Tales Of the Abyss

by Derek Borges - 2008/02/15 6:21am

This game was really popular, due to the similarity of its battle system towards its Gamecube counterpart Tales of Symphonia. It's a game that's often debated to be the best with Tales of Symphonia as well. They were both incredibly great games in their own right, individually setting a style that would either appeal to the player, or subtract from their experience.

In Tales of the Abyss, the feature "Free Run" was added, which allowed you to move across the battlefield in a three dimensional setting by holding down the L2 button, whereas in Tales of Symphonia, the battle system was completely Linear and straightforward.

FOF (Field of Fonons) is introduced in Tales of the Abyss as well. Fonons are basically what we commonly refer to as Elements. When spells are cast or techniques with elemental properties are used frequently enough, FOF circles appear on the battlefield, which allow you to use different techniques when you step in them; using the corresponding technique inside it.

Another addition to this Title was the Fon Slot Chamber (FSC), AD Skills, and Capacity Cores, which are the equivalent of Tales of Symphonia's exspheres, but you can actually equip them.

Capacity Cores and AD skills were basically a "You can't have any without the other" kind of deal. Depending on which capacity cores you equipped to your characters and leveled up, systematically affected which AD skills you developed and learned. AD skills are very useful throughout the game, and the game's replay value makes a second playthrough on a higher difficulty setting more fun with them.

Fon Slot Chamber customization wasn't really crucial to the gameplay, but allowed you to add special effects to your techniques. The main options for this menu are increasing how much damage your technique does, increases the distance of how far your technique knocks an enemy back, decreases the technique's TP consumption, or lets you use an FOF change technique in a low level FOF Circle.

The ability to control your ‘Over Limit’ was also an addition to Tales of the Abyss, and a very useful one. Not that it makes you invincible or anything like that, it's just nice to have. Though the purpose that ‘Over Limits’ are usually used for are to Activate Mystic Artes, which are very strong moves, basically the equivalent of Final Fantasy's Limit Breaks. However, through the second time you play, a set of more powerful Mystic Artes are unlocked. But some of them have tedious requirements that have to be met, and there are even a few that you won't even be able to use if you don't grab some key items. At times, it's very frustrating, but the internet is a useful thing.

Sadly, there was nothing like a Unison Attack in this game. Though I suppose that the gameplay is engrossing enough itself for you to actually even care.

Grade is a fairly new addition to the Tales series, that allows you to buy items, poker chips, and features in the grade shop. Once you get to Kheterburg, you can exchange Grade for chips at a pretty steep price. I really don't think it's worth wasting your grade on, to be honest. Lastly, the Grade shop is only available to use once you've beaten the game and start your second cycle.

The story is basically your generic bad guy wants to destroy the world-while backed by a large religious organization. There were also very few disappointing characters in this game, which is always a plus. Though nearing the end, Luke can become very irritating, causing some frustrating moments at times.

Though the game is fun, it has it's problems, loading times being quite a significant outcry. When you first visit the Zao Desert, it takes ages to load a screen. The Zao Desert is also a very glitchy area, with the slowdown and graphical issues causing some serious setbacks for the titles usually smooth style.

This game followed suit with Tales of Symphonia's graphical appearance, but the characters were not half-warped chibis, which was a great improvement. Instead, the characters were of normal height, and looked almost as humane as a picture perfect human character could be. Character designs were also very articulate, compared to Tales of Symphonia's characters, creating a more realistic barrier in which players communicated with each member of your team.

As always for the 3D Tales games on the Playstation 2, there are special titles that affect your status in battle, and change your character's appearance, which is a very nice additional extra. No-one wants to watch some dude run around in the same clothes all the time, do they? Though, any costume title earned for Jade feels out of place, and looks a little funny.

The music is acceptable, nothing too credible about it though, simply there as a modernizing of its current structure. A few songs from some of the older Tales games were remixed and added into Tales of the Abyss, and for the Cameo fights, they even remixed Tales of Phantasia's, Tales of Eternia's, Tales of Destiny's, and Tales of Destiny 2's battle themes with Tales of the Abyss' awkward justice and named it Everlasting Fight. Mirrors were a nice piece as well.

Replay value is a wonderful aspect of this game. You can pretty much carry over anything to your next game besides weapons, crucial key items, and stats, depending on how much Grade that you earn.

Also, after beating the game, you get access to Very Hard and Unknown mode, which is one of the fun things about the Tales series. You can keep playing and playing until you've worn the game out. If you're pretty engrossed by the first two hours of gameplay, then you're probably going to keep the game for quite a few months, maybe even years to come.

But before you go and try to act macho and switch the difficulty level to Unknown when you beat the game and start the second cycle, keep in mind that it's the hardest difficulty level for a reason. That 10x experience in the Grade shop isn't there for nothing, folks.