Tales of the Abyss

"A Tales 10th Anniversary Masterpiece"

In 1995, the Tales series first began with Tales of Phantasia on the SNES. Being a hit in Japan, more games in the Tales were released. Ten years later, the series is still going strong. Tales of the Abyss was announced as a special game to celebrate the tenth anniversary of this series which is so loved in Japan.

Tales of the Abyss takes place in the world of Auldrant. You play the role of Luke, a spoiled kid of the nobility in the Kimlascan capital of Baticul. Luke was kidnapped by the enemy country of Malkuth was he was a kid, and since the incident, he has no memory of his past before then. To protect him from further danger, or so he's told, he's not allowed to leave his mansion, which is located right outside the castle in Baticul. The story of Tales of the Abyss picks up when Luke is 17. Van, the commandant of the Oracle Knights, a division in the Order of Lorelei (which serves as the church in this game), comes by the mansion to give Luke a routine lesson in swordsmanship, and also to inform Luke's father of an event that has occurred within the Order. While training, a mysterious assassin comes and tries to kill Van. Without warning, a light flashes, and Luke and this mysterious assassin, Tear, get magically transported to some far away place. You two are forced to work together in order to make your way out.

Story (10/10)

The above events are only the beginning of the grand adventure that will unfurl in the land of Auldrant. Along the way, you'll meet several more characters. Jade, a magic and halberd user, is a colonel in the Malkuth military. Anise is Fon Master Ion's personal guardian, and uses Tokunaga, her doll, to ride on and attack with. Natalia is Luke's cousin, and also the Princess of the kingdom of Kimlasca. Guy is Luke's servant and also his childhood, and perhaps only friend. The characters of Tales of Abyss really make the story of the game come alive. Each one is specifically there for a purpose, which will be made known to you some time during the story, and none of them are just there for the heck of it or for filling, or the like. And this is saying nothing for the major enemies and the development they receive. The enemies in this game are not your standard enemies that you see a couple times at most, receive almost no development, and you just see there as an enemy. Each one of them also receives equally as much development as the main characters do, and you'll grow fond of them as well, once you understand their character, and pity them once you're forced to face them in battle.

As for the story itself, the beginning of the game is the slowest part. It seems as though you're just going places for little reason. Though once the game picks up, the story goes into full fledged development, and you start to see the purpose in everything. It's quite in depth, with plot twists you'll never expect, and enough up and downs to keep even the most hard to please on the edge of their chair.

Gameplay (10/10)

Gameplay is where the Tales series truly shines. Tales of the Abyss, like all of the Tales games before it, is an Action RPG. It uses the Flex Range Linear Motion Battle System. This battle system is set on a field, once the battle is initiated. On this field, you'll have four characters. One of these characters is controlled by you, and the other three are controlled by the computer's artificial intelligence (or your friends, if you want to play with more than just one player). Unlike Tales games before it, in Tales of the Abyss, you can run anywhere on the field, and you aren't just restricted to a 2D plain between you and a selected targeted enemy. This line still exists, but you can move off of it by the push of a button. By pressing and holding L2, you're allowed to run anywhere on the battlefield, which is immensely useful for avoiding attacks and targeting an enemy from behind. Once you're in the position you want, let go of L2, and you'll be back on the 2D plain between you and the enemy, and you'll be free to attack at will. X is a standard attack, while O performs a tech (called an “arte”). Holding a direction with O will allow you to perform a different arte. You can assign a different arte to each different O button combination, as well as each direction on the right analog stick. Normal attacks with X can then be chained to artes with O in order to perform multiple attack combos. The higher you can raise the combo number, the better.

A new addition to the standard Tales battle system in Abyss is the AD Skills system. AD Skills are special skills you acquire through leveling up (and increasing your stats through the Capacity Core system, which will be explained later). These skills range from a variety of things. One of the first skills you'll gain is “Free Run”, which will allow you to run wherever you want on the battle field, which I explained above. Other AD Skills allow you to do things like backstep when blocking an enemy's attack, adding on to your basic X combos (up to a maximum of 5 X attacks can be obtained through AD Skills), shortening your spell casting time, and even automatically reviving the character upon death. These AD Skills greatly help with battle, so it's best to get as many of them as you can.

Along those same lines, FSC (short for Fon Slot Chamber) allows you to equip certain “chambers” to a move on each character in order to increase a certain ability of the move. These can range from boosting to power, to adding a knock back effect, to adding a healing affect. The more you use the move, the more often the effect will activate, up to 100% of the time when fully mastered.

The final new addition to the battle system is the Capacity Core System. In the game, you'll discover many Capacity Cores, which you can equip to your character in order to customize their stat up bonuses. Each Capacity Core is different and increases each stat by a different amount. It's best to decide which character you want to get which stat ups beforehand so you can best utilize this system.

Another important note about the battle system is that there are no random encounters in this game, which is a major plus for the game. If you've ever been running around just wanting to get somewhere and have been bugged by how high the encounter rate is, you'll know what I mean by that. In this game, you can see the battles on the screen. You can choose to go up and touch them if you so wish and enter a battle, or you can choose to avoid them. Certain ones will chase after you, but most of the time, it's perfectly feasible to just avoid a battle entirely if you so wish. These icons for the battles are symbolized by the type of enemy you'll be facing in the battle. If they see you, an exclamation point will appear over their head and they'll chase you. If they touch you from behind, a surprise encounter will occur and you'll be forced to battle with the two characters you have in reserve in place of two of the characters you normally have in your party.

Graphics (8.5/10)

This is a part of the game which is truly hit or miss. On one hand, you have the glorious battle animations, which are very nice to look at, no matter who you are or what your preferences are. On the other hand, there's the world map, which has very little detail in it and is sometimes not so pleasant to look at. Then there's the middle of the road graphics, the dungeons and towns, which are mostly okay to look at. And then there are the anime scenes which, though the pictures are very well drawn, have a fairly low frame rate.

The good part is the battle animations. This is the part of the game you'll be spending most of your time in, so it's the part which should be taken into consideration the most. The artes are very well drawn out and full of detail, and the spells are flashy and also full of detail. Mystic Artes (this game's hi ougis, or special attacks) are also very flashy, and very pleasing to the eye. There's no doubt this is the highlight of the graphics.

The bad part is the world map. There's really almost no detail in some of the terrain. Trees are green, the path is brown, and the ocean is blue. Aside from this, details are kind of hard to make out sometimes. Luckily, actual dungeons, towns, and battles take up a lot more of your time than roaming the world map will.

Sound (9/10)

This part of the game is really well done for the most part. Almost all of the cutscenes are fully voice acted. And not just voice acted, but voice acted well. This game is one of the view games that honestly just have plain good voice acting for 95% of the characters. All of the main characters are exceptional, and fit the personality of the character perfectly.

The music in the game is also quite high par. There are several different battle themes, which is the music you'll be hearing the most, and each one is catchy. Then there's the dungeon and town music. Each one is different, and each one fits the mood of the place you're in. And then finally, there's cutscene music. Each different mood has a different song, and once again, most of these fit right along and help set the mood of the scene.

But of course, this section is always hard to get down perfectly. There are some voice actors that are, while still fairly good, noticeably subpar to the rest of the cast. And there are some songs that you do get sick of and just kind of want to turn the volume down for, though these things are all few and far between.

Replayability (10/10)

If you've played a Tales game before, you know that there are so many things to do in the game, it's ridiculous. The main story and events of the game will likely take you 60 or more hours, if you're going at a casual pace. At the least, it'll take you 50 hours, and that's if you're really rushing. Post game, or rather right before the final boss, there are tons and tons of sidequests for you to go do. Nebilim is the major sidequest of the game, involving some character backstories and additional information and such, and then there's other smaller sidequests. Some of these include collecting the titles, going to secret places, playing mini games, conquering the arena, and so on. Some of the things to do in the game can't even be accessed the first time around, so you have to play it a second time in order to get to them. And with a total of four difficulties for this game, that won't be hard to accomplish. And once you beat the final boss for the first time, you can transfer over certain things with your GRADE that you acquired throughout the game. Certain things like transferring titles, artes, arte uses, and so on all require different amounts of GRADE, so you'll be forced to choose which ones are most important to you for the next playthrough. If you decide to go with more than one playthrough, perhaps on a higher difficulty level, and decide to get all of the game's secrets, it's entirely possible that you could get upwards of 120 hours on just a single playthrough of the game.

Buy or Rent?

Are you kidding? At a release price of only $40, this game is a definite buy. Not only would you have a tough time even beating the main story just renting it, but you'll love it so much and want to keep playing due to all the extras, that you won't want to give it back.

Final Rating (10/10)

With so many good things going for it, it's no wonder I'm giving it this high of a score. Its battle system is fun, and story and characters are nice, so you'll keep going back for more. It doesn't matter if you're a fan of RPGs or the Tales series or what. If you like fun, you'll definitely enjoy playing through Tales of the Abyss.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 05/17/07, Updated 05/17/07