Tales of the Abyss review
Game info:
System: Nintendo 3DS
Genre: RPG
Players: 1
Release Date: November 25, 2011 (EU)/February 14, 2012 (US)
Developer: Namco Bandai
Publisher: Namco Bandai
After the Nintendo DS became a virtual Mecca of fantastic RPGs, it’s strange that the console’s older brother has been around for almost a whole year with barely any games to scratch that role-playing itch. Aside from Atlus’ Devil Survivor: Overclocked, there haven’t been any other RPGs on the 3DS, so thankfully Namco Bandai are finally trying to fill the niche with this recently-released port of Tales of the Abyss. Originally released on the Playstation 2 back in 2006, Tales of the Abyss —part of Namco’s long-running Tales series— told an anime-styled story about “the meaning of birth” and was met with fairly positive reviews. But the PS2 is a completely different system to Nintendo’s handheld console, so does this RPG make the transition to a portable system completely intact?
The plot follows Luke fon Fabre, a teenage noble who was kidnapped seven years before the events of the game and has no recollection of anything before then. As a result, his family forbids him from leaving their mansion until a mysterious girl shows up and the pair are whisked away on a globe-spanning journey filled with warring nations, ancient technology and evil religious figures. Tales of the Abyss’s story sounds like a list of JRPG clichés, but what really helps to pull the whole plot together are the characters. Luke works as a protagonist because of how utterly unheroic he is. He starts out as just a dumb, selfish teenager who uses his amnesia as an excuse to get away with anything and completely ignores the world around him, wanting to return to the mansion as soon as possible. I respect the Tales team for daring to make the protagonist almost completely unlikable, to the point where most of the cast leaves him in an underground island surrounded by poison after he does something particularly destructive (and spoilery). From this point Luke embarks on a journey of redemption; a very gradual journey that makes the path from whiny brat to selfless hero seem believable.
If “Jerk Luke” has one redeeming quality, it’s his disdain for cutesy mascot characters
The story isn’t all about Luke, though, and the other playable characters than join him are just as distinctive and developed, despite initially seeming like a collection of clichés. There’s the childhood friend Guy —who has to overcome both his hatred for Luke’s family and his crippling fear of women—, the disciplined and cold romantic interest —Tear—, and the man with all the best one-liners —snarky scientist Jade “The Necromancer”. The only character that really annoyed me was the 13-year-old Anise because she appeared to be a loud-mouthed young girl designed to appeal to the creepier side of the series’ fanbase, but she does get better. By the end of the game she’s still irritating, but becomes a much more tolerable after her relationship to the young Fon Master, Ion, is explored. Plus, she rides on a giant stuffed toy, so that’s always interesting. One thing I really liked about the game’s story was the addition of the God Generals —six antagonists that pursue the main characters throughout their quest, each serving as a foil that provides a nice contrast in personality (not to mention some challenging boss fights).
While the characters are fairly well written, when it comes to actually exploring the world and mythology the game revolves around the writing falls completely flat. You see, every Tales game needs to have some sort of magical force that powers technology, forms the basis of religious dogma and generally drives the plot forward and in Abyss it takes the form of “fonons.” I like what the developers were going for by giving all the magical powers a musical theme (with a dash of Kabbalah thrown in because I guess it worked for Evangelion, right?) but the plot becomes too bogged down with nonsensical words like “hyperresonance” and “fonic hymns.” The game gets caught up in its own mythology to the point where the story sometimes becomes completely incomprehensible. I don’t think there’s a single person out there (excluding the writing staff) who actually cares how “fonology” works. Fonons do whatever the plot requires them to and expanding on this just becomes an aggravating form of worldbuilding.
The numbers flying everywhere tend to clutter the screen a bit, but battles aren’t too hard to follow.
But hey, who really cares about the plot if the gameplay is good? While having an enjoyable battle system can’t sustain an entire RPG (especially not in a 50-hour-long one like this), it certainly doesn’t hurt so thankfully Tales of the Abyss’ combat is a nice mix of accessible controls and intricate number crunching. Though Tales of the Abyss wasn’t the first game to bring the series’ trademark real-time battles into the third dimension, it’s still a nice refinement of the battle system with a few unique quirks. Different “artes” can be set and pulled off with a combination of the B button and slider pad, much like Super Smash Bros, and certain artes leave behind a coloured ring called a “field of fonons” (there’s that word again). These fields power up specific artes if the user is standing inside them, so setting up the effect and working out what artes go with different elemental fields forms a key part of battle strategies – especially in some of the tougher boss fights. Unfortunately, this relies on a whole lot of cooperation and, without the PS2 version’s multiplayer mode, often boils down to hoping the AI will use the right artes (though their movesets can be customised). Another interesting part of the battle system are AD Skills —passive abilities granted by equipping various stat-enhancing cores. These can be anything from extending combos to allowing the use of powerful Mystic Artes, but it’s almost impossible to acquire all skills within one playthrough so some planning (and possibly a guide) is necessary to carefully manage your team’s abilities.
