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Tales of the Abyss Review (continued)
More User Submitted Tales of the Abyss Reviews
Date: 2007-11-03
This could have been so much better...
I'll start out here by saying that I couldn't finish this game. Its negative points just dragged it down too far for me to feel inspired to work through them. First off, and I don't know why more people haven't mentioned it, but there is an unacceptable amount of slowdown and ridiculous loading times in this game. On the world map, if you try to rotate the camera, what you get is extreme lag that wouldn't be acceptable this day and age in an online game, let alone a single player title. And then, once you get into a battle, the load times are beyond the pale of acceptability. There's no excuse for such shoddy programming--it makes Suikoden V look absolutely sprightly, and that is a condemnation and a half.
Aside from the technical problems, the battle system is simply garbage. They attempt to introduce a third plane, but if you want to use it, you give up the ability to strike opponents while you maneuver. If they couldn't allow you to attack while maneuvering on the field of battle, there really isn't any point in including the ability to move sideways in the first place. The rest is just button mashing, and sparrows can do you more substantial injury than bigger monsters, simply because you can't hit them or guard against them properly. It's truly a ridiculous setup. And for all intents and purposes, the battles are all 2D, which doesn't jive with the rest of the game design.
Also infuriating are the skits. The text is presented much too small, and it shouldn't be necessary at all, as the Japanese version of the game has these interludes fully voice acted. Guess it just wasn't worth their time in the NA version of the game. Well, you will excuse me if I'm not thrilled to be getting sloppy seconds.
The most frustrating thing (aside from me having bought this game--never again, on a Tales title, I promise you that), is that it could have been an excellent game. I liked the characters, I liked their designs, the whole thing looked decent enough--but it fell flat on its face when it came to game play. One of my more unfortunate purchases, of late. I wouldn't recommend it, at all.
Date: 2007-09-15
Tales of the Abyss
The game has excellent graphics. Lots of adventures. 6 playable characters makes the game more challenging. It is a 4 player game so your friends can play also.
Date: 2007-07-13
RPG Game for Non-Gamers
I'm not normally a person who plays videogames, and hardly one who likes RPGs. I usually start them and leave them halfway because I lose interest. I picked this game up on a whim, since I had heard a lot of good things about it. I wasn't expecting much, but Tales of the Abyss consistently kept me interested and on the edge of my seat. The battle system is extremely fun, the story is very engaging and heartfelt, and the cast is full of colorful and complex characters. Even for someone who gets tired of games quickly, I never got tired of this one. I recommend it highly, even if you aren't someone who likes games that much like myself.
Date: 2007-06-12
Starts OK, gets better, then gets worse
I don't ask much from a game, but button mashing is one thing that drives me nuts. The game seems to stop for scenes all the time. What is the point in giving me control over the character to take two steps to start a movie, then get control and take three steps to start a movie. That is how this game starts (and many others) and then that is how this game ends. The middle is pretty good but about 30 hours into it I could not wait for it to end and even skipping anything extra it still took another 15 hours to finish. It was not bad enough to just give up but darn close.
Date: 2007-04-26
Best yet in the series.
This game is terrific, perhaps some of the most significant upgrades in the mechanics system (as opposed to Tales of Symphonia)are the free run skill (which allows your character to traverse the battlefield in 3D as opposed to back and forth), and the change in the learning of other skills.
In Tales of Symphonia, skills were based on equipping specific little gems, but because so many skills were better than the other sets for a given character, many skills went unused. The Capacity Core system makes it so that in getting the big skills, you get all the little ones too, making for better combat overall. Also, equipping costumes won't kill your stat growth in this iteration of the "Tales of" series.
Lastly, it is very important to either have a walkthrough from online, or buy a guide, and to play with one or more friends. The "Tales of" series can be kind of boring alone, but with one or two friends, the games are just plain terrific. I'd give this game an A+
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