Tales of the Abyss highlights and expands on all the things that make up an awesome game.
The battle system incorporates things such as "capacity cores", which increase your stats at level up depending on the type you have equipped to your character. "Fon slot chambers", which you are able to equip on a characters skills or "artes" and each of the four chambers have a variety of effects. "AD Skills", which are various boosts (there's quite a lot of them!) earned by using capacity cores. They sometimes make battles too easy, but you're able to turn off any if you'd like to.
Battles in Abyss begin after touching an enemy in a dungeon or on the world map, and with the help of holy or dark bottles exclusive to the Tales series, you can more or less choose your encounter rate.
All the battle system has to offer is very fun to work with. Though Abyss has been called a "button masher" before, you're in trouble if that's all you do. The game also has a variety of difficulties to choose from, if you'd like to challenge yourself or just enjoy the story.
Abyss' graphics aren't exactly praised to the sky, but they are adorable in my opinion. Colourful and nice, just perfect for the game. I couldn't imagine them any other way.
Abyss has a few small shortcomings. Namely, the loading times and the world map. Those are the main negative points that people look at, any others seem to be non-existant. However, they don't bother me in the least.
This game has the highest immediate replay value out of any game I've ever played, with a whopping seven playthroughs in total for me... so far. Five from the English version and two from the Japanese. The grade shop featured in many Tales games helps increase this replay value by a lot. In the grade shop you can purchase things such as "double experience" or "carry over consumable items" etc for your second playthrough.
Now, story. The Tales games aren't exactly known for their amazingly spun tales ironically, but more for their gameplay and delightful, easy to fall in love with cast of characters. Really, the games are charmed by their characters so much that their personalities/stories alone should make up the story itself. But alas, that doesn't happen. Instead, the usually cliched MEGA VILLIAN (who either wants to destroy the world to save it or just for fun) appears and the party takes some time to angst and wonder what to do before cementing their resolve and making the game way too serious. Although within the story there's a lot of bits and pieces that make it enjoyable to watch, as with all Tales games. That's the magic, I guess!
Abyss doesn't have the best story in the series, and having played through the game so many times I confess I'm a tad sick of it (though it's a great story!). But I never get sick of the characters or gameplay!