I'm gunna add Tales to my thesaurus next to the word "Perfect".
Story - 10/10
Gameplay - 10/10
Graphics - 9/10
Sound - 10/10
Lasting Value - 10/10
In case you didn't know, Tales is one of my favourite video game series (tied with Xenosaga and Fire Emblem). Naturally, after ToS and ToL both placing in my top 5 games of all time, I went into TotA expecting A LOT! Surprisingly, it lived up to the hype for me! While I'll admit I enjoyed ToS and ToL slightly more, that doesn't stop this game from being flawless in nearly every way possible.
In terms of battle system, the action is as crazy and over-the-top as any other Tales game. One of my favourite things is that, unlike in ToS, you can run around the whole playing field at will by simply holding a button, so the 3D playing field feels much more fully-realized than ToS. There's a few other new things as well, such as these crazy attacks that you can do which look insane! Doing these attacks requires you to fill up this one bar first though, which you can build up by attacking enemies. One minor downgrade was that I found you didn't learn new techniques as often as in ToS (for the main character, Luke, anyways), but even so, the battle system is still spectacular and definitely one of the games strong points.
In terms of graphics/sound, the graphics themselves are really cool. They're not cel-shaded like ToS, but have a real unique look to them. The character facial expressions are hilarious and the environments and enemies are nicely detailed. The downfall to the graphics is that the game lags insanely on the overworld map, especially when you rotate the camera. Still, this didn't really impact the experience as a whole and as such is a very trivial inconvenience. In terms of audio, the game sounds amazing. The battle music is all very fun and the voice acting is very well done as well. Overall, TotA has excellent audio and visuals.
TotA is also a very long game. It took me a total of 55 hours to make it to the end, which is long even for a role playing game. While it's not the 103 hours that ToL took me to finish, it's still an extrordinary length and definitely worth the money for a purchase.
The storty of TotA is probably its strongest point. While I'll admit I was disappointed near the beginning, and even 10 hours into the game I was kind of like "yeah... it's good, but not as good as ____", eventually it does pick up and becomes insanely epic and insanely Tales. That is to say, TotA's story is pretty much perfect. The characters are very well developed, there are HUGE twists revolving around all of the characters, and the game just does an overall great job of keeping you in suspense until the very end. I was very impressed. The games story definitely ranks up there with my other favourite storylines of all time, and I'll always remember these characters (Jade and Guy are my two favourites).
Overall, TotA is an amazing game and continues the tradition of every Tales game I've ever played getting a 10/10. Do yourself a favour and play this game. While it starts out a little on the slow side, it unfolds into an extremely memorable video game experience. I absolutely love this game. Need I say more?