Review: Tales of the Abyss

Tales of the Abyss is a role playing game for the Playstation 2, made by Namco Tales Studio as part of their Tales series.

Guy and Luke attacking an enemy in real time.

One day in the kingdom of Kimlasca, spoiled, sheltered, and partially amnesic son of royalty Luke fon Fabre is accidentally teleported into the enemy country of Malkuth while trying to foil an assassination attempt. At first Luke and the would-be assassin Tear Grants try to return home, but soon both of them are roped into stopping plans to either control or destroy the world.

Gameplay is standard for a role playing game. Luke and his group go from town to town to progress the story. Along the way the group fights enemies using weapons and items bought in town. As the game progresses enemies get stronger and more challenging, but weapons bought become stronger too. Every so often the group has to fight through an area with nothing but enemies and then fight a really tough enemy.

Combat is interestingly set up. The player controls Luke directly in attacking the enemy, while other members of the party can be programmed to do things like attack, cast magic, or heal members of the party. While attacking an enemy, the player can press the controls certain ways to unleash much stronger attacks. The player can also do various other tricks to cause more damage, like cast magic, or combine magic with attacks for stronger attacks, or do several semi-powerful attacks in a row for a really powerful attack. All these options allow for combat to be heavily strategized, but most of it is unnecessary. It is possible for the player to complete the entire game by using just one attack repeatedly and have the other characters use magic and heal each other without any real strategy. At least it is easy.

Role playing games tend to focus heavily on story and characters, so it is important for both to be really compelling. Tales of the Abyss’s main cast of characters are likable enough, but none of them are remarkable, and can be annoying at various points in the story. Luke is notable for being unpleasant for a considerable length of the story despite being the hero of the story. The only really notable character is Jade Curtiss, whose constantly sardonic personality and competence is always entertaining. That is not to say that the main characters are not tedious, they are for the most part entertaining.

The story starts off slowly. At first it is a somewhat confusing story about two warring states and how Luke is expected to be the chosen one due to the world’s dominant religion having access to a set of prophecies. But then a plot twist happens that makes the story more grand, interesting, and much easier to follow. There are several more plot twists throughout the game, that, while not as surprising as the first one, are still enjoyable to watch and just make the story more engrossing the farther it progresses.

Most of the story takes place in towns which the characters travel to. Sometimes the characters have to go back and forth between towns repeatedly, but this never takes that long. Also, there are optional cut scenes that can be viewed which either fill in more parts of the plot or are funny skits.

The art and graphics are decent. The voice acting is excellent; every voice actor fitting their character perfectly, with no jarring voices in the group.

The only real problem with the game is the first ten hours, which are a real chore to go through just to reach the good part of the game. In addition to Luke being unlikable and the story uninteresting, a large amount of time is spent running around fighting monsters so the player can afford to buy suitable weapons and armor. And this process has to be repeated for every new main character that joins the party. Thankfully all the main characters eventually become properly equipped, the story becomes more interesting, and Luke becomes more likable. It is just a shame that the player has to go through such a dull beginning.

Tales of the Abyss is an enjoyable game which should be fun for any fan of roll playing games in general. At first the game is boring, but after ten hours the game becomes much more enjoyable.