Game Review: Tales of the Abyss

Last week, i finished off Tales of the Abyss, the latest Tales game to hit the western shores.. and by western i mean US shores and forget about the EU. Still i imported it and below are my thoughts on it.

I like to say that i loved Tales of Symphonia on the Gamecube, the battle system was action-packed, fast-paced and brilliant, storyline though not the best was sound and flowed quite well and the characters are great (aside from Colette and Regal.. and maybe Lloyd).. but still ToS got into my top RPG of this generation.

Tales of the Abyss now, the battle system is similar to ToS's BUT more action-packed, by this i mean more special moves such as FOF changes, more special attacks, more Hi-Ougi's.. this greatly boosts its Battle aspects from ToS. Coupled with a nicely detailed FSC and C.Core menus, it enhances the strategy of the game as well. Though FSC is somewhat disappointing considering only specific moves can gain advantages and take s awhile to train these moves.. otherwise, great system.

Next, the characters, and just wow, there are some real good gems here, Jade, Anise and Tear are likable because of comedic value or their personality. The rest like Guy, Luke and Natalia aren't as likeable but at least the voice acting is tip top shape to provide the amazing personality of these characters. Its a shame that skit scenes aren't dubbed as well, cause the JPN version have them voice acted and its a real nice treat. Also i have to mention the God Generals who are the 'badasses' of the game, similar to the generals in ToS, their presence makes my body tingle :)

Storyline is unique as well, we.. unique compared with other Tales gaes, no mention of Summons or mana or the usual Tales stuff here, its a totally new storyline and i like it.. though it drags on way too long with the storyline forcing you to backtrack way too much (more so than ToS) and theres also the anti-climatic feel of some dungeons where the lack of a boss to 'reward' you of the hardwork of reaching the final bit of the stage. Otherwise, story is generally solid, it makes sense and the game really tries very hard to cover up so many plot outlines via books, skits, etc..

Difficulty, not difficult at all, aside from maybe 2 boss fights, it was as easy as any other Tales games i've played where alot of the time is spent move-spamming a boss to submission, which works 90% of the time. However, if you decide to do sub-quests like Nebilim or Tales of characters, then things get a lot more serious and strategy is required. And yes, i beat them both, Nebilim taking 2 goes, while Tales of character on my first go.

Replayability, with 40 hours at the end, TotA surpasses ToS by 4 hours on my first playthrough.. i liekd the game, very ddictive and New Game+ mode is always a good addition.. however, i won't be replaying this in a while.. why? Load times. Yes, i know such a minor gripe in many games but TotA makes load times a major gripe. In dungeons, load times between battles are fine, generally 2-3 seconds. On world maps however.. *sigh* a good 7-seconds before start of battle and possibly longer for after battle. Load times hurt TotA alot, and after playing the relatively non-loading ToS on the Gamecube it was really struggling for me to do battles on the world maps of TotA. Not just battles, some scenes load quite a bit and i thought the PS2 stopped for some reason.

Overall, 8/10
Grade: B

Its a great game, let down by constant back-tracking, lack of VA skits and horrendous load times.