"Strong points outweigh weak ones for a solid JRPG experience"

After 50 odd hours of playing a game I usually like to reflect upon how it was as a whole, which is why I wrote this review! So without further ado here's my 2 cents:

Tales of the Abyss is yet another release in the Namco Bandai cashcow Tales series, delivering a fairly predictable result. Like the other games in the series ToA follows the familiar JRPG/Anime formula of a teenaged boy and his friends on a quest for their identity and a search for the meaning of existence. It has the familiar action RPG style random encounters (though this time in a 3D plane) and it follows the town-dungeon-town rinse repeat pattern of gaming. If you're like me when I first read about the game none of this sounds like a good way to spend another 50+ hours of your life. However I'm going to try to tell you when I think this game is worth playing, even though everything stated above is true.

Story: 7/10

ToA, like most Tales games is held up by the strength of it's characters in keeping the story interesting. Tear, the female lead, breaks tradition by being neither the super cute bashful "Yuna type" nor the super cute energetic tomboyish "Rikku type." Tear comes off as very mature and serious, but also kind and feminine, more or less defying convention (although her obsession with cute things seems pretty contrived). Jade, a "supporting" character who pretty much steals the show....well if you've read any other reviews you've probably heard that he is one of the all-time classic characters of RPGs who makes the game worth playing just through his presence. He actually comes off as pretty nuanced even though his main function is to look superior in front of the rest of the squabbling cast. Guy is the main character's best friend with a few uninteresting secrets and quirks. He's likable but doesn't add too much to the game. The unnamed villain (for spoiler reasons) comes off as having understandable motives but inexplicably stubborn. There never really seemed to me to be all that much at stake between the protagonists and antagonists, but at least there weren't any real plot holes. Finally the main character Luke. JRPGs are almost always about "growing up" (i.e. becoming a responsible member of society, getting a real job and a real girlfriend etc.) where in fact the gap between the main character at the beginning of the story and the end is pretty small. This is not the case in ToA. Luke starts off as possibly the most irritating protagonist in an RPG ever. He's like the loud mouthed idiot who would hang around with you in High School but everyone wished would leave. So needless to say he's got a long way to go in becoming our archetypal Hero. If you can put up with him for the first 1/3rd of the game the rest is pretty much smooth sailing, but this game really pushes the "growing up" theme to the extreme which is kind of both a good (shows contrast and progression) and bad (annoying) thing. The rest of the cast isn't really worth mentioning in my opinion, so I won't, you can find out about that for yourself. As for the actual plotting, don't expect many surprises. It kept the game going but only had a few compelling parts, nothing much to write home about. This, and the early Luke are what bring the story's score down.

Graphics: 8/10

The graphics in ToA are done in a lively anime style that should be familiar to fans of the series and are competently rendered. While the "wow factor" in ToA is pretty much missing the character designs are nice with some fun costumes to find and some of the environments are well thought out. I especially liked the musical theme of the game's graphics, one of its more original points. Like in most JRPGs the areas in ToA are designed around an essential theme, one of the things that keeps them interesting since they don't look anything like real places and much more like a tourism company's image of the world. The city of Grand Chokmah's water theme was probably the best example of this. There's a general steampunk/futuristic theme that runs through the game which should also be familiar to fans of JRPGs but it really isn't that inspired. In sum the graphics are good, but fall short of better efforts in games like FFXII, Xenosaga III, or Persona 3.


Gameplay: 8/10

The battle system is pretty much what you'd expect in a Tales game, lots of button mashing for combos and some cool skills, spells, and ultimates. Unfortunately although the game's battles are 3D the skills for most of the characters are mostly 2D, somewhat limiting the relevance of the feature. The best part of the 3D system is probably the ability to "free run" by pressing L2 which allows you to dodge a lot of boss attacks and is fairly crucial throughout the game. Another notable feature of the battle system is its FoF system, essentially circles of varying sizes left on the battlefield after elemental spells which if entered into by the characters can be used to perform enhanced versions of their special attacks. The FoF system is a lot of fun because the enhanced attacks look great, are highly effective, and the FoF rings get you running around the 3D battle field to use them, making the game's random encounters against essential the same dozen enemies again and again actually pretty enjoyable. The game's difficulty is on the easy side, with the notable exception of the challenge bosses, who without power leveling are pretty difficult. The game manages to achieve a good balance between difficulty and fun for the most part, although many bosses were fairly underpowered toward the end of the game. There's a hard mode for those who want it though.

The Town-Dungeon-Town mechanic works in this game because neither the town sections nor the dungeon sections are too lengthy and a good balance is achieved. Compared to some recent RPGs that like to pair a vacuous story with sadistic dungeons this is a definite positive step.

There's a lot of side quests and they're good fun, especially the costume hunting. I loved fighting the final battle with my party looking like some ridiculous circus troupe.

The really good stuff in the game requires you to play through a second time in the New Game+ mode, something I didn't do because I don't much like these mechanics. Honestly I don't think this is a game worth playing twice through, the first third is just too annoying.

Overall: 8/10

I'd say this is definitely worth a play if you're a fan of JRPGs, though it wouldn't be my first recommendation to someone new to the genre. If you get frustrated with Luke at the beginning just try to focus on the Jade humor and enjoy the nice battle system, the game picks up as it goes. This is a fairly causal RPG, don't take it too seriously and have a good time.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/04/08

Game Release: Tales of the Abyss (US, 10/10/06)