"A pretty amazing RPG"

Tales of the Abyss is one of the best RPGs released for the Playstation 2, in my opinion taking what made Tales of Symphonia great and improving on it for the most part. In this review I'll try not to make too many comparisons to Tales of Symphonia but I plan to make some parallels between this game and Symphonia just to give those who have played the other game an idea of what's better and worse.

Story: 7/10

The story in this game is pretty cool though I can't reveal much of it due to major spoilers. Basically it has the usual cliches of an RPG while having a few original plot areas which are rather refreshing. It revolves around a young aristocrat named Luke fon Fabre, who is rather arrogant, while being ignorant of the world around him. Luke is locked within his home until the age of 20 by his uncle due to Luke's kidnapping and loss of memory. He yearns to see the outside world and all he does in his castle is train with a sword, having lessons from his master, Van. He manages to leave the castle upon the arrival of an intruder which is pretty much where the actual adventure begins.

Gameplay: 9/10

The usual in an RPG and the usual in a Tales game. You run around the world, traveling to towns and battling monsters. The plethora of items and recipes are back and there are quite a few minigames to go through. You learn new moves as you fight more battles and level up, pretty much the same in every RPG. I must warn you though, load times for battles/entering towns and whatnot aren't horrendous but do take a while longer compared to Symphonia and other RPGs. Nothing too bad but not instantaneous.

Battles: 10/10

This is what I think makes the Tales series shine as a whole. The amazing real-time battle system. The system is pretty much the same from Symphonia with the lining up with your enemy to attack on a 2-D plan except the game features the "free run" which allows you to run around the entire field until you decide to attack. The battles are always fun and there are a lot of moves, or "Artes" to get for each character which keeps things interesting until the end of the game. The only thing I didn't like about the battle system was that you can't switch which character you play as in your active party as you could in Symphonia. so if you die and have no items or skills to revive yourself you just have to wait rather than take control of another character. Maybe there is a way to do so, but I haven't found it yet. Another feature of this game that's rather special is the "Field of Fonons" which is basically a small elemental area on the battle field (represented as colored circles where each color represents an element) which you can utilize to add an element to a Arte making a new elemental Arte with increased damage. Since you have a party of four you don't actually control for characters. You control one and the rest are controlled by the AI, however you can set a strategy for each character for what types of enemies to attack, how much TP (pretty much magic for magical artes or skills) they should use and many other things so you have a large say in what the AI does. Overall the battle system is great and my favorite type of battle system over all other RPGs' . Finally, you can play multiplayer during the battles where a friend can tae control of a party member which is pretty fun. After playing Symphonia with my friend and hearing this game had a similar multiplayer system I couldn't pass this up. Tales of the Abyss even fixed the camera issue from Symphonia so the camera focuses on all manually controlled players rather than the first player.

Sound: 10/10

I like the music in the game. Though it's personal opinion, I think the music is awesome. The tunes are the kind that get stuck in your head or the kind that you would looke for to put on an MP3 player. The music for each situation just fits and heightens the gameplay experience. The voice acting in the game is pretty amazing. Every voice fits with each character. Mouth movements and voices are sync'd very well.

Graphics: 8/10

The graphics aren't the best part of the game. They're neither amazing nor horrible. You can see the developers slacking with them on certain areas of the game but overall they're pretty well-done. Though I feel the game could have done without the changing face expressions due to how stupid they make Luke look through half the game, they are accurate and fit with the voices pretty well.

Replay: 10/10

Like Symphonia there is a Grade Shop at the end of the game where you can buy bonuses and carry things over to your next playthrough in addition to some extra dungeons and moves in the second playthrough. If that wasn't enough, there are two new difficulties unlocked after you beat the game which make the game worth playing over again and with all the stuff you can get in the game, you'll probably beat the game many times before you're satisfied. Overall the replay value for the game is great with all the extras you get for beating the game.

Rent/Buy: Buy

If you're an RPG fan, you can't pass this game up. It takes all the classic elements of an RPG regarding story and out of battle gameplay while having a great battle system that improves on the system in the previous Tales games. The multiplayer value is pretty good even though you can only do multiplayer in-battle. Overall the game is great and I suggest you buy it unless you really hate RPGs.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 01/08/07