boosts upon levelling up your characters, each Capacity Core has it's own attributes so you're free to experiment with each core and each stat boost will unlock new character abilities which can be turned on or off but however unlike Vesperia you can easily equip all the ones you know without any Ability Point capacity.
There are also Fon Slot Chambers which you can alter your characters Artes to be much more effective in battle. You can change Arte parameters by Increasing that Artes Damage, power to send the enemy flying even further, Reduce the TP cost or the ability to change the Artes field of Fonons. There plenty of these chambers lying around on the world map but you can only equip one chamber per Arte.
Later on in the game you'll learn the ability of Fields of Fonons in which helps to turn the tides of battles. FOF allows your Arte to be transform into a stronger Arte for dealing much greater damage to your enemies than your regular Artes. To do this you stand on a working FOF Circle, this is shown by a Elemental Field that is showcased by the colour of each element. Non working ones are displayed by a plain white circle and they can't be used. While in the Circle you can use your Arte that is compatible to the Circle of that element and then it turns the Arte into a more powerful attack which is helpful to enemies who are weak against the opposing elements. This technique will become useful against harder bosses later on but even with these mechanics, you still need to reasonably build your characters levels and get the best equipment possible in order to survive. Boss battles can be challenging especially some of them which can ambush you and bash you down quickly.
You also have a Over limit bar below the characters HP, TP bars which when full you press Right on the D-pad will activate Over Limit. In it your enemies can't stagger you and holding the A button after successfully landing an Arcane Arte on the enemy will unleash a very powerful Arte called the Mystic Artes which mostly can defeat main enemies instantly but it can deal major damage to boss encounters. Every playable character and human bosses have Mystic Artes and Overlimits so you'll need to be careful with these types of encounters.
Another of the series staples is being to cook for your allies. You can cook Manually in the menus or you can cook after battles by tapping the assigned recipes on the touch screen much like the assigned Artes. Tales of the Abyss's is definitely more complex then Tales of Symphonia for it's time. The AI is solid, the mechanics work great and it does keep the challenge level at a reasonable pace making it more refined if not better then Vesperia's combat system.
One of the main criticisms anyone has with Tales of the Abyss is the visuals. The game didn't look anywhere near as good as Tales of Symphonia when this game was released originally on the PS2 with it's blocky characters but environments and spell effects fair much better. On the 3DS the graphics haven't changed at all but however if you put the 3D slider on the graphics do look much better and even better when you place your 3DS charger on. That aside I also stumped upon a glitch at one point where I can go through inside a mountain wall which I fought was funny but other than that Tales of the Abyss is a decent looking 3DS game that only looks good with the 3D on.
The Sound is what the production stand out more. Through it's tiny speakers the music tracks are great and the effects are good, you'll have a few laughs out of the characters quotes so overall the game still sounds great after 6 years.
While it isn't much improved from it's PS2 counterpart but Tales of the Abyss is a solid RPG for fans who have missed out quite a lot in the Tales series. Your only issue is that the game is released in a limited quality so getting your hands on it is going to be very difficult. If you have a 3DS and love RPG's especially Tales of then try searching all round the Internet or second hand shops for a copy cause Tales of the Abyss is still a fun little RPG for anyone who has missed out on the series so far.
For me personally if I saw this game in Europe on the PlayStation 2 I would honestly have picked it up and played it instead of Final Fantasy XII. This game could easily deal with anyone who had stress problems with Final Fantasy XII as this game is 100 times better then that trash.
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The Good Points:
1. Excellent Storyline and Characters
2. Complex Battle system
3. Plenty of Side Quests and Extras
4. Looks great in 3D and still sounds impressive
The Bad Points:
1. Skits have no voice work
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Reviewed by: Anthony Hayball (AQWBlaZer91)
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