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Tales of the Abyss: an excellent game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 30, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Tales of the Abyss is exactly what the Tales series needed to boost its brand name popularity in America. A unique, innovative battle system combines with hours of memorable gameplay to create a wonderful experience, enhanced by the New Game Plus features available should the player choose to play the game more than once.

Although the graphics may initially put off gamers who prefer the more smooth, photorealistic look of the Final Fantasy games, the backgrounds are remarkably in-depth and fun to look at, and the characters, while more based in an "anime-style" look in the Tales tradition, are incredibly expressive. It's not the best-looking game out there, but it's pleasing to look at as you wander through the myriad dungeons and towns as the plot unfurls.

And what a plot to unfurl! Tales of the Abyss has a complex, moving plot driven by incredibly human characters who make mistakes and suffer the consequences but are also capable of breathtaking moments of heroism and bravery at the hands of the player.

I'll admit, though, I'm biased towards this game because of the battle system. Once the Free Run battle skill is learned (within the first few battles), it becomes a three-dimensional, real-time battle that's easy to pick up and fun to play in. Plus, with multiple difficulty levels and three AI settings for character control (Manual, Semi-Auto, and Auto), the player can customize the game for their own personal comfort or challenge.

If you're a fan of meaty plots with plenty of comedy and tragedy mixed together expertly and well-localized (or if you're just a fan of real-time battle systems), try Tales of the Abyss. You won't regret it.

Another great game from Namco Tales Studios!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 20, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Tales of the Abyss came in October 2006. Even though I started with the Japanese version, I was NOT disappointed with the english version. Here's what I thought about it.

First of all, the music in this game is great! The first thing you notice is that the localization team KEPT the opening song for the game, karma. This is the first in the series, as the other Tales games brought to the US have had the opening songs chagned to something not as good. The song karma is remixed several times withing the game. It shows up in several scenes, and it's also a battle theme at one point.

The gameplay is excellent. The battle system used is the Free Run Linear Motion Battle System (FR-LMBS). After playing this game, it's kinda hard going back to other games since you don't have the option of traveling anywhere you want across the battlefield. Of course some people say that this makes the game easy. Well, Free Run is an AD skill, and AD skills can be TURNED OFF! So if you don't like free run, then you can simply turn it off. Spells and techs are good, and we even got a few more Mystic Artes than the Japanese version did. That's a first AND a plus!

The story has a little bit of everything: politics, religion, science, prince and princesses, world destruction. I want to say what doesn't this game have? The story starts of kinda slow, but if you give it time it will pick up and become very exciting.

The characters are so far, one of the best. Luke is a bitchy little aristocrat who doesn't know anything about the world around him, but that changes throughout the progress of the game. Tear, a soldier who wants to kill her brother, but has a soft side to cute things (as do i ^^;). Guy, Luke's servent (hehe) and has a phobia of women. Jade, the best sarcastic colonel ever. Anise, a money loving girl who wants to marry a nobleman. And finally Natalia, a princess who wants to fight. I can't say anymore without spoiling it for you.

Overall, this is an EXCELLENT game! One you should definitley pick up. I give it a 5/5.

If you like Tales you'll like this

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 19, 2008
Author: Amazon User

With Tales of Legendia being a disappointment to many, this game was a return to form for the Tales of Series. If you liked Tales of Symphonia, everything will be familiar: the art style, music, and gameplay that made many new fans of the series. Interestingly, the games protagonist is the prince of a Kingdom who due to a kidnapping when he was young has been kept inside the palace with only a servant as company. The game really begins when there is a attack on the palace and he and one of the attackers are teleported faraway and are forced to rely on each other to make it back home.

Tales of the Abyss

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 12, 2008
Author: Amazon User

"Tales of the Abyss" is another game in the series for the PlayStation 2, made by those who made "Tales of Symphonia".

Because of that, it shares many similarites to that in how it plays. The game is all in 3D, and you're able to move in 3D on the battlefield. This adds a lot to the game, but also makes it a little easier as well, as it's not a difficult task to just go around an enemy. The game also introduces things like FOFs that make fighting a very fun experience to just mix and match you attacks and make combos. There are also various difficulty modes that can be switched to make the game either harder for those that want a challenge.

There's a large amount of voice acting in the game, tons of sidequests, and the story is nice as well with interesting characters. The game lasts about 50 hours overall, and when you consider the sideusts the game could easily reach pretty close to 100 hours. Overall this is my favorite of all the games in the series released in North America.

A little old but very good!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: August 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I picked up this game for 30 bucks at a Gamestop in the mall. At first I had my doubts but I was surprised. Let's get started.

I'll start by looking at different factors of the game and grading them.

Gameplay: 8/10

The gameplay for Tales of the Abyss is exceptionally fun and pretty easy to learn. You are not stuck with using any characters as long as you have them in your party, with only a couple of story-triggered exceptions.

I was not used to the new battle system but even so, it didn't take long to master. You can control your allies in battle, what they should do, and if you're worried, you can just make them do whatever you want them to, regardless. You can also change the battle formation of your characters. It's easy to assign Strike Artes as Luke for the controls and easy to actually execute them.

Story: 10/10

This story is full of excitement, a little romance, drama and mysteries, not to mention interesting characters. There was not a moment that I can remember being bored while playing this game. A lot is resolved during the game's plot and if not, replaying the game and doing a sidequest might answer any unsolved questions the player might have.

Graphics: 7/10

For a 2005 game, this game is not bad. The graphics are not horrible but they are not formidable with say Tales of Vesperia. The graphics are more realistic than Tales of Symphonia's graphics, which is something that I liked. I often saw blurry blades of grass and textures of trees while playing the game that disappointed me but as I said, this is a game published in the year 2005 and developed even earlier than that. The graphics are decent and allow you to enjoy the game.

Music: 8/10
Well, I love a couple of the epic instrumentals this game has and I love "Karma" by Bump of Chicken and its many versions. Other than that, though, there is nothing too exceptional about Tales of the Abyss's sound track.

Voice Acting: 9/10
The English voiceacting was very well done, in my opinion. I give it a 9/10 because there is always room for improvement but everyone had a remarkably good voice that suited their roles. I found myself searching for voice acted cutscenes on purpose. I usually don't like English voices but even Mieu won me over.

Replay Value: 9/10
There are many sidequests, I have heard, for this game. I have also seen people play this game as many as 5 times. That speaks for itself.

Great Update to the Tales game series

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 02, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I am a fan of the Tales series (tales of Symphonia on GC) and this is a great update to the series. The battle system is the first great update. In the GC game you were only able to focus on one player at a time, even though most of the time you play with a team of four and its a 2 player game. In Abyss the camera pans to the players that you are using, not just Player one. The fighting controls are basically the same but elements are added in this game such as Fire and Wind. Abilities are upgradeable also. Beyond the battle system, the storyline is a bit confusing and hard to follow at first, (kind of like the Harry Potter series if you only saw the movies) but the more you learn the easier it gets. The CG animation are worth the effort of getting though the game and the games' characters are complex, fun and interesting.
This is a must have for any RPG fan, young and old. You will enjoy it more with 2 players. Great game.

SUPER GAME ... LOADS OF FUN!!!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 25, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Thanks for such great service. Item was well packed and shipped quickly. I will be back!

What's the story on the story?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: July 07, 2008
Author: Amazon User

After quitting this game in disgust, I later picked up it to become entirely engrossed. What happened?
I started this game off with high hopes, as my first foray into the Tales of series, and found myself dumping the game about a third of the way into it. I'm very sensitive to poor acting, and the voice actors are utterly intolerable in this game. There really is no reason for Saturday morning cartoon-level acting like this. It cheapens the emotion impact of the dialogue and is offensive to players with matured taste in drama and narrative.
As the story progressed, I had no issue with the system or combat engine, it's nothing shockingly new, but I found it solid and enjoyable. The auto feature is fairly nice for money and EXP farming purposes. However, I was extremely disappointed with the main character--he seems intolerable. I also found the written dialogue slightly more than "kiddy fare" and was extremely tempted to buy the import to see if it was any less inane in Japanese than English. I frequently will give a game a break if I find it suffers from shabby translation, but in this case I didn't feel like spending the cash, and set the game aside where it sat on my shelf. I was extremely disappointed after having been so fascinated by the character designs and the game play.

However, I picked it up an honest year later and simply just fell in love. After a while, the character developement speeds along and you end up with a drastically different person on your hands than you started with. The rest of the cast fleshes out equally well and eventually become amusing and endearing. The world may not be as deep or complex as some more infamous RPG titles, but it's a fun ride most of the way through. The dialouge gets a mite less 4th-grade-reading-level, but I would qualify my recommendation by saying it never fully approaches an adult or mature level of sophistication. But for the range it aims at, it's awfully fun. You just have to tough it out for a good half of the way before you realize you've got a little gem on your hands.

Most folks, even RPG nuts, aren't going to want to do that, though.

And for the record, the Japanese spoken dialogue is a little corny, too. I'm playing through in Japanese and enjoying myself immensely. Luke sounds a little too fruity for his own good... go have a listen on YouTube.

Poor

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: June 16, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game has poor graphics. The storyline, dialog, and voice acting are all very lame. The music is unremarkable. The gameplay, while fast paced, I found mundane.

This game is a hybrid of sorts between an adventure game with JRPG cliches and a fighting game such as Street Fighter or King of Fighters. The fighting game aspect is really like a poorly made fighting game, though. It features gameplay from both adventure games and fighting games, but excels at neither. Tales of Legendia has this same problem.

Amazing!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 16, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Honestly I was surprised by this game. I've played Tales of... games in the past, namely the original Phantasia and semi-recent Symphonia, and while I enjoyed them, I wouldn't say they were brilliant.

However Tales of the Abyss amazed me with a good story that wasn't completely obvious from the beginning, brilliant characterization (all the characters were really memorable, even a good majority of the npcs that only have a few speaking roles).

Speaking of, the voice acting is amazing par the course for the Tales of series, and only those who for some reason consider Japanese voice acting to be inherently superior will prefer it to the English localization.

The game is fairly long and gives you reason to play through it many times. Sometimes you must trigger a certain quest to trigger later quests, which by itself might warrant a second playthrough, but there is a bunch of content only available in subsequent playthroughs.

The battle system is very interactive, it's action-based rather than turn based, and with the Free Run ability it feels like you truly have control of the characters in the fight. (Free Run allows you to run anywhere on the screen, not restricted to certain planes of movement).

I'd highly recommend this game to anyone who enjoys RPGs, though to the incredibly conservative RPG player it may not be their cup of tea.

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