"A Good Game Lost in a Sea of - Oh, I Just Missed a Spoiler"

I played the smash hit, Tales of Symphonia, on the little Gamecube, and loved it. It was a long, enjoyable RPG with memorable characters and a great story. So, I figured that another Tales game was in order, and picked up Tales of the Abyss at a local game store.

Tales of the Abyss has you playing as Luke, a red-haired aristocrat who cannot leave his home or remember half of his life. While training with Master Van, a mysterious woman attacks Luke's mansion, and the two of them disappear to lands unknown.

From here on out, the story only gets more and more confusing. The entire world is made up of Fonons, in your typical Fire, Earth, Water, Wind, Light and Dark flavors, and the world governed by 'Yulia's Score.' This Score is just like the news: it says what the temperature is going to be, the weather, and how everyone's lives should be lived out.

Honestly, from this point, I can't really tell you much about the rest of the story. It happens so fast that you won't be able to tell anyone apart, who they are, or why they are important. "HelloLukeIAmYourFatherGoodbye." And there went one of the big story events. It just feels like everyone is going about your business, and you are supposed to just try and understand what's going on. Thankfully, a Synopsis can help clear up a bit of confusion, but you'll still be lost on what is going on.

It doesn't help that the six playable characters don't have much personality. Luke is a spoiled brat, Tear is a serious chickadee, Jade is a military jerk, Guy is a friend slave, Natalia is a spoiled brat, and Anise is just a horny schoolgirl. Beyond that, everyone sort of blends together, to the point where you don't care about Luke's past, or Jade's military experiments. When something bad happens, everyone reacts the SAME. No, "well, it wasn't that bad." Just "OMGWTFBBQ!?" And when that happens, I don't care about these people and their story anymore.

And everything is just made more jumbled when the people speak, talking about 'Fon Slots,' 'Hyperresonances,' and 'Fonic Hymns,' as if you already know what everything is. Things are slowly spoon-fed to you, but not really interesting enough to keep on playing. Characters are introduced at a breakneck pace, to the point where I couldn't even remember who this big, bad boss was, even after she killed me six or so times.

However, when the people do speak, they speak with voice acting, one of the games stronger suits. Many of the cutscenes feature voice acting, and good ones at that. All of the voices help to push the story along, but not by much. Because of everyone's overall bland, cookie-cutter personalities, the voices only help to serve the monotony.

After all of that, the combat could have made up for it. And it...sort of did. But not really.

Combat is real time, where you control your character and attack foes until you win. Allies are controlled by a usually intelligent AI, who can heal and attack with good haste. The allies aren't used to their full potential, and are often stuck repeating mistakes. This is Artificial Intelligence, but it didn't have to be so poor.

Everyone learns Artes over the course of the game, and take the place of your basic attacks as healing spells or powerful attacks. These abilities are fun for a while, but quickly lose their luster when you realize that you will be stuck saying "Fang Blade!" over and over. The spells, while varied, all do the same thing in the end, and don't have a real "WOW!" factor. Okay, you are saying other things when the opponent pulls off a killer - in more ways than one - spell, several times in a row, but those are words I can't type here.

All of the monotony is supposed to be spiced up by the Fields of Fonons system. When someone casts a fire spell, the ground below the target is highlighted in either a white circle or red circle. When the circle rarely turns red, some Artes can be transformed into destructive attacks, such as "Lightning Tiger Blade" or "Frigid Blast." However, these attacks cannot be used in the white circle. The white circle is supposed to say, "use another attack of this element to make a colored circle!" but the effect doesn't last long enough to make use of it.

Other, external factors can further strengthen your attacks and character. C. Cores (don't aske me what the 'C' is) can be attached to the character and provide enhanced stat growths, so that you can push character development in your own way. These aren't really explained, and two of the stats - Agility and Enhancement - seem to play no effect in battle. FSC gems can be attached to attacks to make them stronger or have a greater push effect, but these effects are unnoticeable once you step foot in battle. AD Skills can allow characters to run on a 3D-Plain, or occasionally raise HP, but, again, these effects are not really noticeable.

After all of THAT, a great soundtrack or stylized graphics could have made up for some of it...again, not really.

The sound in the game is good, but not great. The battles sound as they should, with spells exploding and blades clashing with a good realism. The dungeon and town themes aren't memorable, but serve there purpose in the long run.

The graphics are decent for the Playstation 2. Character models are fairly fluid, and backdrops are quite detailed. The visual style of the game is good, but can't really be placed - I'm not sure if it's a faux pa cel shading or what. It still looks good, though.

And I have to mention this: two of the bullets on the back of the box mention "the most realistic character models to date" and "innovative camera angles and detailed facial expressions." One wins, one phails. The characters are realistic: their clothing moves correctly and have good, but not flamboyant (and we don't want flamboyant), hair styles. But, "innovative camera angles" is code for "awkward, camera-on-drunk-rails, movement." There are several points in the game where moving is a chore, especially when the camera is flying all over the place. Makes me feel like a Resident Evil game. And I have yet to notice any "detailed facial expressions." It's just the typical "happy, sad, angry," stuff.

What tops all of this off is the fact that the PS2 cannot handle these graphics! World map loading times can reach into the upwards of 15 seconds, and battles, 5 seconds. That doesn't seem like long, but sit still and count it out. Now, imagine doing that when you are supposed to be having fun. The frame rate chugs on the world map, and battles come to a halt if 3 spells are on screen.

I really tried to like this game, I really did. But, it just didn't work for me. The forgettable, confusing plot, average characters and plain battles are only further hampered by a typical soundtrack and horrid loading times. Maybe Tales of Symphonia hyped me up for this, or maybe the back of the game let me down, but this installment of the Tales series wasn't fantastic. It wasn't too bad, but I wouldn't recommend it.

FINAL WORD: A decent game that should be picked up used or in the discount bin. Average all the way through. And truth be told, this was one of the first games where I just stopped playing, not because it was hard, but because I just didn't like it.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/15/07