Tales of the Abyss

[Captain Falcon]

I've just finished act 2 with about 55 hours on the clock and boy did those last few hours drag on. I'm finding it a bit of a chore now but I don't want to give up. How long is the third act?

 

Until this week, I hadn't played this game in over 3 months or more. One of the reasons I did stop was because I felt like it was one long procession of cut scenes and the same locations over and over.

 

I turned it on yesterday and played for an hour and forty minutes. In that time, I had a grand total of five battles, one of which was a boss fight that barely lasted a minute, in a dungeon I'd already cleared but had to return to. I've played some more today and again, following the story is offering very little in terms of gameplay right now. I went on a sidequest though and found myself in a section of the overworld where I couldn't move for more than 2 seconds without being thrown in a fight with relatively high level creatures that take longer than that last boss. I'd gone from having nothing to fight to being unable to take two steps without being charged by an enemy... made all the more frustrating thanks to some bad slowdown on the map.

 

And I've quoted you daftada because I'm in the final act and so the slowdown that happened at the end of Act 2 goes into a full on nose dive. I've just had a skit pop up telling me "this is going to be the final battle, will we survive?" after opening up the last section. Of course, before I can go to the last section, I now have to go to Belkend for another meaningless cutscene at which point I turned it off. The third act doesn't seem that long to me unless I'm about to be hit by a 5 hour long end dungeon - but even then it would be much shorter than the other two. It also seems entirely unnecessary too - they should have wrapped it up at the end of the second.

 

The pacing on this game started badly, they went great, and is now terrible again. The needlessly convoluted approach to the story isn't helping either - the story itself isn't even that complicated, it's just the explanation that's so awful with all the "fon this" and "fon that". I think I must be missing something that a lot of others see as I don't get quite where all the praise for this game comes from.

 

I might see if I can finish this off over the weekend. I have other, better games to be playing but I've come this far now so I might as well keep going.

[daftada]

It all seemed to pick up a bit at the 'halfway' point, or what I thought was halfway anyway. But yeah, the pacing has been pretty poor throughout. I don't remember Symphonia or Vesperia having the same issue, but I absolutely loved those two so mayve I just didn't notice. Abyss is my least favourite Tales so far (only played ToS 1&2, ToV, ToE) - unforgettable characters, especially outside the main party, dull locations (too many browns and greys), an over-complicated plot, terrible pacing, and no sign of the master chef chap

 

I'll soldier on regardless though!

[daftada]

Ok, I finally finished this tonight, and I was actually impressed with the final third. The last few locations looked incredible, and the story tied up quite nicely. Still no idea why Asch got so pissy with Luke though.

 

If anyone is still looking to play this I have two copies for sale, one of them sealed.

[-Dem0-]

Currently £19.85 from ShopTo.

 

http://www.shopto.net/video%20games/3ds/3DSTA01-tales-of-the-abyss

[Jonnas]

So, I managed to finally play this (on a PS2, as it turned out). Not as good as Symphonia, but still pretty enjoyable in its own right.

 

+Characters are great, and none of them feel lazily written (except Anise). I like how Guy could be the protagonist of his own game/story, and Jade's development is subtler than what we usually see in RPGs;

+Fighting-wise, we have more varied options here than in Symphonia. Might be easier, but it's still fun. And Guy is as fun and effective to use as the main character, which is awesome.

+Cutscenes are better handled, in general. Anime cutscenes are more common, too, which is great.

+I like the plot's main theme. I really liked Luke by the end, really well done.

 

-That tutorial takes way too long. And then they don't even bother to explain how chambers work.

-Some really weird design choices. So little money in the early game, and yet you find copies of what you buy in the next dungeon. And the best weapons for each character are really easy to get.

-Dungeons felt lacking. Usually, exploring a labyrinth was enough, none of the puzzles from Symphonia were here. Mieu's upgrades were promising, but they did too little with them.

-Side-quests are so easily missable, what the hey? The way to get Mieu Fire 2 is so obtuse, for its short window of opportunity... and it's needed for further sidequests!

-Like I said, the easier game can become a pushover... unless you play on Unknown and find a two-hour battle for your first boss. Also, who thought that fighting two God-Generals at once in the earlygame was a good idea? I couldn't take them seriously after that.

-Way too much fetch-questing and town-hopping. Couldn't they reach plot-important conclusions in the same city, instead of moving around? Couldn't they just use automatic quick-jump for every town-hopping segment? The fact that the Albiore needs the quick-jump option speaks volumes.

-The plot is good and all... but they could've shown a bit better why Van went to such extreme lengths when the heroes seemed to be fulfilling his goal just fine. I mean, I get it, but it looks like the sort of thing that should be more obvious.

 

While it feels like nitpicking, I do think these small things easily add up. It's still really good, and likely the second-best Tales I played.

[Sheikah]

I was reeling with the amount of backtracking/unnecessary travel in this game. That, and the incredibly douchey main character. The battle system was decent, but the story was pretty half-baked. Mind you, I think I've pretty much gone off Tales games these days. They're a bit too samey and feel more or less targeted at the teen demographic rather than people like me.

[Jonnas]

I was reeling with the amount of backtracking/unnecessary travel in this game. That, and the incredibly douchey main character. The battle system was decent, but the story was pretty half-baked. Mind you, I think I've pretty much gone off Tales games these days. They're a bit too samey and feel more or less targeted at the teen demographic rather than people like me.

 

Can't say I disagree with the last two sentences. Or the first one. Thankfully, Tales games are more than just the plot.

 

The story could've been streamlined a bit (or better explained in some parts), but I otherwise saw nothing wrong with it.

[Tamazoid]

I really enjoyed this game when I played it last year. It has enjoyable combat, a decent soundtrack and plays well on the 3DS (even though it's a bare bones port). I thoroughly enjoyed the story as well, and I actually liked Luke as a main character (I thought that he actually developed as a character, unlike a lot of protagonists in other games) while it was clunky in some aspects I thought it was pretty coherent and made sense in the end.

This was my first Tales game actually, I do own Vesperia and Phantasia though, so I need to play through those games.