Tales of the Abyss
Tales of the Abyss marked the tenth anniversary of Namco's Tales role-playing game series. It is an interesting game with a nice plot and good battle system. The story and the charming cast of many characters will keep you highly entertained throughout it. In addition, there is a ton of replay value to it.
The story follows a spoiled, arrogant boy named Luke fon Fabre, who has lost all his childhood memories. Supposedly, he was kidnapped seven years earlier and the shock of the event made him lose his memory. Ever since his return to his manor, Luke has been confined until he reaches a certain age. Mostly spending his time training, he is very stupid about the world outside his manor. However, things drastically change when a girl named Tear arrives at his manor to kill his trainer Van. In the result of wanting to save Van, Luke and Tear are magically transported out of the manor into another part of the world. This opens the way to a long journey of Luke slowly becoming aware how bad a situation the world is in. Throughout their journey, they meet up with many other lovable characters.
The gameplay is roughly the same as all the other Tales games. You move from one town to another, dungeon to another, ect. The actual battling is like that of Tales of Symphonia but a bit extended. Instead of only being able to move two dimensionally (back and forth), each playable character is able to learn a skill to move freely around the battlefield. And, of course, the battlefields are large and have stayed 3D. Other than your average skill attacks, you are able to perform what is called a FOF change during battle. As characters (friends or foes) use elemental attacks/artes, colored circles appear on the ground. If you are in one of these circles and perform the right arte, corresponding to that element, the attack will be affected and a flashier/stronger special attack will occur. With this factor added, it makes battles more fun and fast-pace. Also, it requires somewhat good strategy and timing to set the circles in the right way around the battlefield.
Instead of being a party of one cardboard cutout after another, the characters in Tales of the Abyss actually bring a lot to the story and convey plenty of personality through the frequent and lengthy cutscenes. The dialog is acutally rather well-written. Most of all the cutscenes are voiced very well in fact. The voices highly add to the mood of the situation (be it serious or humorous), portraying each characters' unique personality.
Last but not least, the soundtrack is wonderful and entertaining to listen to. It sets the mood perfectly to dramatic or funny situations. The exciting tracks of the battle music heighten the excitement when fighting. If any of you are interested in buying the soundtrack, you might try here: