Game:

Tales of the Abyss (2005)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 15:00

68,197 views

0

Tales of the Abyss is the 8th title in the main "Tales of" series and is also the title to commemorate the series' ten year anniversary (1995-2005 in Japan). Once "Tales of Symphonia" by Team Symphonia had made its debut on the Nintendo Gamecube, it seemed as though Namco and co. had much difficulty putting together a "Tales" game that would surpass it, and I still get that impression from playing "Tales of the Abyss". While it is a significant step up from "Tales of Legendia" (which isn't surprising since TotA is also done by Team Symphonia), it seems a little rushed and tossed together, which may or may not have been partially due to meeting the timeframe to qualify it as the 10th anniversary title (December 15th). This game's characteristic genre is "RPG to Discover the Meaning of Life". An anime was later made as well.

Tales of the Abyss deals with a young "17 year old" by the name of Luke fon Fabre, the only son of the noble Fabre family within the kingdom of Kimlasca-Lanvaldear. After a kidnapping incident ten years ago, he has lost all his memories of when he was a child and had to be re-educated, from the basics such as learning how to walk to more advanced things like becoming familiar with his parent's faces. Due to this traumatizing event, he is forbidden from leaving the castle grounds and doesn't do much other than practice the way of the sword, and has grown restless. Obviously, this mysterious quality of our hero turns out to be something much more later on, but let's not spoil that. Instead, lets just say he gets embroiled in a whole lot of things very quickly and will meet many characters along the way. It's your duty to make sense of it all.

Tales of the Abyss has a lot of potential but ultimately feels like a bit of a mixed bag imo. While the main game alone will provide several dozen hours of entertainment, it feels like not much actually goes on in the game (but there is TONS of backtracking) and the events of importance that do transpire happen at such a break-neck pace or come out of nowhere, not to mention saying the game is cliched would be an understatement and there are quite a few contradictory moments that subtract from some of the story elements or character's appeal. However, the game starts off very slow but gets progressively better, not just in the story department but in the overall pacing. The various locales are also a mixed bag; when you consider the first few locations and the overall choppy and unimpressive overworld, the game looks mediocre-- on the other hand, towns like Grand Chokmah or dungeons like Mt. Zaleho have great details. If every area of the visual department was focused on as much as cities like Grand Chokmah, this game would've looked rather impressive.

One thing of note with this game is the audio. Not only is the music good, I found the VA to be quite good too. The VA actually turned the sometimes painstaking dialogue into something half-decent, and the powerful moments were delivered well enough (you just have to put up with a bunch of "Idiot!", "Shut up!", "Thing!", "Dreck", and other assorted repetitive phrases first). I don't recall a single character in this game who didn't sound appropriate or how I thought they would sound-- for better or worse. Luke sounds like a spoiled noble, other mains like Tear Grants sounds like a soldier (or perhaps an android), Anise Tatlin looks and sounds like a ditzy prepubescent youngster, Jade Curtiss is the ever-sarcastic adult of the group whom many aspire to be, Guy Cecil is the cool friend for life with a semi-funny phobia, and Natalia Luzu Kimlasca Lanvaldear is the slightly snotty princess who shows a surprising degree of growth, naivete and maturity through the game. The music is good, but not anything particularly special if you've played other "Tales of" games, though it has one of the best opening themes (The Japanese opening song, "Karma" by "Bump of Chicken" is excellent, the U.S. game plays the instrumental version).

If you've ever played a "Tales of" game, you know the basics of the gameplay (ask for details). One thing that made Abyss different or more interesting is that shops' prices fluctuated from city to city, as well as during certain events, which made buying and selling at different times more strategic. Other things include the ability to run freely outside of the old linear approach (which can be used to exploit some bosses' poor AI) and, most notably, the Field of Fonons (Fonons and the "Fon-" Prefix is integral to the game) which allow characters to do upgraded specials if the move and elemental field match. It also has other staples like Cooking and a useful "Synopsis" feature if you forget what you're doing.

Overall, Tales of the Abyss is nevertheless an entertaining entry into the "Tales of" series that, while rough around the edges, established that some effort was put into it. This video shows some basic, intermediate and advanced aspects of the game. Enjoy.

Other Statistics