Lord Regal
Well-Known Member
- Credits
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The "Tales of" series is one that I don't know all that much about. I remember wanting the Tales of Symphonia, the first one created, on the Gamecube, but I was too young for its Teen rating at the time, and I missed out. After that Namco-Bandai switched to making the series on the PS2, and until now, no other Tales of game made it on a Nintendo platform.
Tales of the Abyss did very poorly when it was released on the PS2. This was for three reasons. One, a previous "Tales of" game had been released earlier that year, and it was terrible apparently. Two, the next Final Fantasy came out two weeks after it was released, and most RPG fans went after that instead. Three, the PS2 improved its software right after it came out, making it outdated before it got going. However, those who bought the game loved it, forming a cult favorite overnight. Thus, it got ported to the 3DS.
Before I dive into the review section, I know people are wondering what the differences are between the 3DS version and the PS2 version. Answer? Nothing. This is a 100% port of the game, with a few minor improvements (according to everywhere). Load times are reduced to almost nothing (a problem on the PS2), 3D graphics replace the original ones (with two exceptions, coming later in the review) and the buttons were reconfigured to make sense on the 3DS. The rest is all exactly the same as the PS2 version.
I will rate the game based off of Story, Characters, Gameplay, Graphics, Music, Sidequests, and overall.
Story:
Holy crap. This story is one of the best I've ever had the fortune to play through. The main storyline took me 50 hours to play through, and it was worth every second. There is, quite literally, never a dull moment while you're pursuing the main quest. Every time you go to the next location the main story requires you to, something interesting happens. I'm not going into detail to prevent spoilers, but the game shocked me several times. There's the fact that the game tricks you about 30 hours in, and there are several genuinely sad moments as the story progresses. For example, a small child is suffocated by a mudslide while you stand unable to do anything but watch...this game provides the saddest moments I've ever seen in a video game, but it has some pretty great moments too. As I always look for in a story-oriented game, everything is believable. It may not make sense that there's automated landships used in war while swords are the primary melee weapon when you start, but it all makes sense by the end. Everything is excellently prepared, and I loved the story...kept me engaged the whole way through. My only complaint is at times the party splits up for a bit, and you can talk to each member individually for a scene. One party member's scene ends with the story continuing, but with one exception, you can't tell which one. I missed out on half of the party's reactions for one of the things because I talked to Tear too early for example. Otherwise though, this story is flawless.
Characters:
What struck me about this game that's never happened to me before is that the game is designed so you even bond with the NPCs. Iemon, an older mechanic, is an excellent example. He plays a somewhat major role in the middle of the game, and although he's only in a few scenes, I came to truly like the guy. The God-Generals that make up six of the bosses all have truly deep pasts, and I felt bad about killing each one of them when the time came because I knew what drove them to fall in with the head honcho's scheme, and it showed how truly miserable they were to help him. As for the PCs, I'll go in-depth for each of them.
Luke:
Luke is the "main" hero. He starts off as a whiny, arrogant, ignorant noble's son. The game does a good job making him genuinely dislikable. Early in the game though, he's shocked into changing his attitude, and by the end of the story he's quite a nice guy. His personality does become classic "main hero" though, so he's probably the least interesting of the characters to listen to once his personality changes to becoming nicer. In battle he's one of the three melee people, using swords as his weapons. He hits hard and somewhat fast, has decent defense...he's an all-rounder. Not a ton of fun to control in battle though.
Tear:
The main female heroine, Tear takes a while to get going. In the beginning she won't say a word about anything, so she seems like a block of animated wood. As the story goes on though, she is revealed to be a person hurt worse by the world than you'd ever expect, and she slowly opens up and becomes a great character to listen to. She's constantly serious, and hates showing sorrow, even when things are at their worst. In battle she's the best supporter, as she has decent offensive spells, good healing in the mid to late game (ok healing before that) and good defense. Relatively hard to control in battle, as the melee people don't understand that some of the healing spells require them to stand still for a moment.
Jade:
My absolute favorite character (and the person my avatar is at the moment). Jade is a Colonel in one of the three major powers' armies. He has perfect emotional control, and you can never tell if he's kidding or not when he says something snide. His comments are the best to listen to, and he seems to take pleasure in annoying the rest of the group by saying something that's really helpful, then negating it as though he has no idea. He's the oldest by far of the group (35) and yet he's in the best shape of all of them, and nothing ever seems to truly bother him (he only truly gets angry once or twice along the main storyline). In battle he's the primary offensive magic user, casting spells that are devastating on the enemy. He also has a couple spear tactics, but they aren't that good.
Guy:
Luke's only real friend at the beginning of the story. Guy is a laid-back person for the most part, but his loyalty to his friends can drive him to be really intense. He's naturally graceful both physically and socially, leading him to do most of the explaining to the important people over the game. He begins as a servant in Luke's household, but it turns out his past is incredibly deep, and somewhat shocking at points. Guy attracts the ladies, but he's pathologically terrified of getting too close to a member of the fairer sex, leading him to be mocked a lot. In battle he's another sword user, but he adds his scabbard in the other hand, leading to some interesting combinations.
Anise:
The youngest member of the party at 13, Anise is the oddest of the bunch. She's boy-crazy and obsessed with marrying into money. She's in charge of guarding one of the two most important religious figures in the world. She jumps on the back of a puppet to attack. She's quite odd. Her personality is bubbly most of the time, but she's quite manipulative and prone to rage if the time is right. Her backstory isn't the deepest of the group's, but it is another "feel bad for me" kind of thing, centered around her parents. In battle she uses some offensive spells and puppetry to attack. Her stats are actually the worst of the group, but the puppet can take a beating. I generally don't use her because the first four are better in my opinion, but she's not terrible.
Natalia:
The princess of the nation Luke belongs to (and also his fiancee). She begins as being quite snobby (stereotypical royalty) but becomes a genuinely nice person by the end. Her story is the most shocking and sad of the bunch, as she has several bad scares that reveal her past that rival Luke's major plot twist. However, she always is working to improve the lives of her people, even when she's down herself, something that helps her immensely by the end of the story. In battle Natalia wields a bow, and also has a ton of healing spells. Those spells are better than Tear's, but her bow is kind of weak, and even her powers with it don't help. Tear isn't with the party all the time, so I use Natalia when she's not there to get some healing relief, but otherwise I don't use her.
Technically there's a seventh and eighth playable character, but one of them I can't do without massive spoilers and closely resembles the attributes of another character I already talked about, and the other can't be used in battle, so I'll leave those alone.
Gameplay:
This game has its good and bad moments as far as gameplay goes. The battles are excellent, as they truly need strategy to win. Button mashing works in the beginning, but by the end you better have another plan or you won't succeed. Melee attackers are too likely to get killed in some of the later bosses, but otherwise the battle system is flawless. The process of moving around the world is mostly solid, but the fact that to do anything at all aside from move requires a button, it gets frustrating. Particularly the ladders. Pressing A when you're next to one isn't awful, but when you're running from monsters it can be the difference between making it and not. Speaking of monsters, there are no random encounters. You can see the beasts on the screen. Touching one will make you enter the fight, running just means less XP. If a monster touches you from behind, you get screwed up formation wise. The first two people in the party get moved around as far as where they start, and the second two get replaced by the two people you don't use (also placed randomly). This adds an element of strategy even while moving around, and adds risk to trying to run away from encounters. It's not always clear what to do in dungeons, but fortunately if you take long enough a hint is provided (nothing completely obvious, but still helpful) by one of the characters, usually Jade. Overall, pretty solid gameplay.
Graphics:
For me, graphics are the least important part of a game. However, this time I need to go into detail. Most of the game is flawless 3D. Mystic Artes (ultimate moves) show the best graphics I've seen on the 3DS, and the game looks solid. However, there are two times when the graphics style changes. There are animated scenes throughout the game. These are not in 3D. This doesn't hurt the quality of the graphics (it actually looks better because of hand-drawn figures) but it's worth mentioning. The flaw comes with the "skits". Constantly in the story you can press start to cause a skit to start, which has some of the main characters talking about what's going on, what they're feeling, and other assorted things. These are entertaining and often reveal something new about a character, but there are three problems with them. One, the characters are in squares that show their faces (not in 3D) to show emotions, but it feels out of place when the rest of the game has the full body. Two, the amazing voice acting isn't present in these skits. Three, the text advances automatically, so your attention has to be riveted on the screen for the entire length of the sometimes somewhat long skits. I like the content of the skits, but it's the worst part of the game for those three reasons.
Music:
Oh man is this music great. From excellent battle themes to the overworld theme, it's constantly great and fitting for where you are. Baticul, one of the two capitals, has the grandest theme I've ever heard, making it feel like a regal place before you're even in the city proper. Excellent music all around. The voice acting is also great. All of the voices make sense for who they're playing, but some of them get annoying. Mieu and Ion in particular get on my nerves when they talk too much in a short amount of time. There are a few scenes where there is no voice acting, and it's missed sorely when it's gone, because it's so good at not only giving the words, but the emotions and intents behind the words. Overall, great music.
Sidequests:
As with any RPG, there are a plethora of sidequests to complete. Some are long and difficult, others are quick and easy. What annoys me is there's time limits on some of them (in relation to where you are in the story) and sometimes the story progresses to the point where the game won't let you go somewhere you need to go for the quest until it's too late, meaning you have to finish the quest prior to said event happening. However, the truly major ones never run out of time, like learning special skills for the party members (Jade's is the longest, but the most worthwhile). There's a couple sidequests you can't do unless you've beaten the game once (and started another game to do the quests with), so I can't comment on those because I haven't started over yet. However, there's one sidequest that has a boss tougher than the final boss that I can do...I haven't finished it yet because the boss is so annoying, but when faced with something like this, it's clear that the rewards will be high for finishing it. Some quests require you to have items you're never told about (there are two stones needed for several quests, and each one is nigh on impossible to find unless you look it up online or explore everywhere and back again several times). This system could use some work, but it's mostly solid.
Overall:
Overall this game is amazing. It's become my favorite 3DS title in the week I've played it, and I expect to get many more hours out of it. There is one minor complaint I have that didn't fit into the other categories. Since it's a total port of the original, that means the save feature works the same. You can save wherever on the world map if you aren't in a vehicle, but in any area, only save points will let you do so. These points can often be too far apart for a handheld game...a couple times I had to put it in sleep mode for half a day so I could come back to get to the next save point because the dungeon was so large. Also the story can progress really fast, taking you automatically from location to location, scene to scene, with no chance to save in between. This is a minor complaint, but it'd have been nice to see more save spots to accommodate to handheld players. However, despite its few faults, this game is truly amazing, and I recommend you get it if you're an RPG fan of any kind.
9/10 golden Nintendans.
Tales of the Abyss did very poorly when it was released on the PS2. This was for three reasons. One, a previous "Tales of" game had been released earlier that year, and it was terrible apparently. Two, the next Final Fantasy came out two weeks after it was released, and most RPG fans went after that instead. Three, the PS2 improved its software right after it came out, making it outdated before it got going. However, those who bought the game loved it, forming a cult favorite overnight. Thus, it got ported to the 3DS.
Before I dive into the review section, I know people are wondering what the differences are between the 3DS version and the PS2 version. Answer? Nothing. This is a 100% port of the game, with a few minor improvements (according to everywhere). Load times are reduced to almost nothing (a problem on the PS2), 3D graphics replace the original ones (with two exceptions, coming later in the review) and the buttons were reconfigured to make sense on the 3DS. The rest is all exactly the same as the PS2 version.
I will rate the game based off of Story, Characters, Gameplay, Graphics, Music, Sidequests, and overall.
Story:
Holy crap. This story is one of the best I've ever had the fortune to play through. The main storyline took me 50 hours to play through, and it was worth every second. There is, quite literally, never a dull moment while you're pursuing the main quest. Every time you go to the next location the main story requires you to, something interesting happens. I'm not going into detail to prevent spoilers, but the game shocked me several times. There's the fact that the game tricks you about 30 hours in, and there are several genuinely sad moments as the story progresses. For example, a small child is suffocated by a mudslide while you stand unable to do anything but watch...this game provides the saddest moments I've ever seen in a video game, but it has some pretty great moments too. As I always look for in a story-oriented game, everything is believable. It may not make sense that there's automated landships used in war while swords are the primary melee weapon when you start, but it all makes sense by the end. Everything is excellently prepared, and I loved the story...kept me engaged the whole way through. My only complaint is at times the party splits up for a bit, and you can talk to each member individually for a scene. One party member's scene ends with the story continuing, but with one exception, you can't tell which one. I missed out on half of the party's reactions for one of the things because I talked to Tear too early for example. Otherwise though, this story is flawless.
Characters:
What struck me about this game that's never happened to me before is that the game is designed so you even bond with the NPCs. Iemon, an older mechanic, is an excellent example. He plays a somewhat major role in the middle of the game, and although he's only in a few scenes, I came to truly like the guy. The God-Generals that make up six of the bosses all have truly deep pasts, and I felt bad about killing each one of them when the time came because I knew what drove them to fall in with the head honcho's scheme, and it showed how truly miserable they were to help him. As for the PCs, I'll go in-depth for each of them.
Luke:
Luke is the "main" hero. He starts off as a whiny, arrogant, ignorant noble's son. The game does a good job making him genuinely dislikable. Early in the game though, he's shocked into changing his attitude, and by the end of the story he's quite a nice guy. His personality does become classic "main hero" though, so he's probably the least interesting of the characters to listen to once his personality changes to becoming nicer. In battle he's one of the three melee people, using swords as his weapons. He hits hard and somewhat fast, has decent defense...he's an all-rounder. Not a ton of fun to control in battle though.
Tear:
The main female heroine, Tear takes a while to get going. In the beginning she won't say a word about anything, so she seems like a block of animated wood. As the story goes on though, she is revealed to be a person hurt worse by the world than you'd ever expect, and she slowly opens up and becomes a great character to listen to. She's constantly serious, and hates showing sorrow, even when things are at their worst. In battle she's the best supporter, as she has decent offensive spells, good healing in the mid to late game (ok healing before that) and good defense. Relatively hard to control in battle, as the melee people don't understand that some of the healing spells require them to stand still for a moment.
Jade:
My absolute favorite character (and the person my avatar is at the moment). Jade is a Colonel in one of the three major powers' armies. He has perfect emotional control, and you can never tell if he's kidding or not when he says something snide. His comments are the best to listen to, and he seems to take pleasure in annoying the rest of the group by saying something that's really helpful, then negating it as though he has no idea. He's the oldest by far of the group (35) and yet he's in the best shape of all of them, and nothing ever seems to truly bother him (he only truly gets angry once or twice along the main storyline). In battle he's the primary offensive magic user, casting spells that are devastating on the enemy. He also has a couple spear tactics, but they aren't that good.
Guy:
Luke's only real friend at the beginning of the story. Guy is a laid-back person for the most part, but his loyalty to his friends can drive him to be really intense. He's naturally graceful both physically and socially, leading him to do most of the explaining to the important people over the game. He begins as a servant in Luke's household, but it turns out his past is incredibly deep, and somewhat shocking at points. Guy attracts the ladies, but he's pathologically terrified of getting too close to a member of the fairer sex, leading him to be mocked a lot. In battle he's another sword user, but he adds his scabbard in the other hand, leading to some interesting combinations.
Anise:
The youngest member of the party at 13, Anise is the oddest of the bunch. She's boy-crazy and obsessed with marrying into money. She's in charge of guarding one of the two most important religious figures in the world. She jumps on the back of a puppet to attack. She's quite odd. Her personality is bubbly most of the time, but she's quite manipulative and prone to rage if the time is right. Her backstory isn't the deepest of the group's, but it is another "feel bad for me" kind of thing, centered around her parents. In battle she uses some offensive spells and puppetry to attack. Her stats are actually the worst of the group, but the puppet can take a beating. I generally don't use her because the first four are better in my opinion, but she's not terrible.
Natalia:
The princess of the nation Luke belongs to (and also his fiancee). She begins as being quite snobby (stereotypical royalty) but becomes a genuinely nice person by the end. Her story is the most shocking and sad of the bunch, as she has several bad scares that reveal her past that rival Luke's major plot twist. However, she always is working to improve the lives of her people, even when she's down herself, something that helps her immensely by the end of the story. In battle Natalia wields a bow, and also has a ton of healing spells. Those spells are better than Tear's, but her bow is kind of weak, and even her powers with it don't help. Tear isn't with the party all the time, so I use Natalia when she's not there to get some healing relief, but otherwise I don't use her.
Technically there's a seventh and eighth playable character, but one of them I can't do without massive spoilers and closely resembles the attributes of another character I already talked about, and the other can't be used in battle, so I'll leave those alone.
Gameplay:
This game has its good and bad moments as far as gameplay goes. The battles are excellent, as they truly need strategy to win. Button mashing works in the beginning, but by the end you better have another plan or you won't succeed. Melee attackers are too likely to get killed in some of the later bosses, but otherwise the battle system is flawless. The process of moving around the world is mostly solid, but the fact that to do anything at all aside from move requires a button, it gets frustrating. Particularly the ladders. Pressing A when you're next to one isn't awful, but when you're running from monsters it can be the difference between making it and not. Speaking of monsters, there are no random encounters. You can see the beasts on the screen. Touching one will make you enter the fight, running just means less XP. If a monster touches you from behind, you get screwed up formation wise. The first two people in the party get moved around as far as where they start, and the second two get replaced by the two people you don't use (also placed randomly). This adds an element of strategy even while moving around, and adds risk to trying to run away from encounters. It's not always clear what to do in dungeons, but fortunately if you take long enough a hint is provided (nothing completely obvious, but still helpful) by one of the characters, usually Jade. Overall, pretty solid gameplay.
Graphics:
For me, graphics are the least important part of a game. However, this time I need to go into detail. Most of the game is flawless 3D. Mystic Artes (ultimate moves) show the best graphics I've seen on the 3DS, and the game looks solid. However, there are two times when the graphics style changes. There are animated scenes throughout the game. These are not in 3D. This doesn't hurt the quality of the graphics (it actually looks better because of hand-drawn figures) but it's worth mentioning. The flaw comes with the "skits". Constantly in the story you can press start to cause a skit to start, which has some of the main characters talking about what's going on, what they're feeling, and other assorted things. These are entertaining and often reveal something new about a character, but there are three problems with them. One, the characters are in squares that show their faces (not in 3D) to show emotions, but it feels out of place when the rest of the game has the full body. Two, the amazing voice acting isn't present in these skits. Three, the text advances automatically, so your attention has to be riveted on the screen for the entire length of the sometimes somewhat long skits. I like the content of the skits, but it's the worst part of the game for those three reasons.
Music:
Oh man is this music great. From excellent battle themes to the overworld theme, it's constantly great and fitting for where you are. Baticul, one of the two capitals, has the grandest theme I've ever heard, making it feel like a regal place before you're even in the city proper. Excellent music all around. The voice acting is also great. All of the voices make sense for who they're playing, but some of them get annoying. Mieu and Ion in particular get on my nerves when they talk too much in a short amount of time. There are a few scenes where there is no voice acting, and it's missed sorely when it's gone, because it's so good at not only giving the words, but the emotions and intents behind the words. Overall, great music.
Sidequests:
As with any RPG, there are a plethora of sidequests to complete. Some are long and difficult, others are quick and easy. What annoys me is there's time limits on some of them (in relation to where you are in the story) and sometimes the story progresses to the point where the game won't let you go somewhere you need to go for the quest until it's too late, meaning you have to finish the quest prior to said event happening. However, the truly major ones never run out of time, like learning special skills for the party members (Jade's is the longest, but the most worthwhile). There's a couple sidequests you can't do unless you've beaten the game once (and started another game to do the quests with), so I can't comment on those because I haven't started over yet. However, there's one sidequest that has a boss tougher than the final boss that I can do...I haven't finished it yet because the boss is so annoying, but when faced with something like this, it's clear that the rewards will be high for finishing it. Some quests require you to have items you're never told about (there are two stones needed for several quests, and each one is nigh on impossible to find unless you look it up online or explore everywhere and back again several times). This system could use some work, but it's mostly solid.
Overall:
Overall this game is amazing. It's become my favorite 3DS title in the week I've played it, and I expect to get many more hours out of it. There is one minor complaint I have that didn't fit into the other categories. Since it's a total port of the original, that means the save feature works the same. You can save wherever on the world map if you aren't in a vehicle, but in any area, only save points will let you do so. These points can often be too far apart for a handheld game...a couple times I had to put it in sleep mode for half a day so I could come back to get to the next save point because the dungeon was so large. Also the story can progress really fast, taking you automatically from location to location, scene to scene, with no chance to save in between. This is a minor complaint, but it'd have been nice to see more save spots to accommodate to handheld players. However, despite its few faults, this game is truly amazing, and I recommend you get it if you're an RPG fan of any kind.
9/10 golden Nintendans.
