A great cast of characters with a compelling storyline and complex battle system makes Tales of the Abyss worthwhile.
Publisher: Namco
Developer: Namco Tales Studio
System: PlayStation 2
Genre: I consider Tales of the Abyss to be an RPG with some action genre elements.
Release Date: October 10, 2006
~Gameplay 9/10~
Tales of the Abyss has exactly what the Tales series is know for, chaotic real time battles with an amazing storyline. What makes Tales of the Abyss stand out is that it adds to both of those elements. First off, the battle system seems more complex than other Tales games. For starters, you can now move all around a 3D battlefield instead of the usual 2D. To do this, you hold down the R2 button to move around where you like. When the R2 button is not pushed down, you are in the normal 2D field that fans of the Tales series are used to. I found myself (as a huge Tales fan) forgetting about the 3D part and just sticking with using left and right, instead of all the directions. Except I must say that having the ability to move anywhere is very nice, and was used frequently during boss battles.
Every RPG should have a good story and cast of characters. If it doesn't have these two things, it's hard for me to call it a good RPG. Fortunately, like most Tales games, Abyss has these elements and it exceeds in them more than I expected. The story is top notch, with all the twists and turns included. I think that the cast of characters are partially why the story is so good. It's very rare to actually feel the characters in a RPG as much as in Tales of the Abyss. After going through this game, most people could say that they felt a certain character's pain, or they connected to a character in some way. Each one is unique and has a background story to unfold. They all have different personalities and when they come together, you get an amazing cast that interacts with each other to make a deep and interesting storyline. Seriously, Abyss has one of the best stories and characters I have seen in a RPG and it's hard to find flaws in it. If I had to choose something, I would say the government. Abyss has a larger focus on the government than most RPGs, which was disappointing for me, but as you play it more and more, you see all that go away.
It's very hard to explain Abyss's story without giving spoilers, so I will just give a brief synopsis of it toward the beginning of the game. You start off as Luke fon Fabre, a young man who lost his memory after he was kidnapped 7 years ago. He is only allowed in the manor, for his safety, but he hates it because he just can't seem to find anything interesting going on around there. One day, when Luke is training with his respected teacher, Van, a mysterious woman comes out of nowhere, and tries to attack Van. A mysterious blur occurs, when she comes in contact with Luke. This blur, transports only Luke and Tear to an unknown area, not far from the manor. The woman's name is Tear and explains her story very briefly, leaving Luke wondering what is going on. So, what happens to Luke and Tear? Who's the bad guy, Van, Tear, or another unknown force? Can Luke survive in the outside world after staying in the manor for seven years? Basically, that's how the story starts off. Much more questions come up during the game, and the story just goes in many different directions to keep you guessing. What I loved about Abyss's story is that they make it as if there isn't a good side and a bad side. It's just as if there are two sides, and you can't really call one better than the other. It has everything an RPG needs, including betrayal, action, mysteries, some romance and much more. If you want more detailed information on Abyss's story or have any questions on the storyline, just send me a message.
The difficulty of Tales of the Abyss seems to be just right. It's really easy to fly through regular battles, but there are some challenging boss battles along the way. The best part is that if you ever find it to be too easy for you, you can change the difficulty whenever you want. This is an excellent function to have to test out what's the right difficulty for you and I think all games should have it. However, while the overall difficulty may be okay, there are often times where you may get stuck. Sometimes you need to get a certain ability or item, which should be a sidequest instead of being required, because there are little clues to finding them. Despite that, this occurs rarely in the game, and shouldn't cause much trouble
I mentioned there were some pacing problems. Well, that is true and it's easy to notice it. The game flows nicely in the beginning, and then when you get to the middle of the game and the story starts to unwind, the gameplay starts to slow down. That's possibly one of the worst places for a game to slow down. Basically, when the story starts getting good, you need to do too much backtracking, exploring, and go through some pointless dialogue to get farther. It's noticeable, but the game gets going again at a certain point of the game and just stays really good from then on. In that slowing down section not much happens. Well, nothing unpredictable seems to happen. You have a mission and you do it. There's plenty of fun along the way, but I think it's noticeable because the rest of the game is so amazing.
Loading times are not an issue in Tales of the Abyss. They never bothered me and most of the time. You shouldn't have to wait over 20 sec. for anything. That is, except for the world map. For some odd reason the world map requires a lot of loading, before a battle, after a battle, going in a town, etc. It's very strange to see practically no loading go to much more of it. Anyway, it shouldn't get in the way with your fun.
The battle system is probably the best one in the Tales series so far. It's completely real time, so you need to be quick, but you could just hack and slash if you want. Even though there is a lot of hacking and slashing, there is also a lot of strategy involved. Each character has their own special skills called Artes. There are different kinds of Artes depending on the character. For example, Luke, the main character, is a fighter, so he gets all kinds of attacking Artes. While Jade, is a magic user, so he gets a lot of spell and magic Artes. In battles there are circles that develop on the ground depending on the element used. For example, if an enemy does a fire attack, then a fire circle appears on the ground. Sometimes when an elemental attack is very powerful, or a weak one is used many times, the circle on the ground is colored. These colored circles are what you can use to your advantage to use special Artes by causing a FOF change. For example, one of Luke's Artes is called Fang Blade. Well, when Luke is inside a wind colored circle, and uses Fang Blade, then a FOF change occurs and Lighting Fang Blade is formed. It puts a lot more strategy into the battle system and makes it a lot of fun, but I do have a complaint. Because you can use all different kind of Artes by using those colored circles, each character learns less Artes than previous Tales games. Instead of Jade having the Explosion spell, he needs to do Eruption while in a earth colored circle, but Genis (the magic user from Tales of Symphonia) can use Explosion just on the fly and doesn't need any circles on the ground. Despite that, these are some of the most intense and enjoyable battles to ever be on a RPG.
Battles are chaotic and what makes them even more fun is the ability to play with friends. The Tales series is one of the only RPG series that you can play multiplayer and it's always a blast to do. I play every Tales game with my brother and we love playing them together. You can play with up to four players (so, obviously you need the multitap to play with 3 or 4 players since it's on PS2). However, you don't need the multitap to play only 2 players. There are no problems at all with the multiplayer and it's even better in Abyss than Symphonia. In Symphonia, the camera was only focused on the first player. In Abyss, it backs out the camera so that all the human players are on the screen. It's very nice and never got annoying. What makes it even better, is that you can be whatever character you want, and have no restrictions. The only downside I can think of to playing an amazing game like Abyss multiplayer, is when you want to cry during a touching scene, but hold it in, because someone else is there :P
~Graphics 8/10~
The visuals in Tales of the Abyss seem inconsistent. In one scene there are some great visual effects and in another they look like garbage. There is a slow-down on the world map and everything on it looks very bland. Outside of a battle sometimes backgrounds may look boring and have no detail. Everything has a nice anime style look to it, but it's just not fleshed out enough to really get that "wow" factor. It's a good thing the characters look decent and have some nice facial features so that you can tell their emotions.
So, with the graphics not being impressive, why would I give this a decent score? That's because in a battle, the graphics are highly impressive and are so much better than outside a battle. The motions look nice and there is no slow-down in these hectic battles. Everything just looks better in a battle (especially magic), and it's a shame that they couldn't make it like that for the whole game. My favorite parts of the visuals in Abyss are the animated cut-scenes. There are very few of them and they are far away from each other, but are still very memorable. Some of the best scenes of the game are in these animated cut-scenes. They also have some really touching moments that I remember perfectly.
~Music and Sound 8.75/10~
The music seems to be inconsistent just like the graphics in Abyss. Sometimes you get the best music you ever heard and other times you get forgettable tunes. The good thing is that touching and memorable moments, have the music spot on. Those moments have some of the best music and in game, and it just makes them more memorable. Also, the battle music is very good. Regular and boss battles have good tunes that fit the mood. Everything else seems to be just average and forgettable. This would include the music in towns, briefing dialogue, dungeons, etc.
As far as sounds go, there is just the basic swords clashing and magic sounds as any other game. Nothing is annoying and they are put there when needed. However, the voice acting in Abyss is very good. That's one of the reasons why the characters are so full of life, is because of great voice acting. I couldn't find one bad one in the bunch and I was really pleased to see these awesome characters get this good treatment. Also, the lines flow together nicely and doesn't seem like they are going line from line. There are also excellent interactions between the characters.
~Value 9.75/10~
Tales of the Abyss will take most gamers at least 50 hours to complete. If you skip all the dialogue and fly right through everything, you probably couldn't beat it under 30 hours. So, Abyss has a good 50 hours under its belt, but that's not all. There are plenty of sidequests and there is also the grade system, which almost all Tales games have. I'm not explaining it much detail here, so send me a message if you would like to know more about the grade system. Basically, it gives you the ability to transfer things over and get new stuff when you play it again. For example, you can use grade to get 10x more experience when you play again. You can also use grade to keep your titles for your characters and much more.
~Fun Factor 10/10~
Abyss is one of the most fun RPGs that I have ever played. I always had a good time with it, even when it was slowing down. It's even better multiplayer and I really wish all RPGs were as fun as Abyss. The parts that were the most fun for me would be the battles, and the memorable moments. Pretty much any gamer could have a good time with Abyss. For any of you who like RPG humor, there's plenty of it in Abyss. Actually, more than you would expect.
~The Good, The Bad, and Buy It?~
The Good: excellent cast of characters with good voice acting to capture the feeling of each character, deep and complex battle system, immersive storyline that unfolds more and more throughout the game, great motions in battles, decent musical score, co-op multiplayer, lengthy quest with a good amount of sidequests
The Bad: a few pacing problems slow the game down, graphics outside of battles are pretty weak, pretty much everything about the world map is not very good, some music is just okay, FOF changes give the characters less skills to use on the fly, hard to know what to do at times
Buy It?: Yes, to all Tales fans because it lives up to the series and probably has the best battle system so far. It's also great for anyone who is looking for a good RPG experience to last them a while. Those of you looking for a good cast of characters to get to know through an amazing story, then Tales of the Abyss is a good choice. Send me a message if have any questions or are still unsure.
~Overall 9.3/10~
Tales of the Abyss has a wonderful story to be told and puts everything together to make an unforgettable RPG experience. It doesn't come out flawless, but it comes out strong nonetheless.
Gameplay-9
Graphics-8
Music and Sound-8.75
Value-9.75
Fun Factor-10
Overall-9.3 Impressive Storyline and Character Design
If you have any questions feel free to send me a message.
Thank you for reading,
~Vari