Tales of The Abyss
 

http://ps2.ign.com/objects/762/762419.html

anyone preorder, an get the laser cell? Kinda cool.

Comes out in like 3days:P

Me, but I doubt I'll be playing it anytime soon given I have BK:O to play and I decided to replay VP:S even though I just beat it two days ago or so. Still, I'll probably have time for it before FFXII comes around so it's all good.

I didn't preorder it or anything (If it snot a art book or something as interesting, I don't care) but I plan on getting it this Saturday since I am unable to get it till then T_T

I preordered, and I got my art cell. I can't wait for this game. Definitely the one I've been anticipating the most this year.

I'm already playing Okami, Baten Kaitos Origins, and Valkyrie Profile Silmeria, but they're all being put on hold for Abyss.

I didn't know it was coming out so soon. I've heard of the game, but aside from the title, I don't know a single thing about it. There's other games I really want right now, so I won't be getting it anytime soon anyway.

I did see an ad though in a magazine and I liked the artstyle. The only reason I didn't get Tales of Legendia was because everyone said it wasn't as good as Tales of Symphonia. I'd like to hear opinions of Abyss as well before deciding whether to get it or not.

Alas ive also not pre-ordered the game but when it comes out i will defiently buy for sure gotta keep in tuch with the Tales Of series but good games like Star Ocean, Valkyrie Profile And Tales Of Series are really hard to find where i come from(Ive only found Tales Of Phantasia and Star Ocean Till The End Of Time)

Mine shipped yesterday. I'm still playing VP2 though and I think I will be playing FF12 before this one, because I don't think I can still play Abyss when FF12 is laying on my table.

Yay it's out!! downloading*, wow alot of seeders, :biggrin:

Just got it with the laser cel. I told myself I wasn't gonna play it til after BK:O, but I guess that game will have to wait even longer now. Still, I think I'll get around to it before FFXII, so it should all work out fine. The intros to these games always suck me in. I should have known not to open the shrink-wrap til after I was done. Oh well.

Okay, can anyone tell me what the big surprise Namco had in store for its release? The staff on the official forums talked about how great it is and how hard it is to keep it a secret, and the official website has seven asterisks in its place.

It's kind of been bugging me.

Some of the characters have more hi-ougis, that's all I know that is different ATM. I find it hard to believe that's the only difference, though, based on how much they hyped it up...

Well their super big surprise is something relating to a contest, not with the actual content of the game itself.

I'll probably go out and get the game today if I can find it and waste my semester getting every single little thing.

Screw waiting for that piece of garbage FFXII. This game is where it's at! I plan on doing everything possible in this game before the launch of PSU.

I'm really enjoying the game. The graphics are shitty, the music is the usual Sakuraba-lite and the story is nothing terribly new but somehow, it all comes together to make a highly enjoyable experience. The entertaining characters (and great localization) certainly help.

Graphics are pretty awesome actually. Aside the map glitching out all the time and dropping to 20-10frames, it looks great.

Also, Tales of the Abyss 29.82 @ Wal-Mart.

I so want this game now, but i'm kind of broke XD (bought a computer and new screen) so I may wait for chrismas for this, I keep for now my little money for FFXII but I may end up going to buy it tomorow after my class XD

Well, I came from VP2 (which is one of the best looking games on the PS2). I'm not generally a graphics whore so the bland TotA visuals don't bother me (unlike the load times which border on Suikoden V level at times).

I'm SO glad they kept Tears singing the same. Something about her singing while charging magic attacks made her enjoyable to use.

Well just started playing "beat FFXII this morning, GREAT game". Anyway I am liking it so far, the voices are actually good and the battle system seems cool so far.

Hrm. 30 - 40 hour game vs 100+ hour rpg. I'll pass on Tales because I already got plenty on my plate till FFXII. And PSU? Enjoy your monthly fee paying ;)

PSU also has a free 40 hour offline RPG so it isn't like you have to pay to play.

Is it just me or is Namco Hometek getting a lot better at localization. Sure, the voices were cut from the skits again (it isn't the localization teams fault) but the writing and voice acting seems very well done. And I really REALLY love the cast of characters in this game. The battle system also feels like the one in ToS, except with new additions and improvements.

If you liked Tales of Symphonia you will definitely love this game. Hell, if you've never played a Tales game before this is also a good one to start with.

Honest? I'd definitely be picking this up then if that's the case. ToS is awesome.

The more I go through the game (I'm at 10 hours now), the less interesting the characters are. Most of them are archetypes (as entertaining as that can be). Fortunately, the battles are great fun (albeit easy, excepting the occasional boss).

well I couldn't wait so i bough this today and have 5hours in it XD I really love it, well beside Luke behind really annoying for now (so much cliché charater, but that what make the tales game XD)

and really I think for the first time the dub is really good (not perfect be really better then the 3 other one that had voices)

I ahve a question is Luke played by the guy who did Reid in Tales of Eternia? really sowhere Luke said something and was exactly like Reid would have said it XD (don,t remember what it was though XD)

and god Mieu is so cute <3 I can't stand Luke being so cruel to him XD

Wha..... no skit voices.......again?.....uh....then i'll be getting japanese version too, I liked TotA to include all stuff ToL missed (Devil's Arms are good enough to me.....), now, time to break the 100000 hit combo record

Aside from the whole "no skit voices" thing, it has additional content. Like, new Hi Ougis and such. And they're really cool... But Guy's looks a little... Uhmm... weird.
Nevertheless, the US version is also cheaper, so getting it shouldn't be out of consideration for you, even if you are fluent in Japanese.

The lack of skit voices is irritating (more so than with ToS because there's more fo them). Worse yet, you can't speed up the text so you're stuck waiting for the skit to proceed (and they're rarely interesting, unlike ToS's).

Wow what happened with the overworld map with this one? What a complete mess with ridiculous long load times to and from the overworld, slow camera rotation which starts chopping from slow disc streaming and if you play the game for a while there is an obvious memory leak and the overworld music theme won't load properly.

This is a really good game, but the technical flaws really make playing it difficult at times. This is why I've started to look at production value more than other game aspects because we should be at the point where crap like this shouldn't be allowed to slip though a game release.

The overworld map is awful, isn't it? It looks bad, it's sluggish and load times are atrocious (check out the 12+ second load times from battle to world map). I learned pretty quickly to dodge enemies as much as possible while there.

yeah the world map is even worst than in Legendia and it'S sad because in other tales I fight monster on world map when I need money for equipment on a city , but now I doN,t do it, it just too long because of the loading time >.<

ans now I need some leveling >.< i'm stuck at the fight vs Legretta, damn that bitch is hard...

Played for an hour earlier.

Cons:
My god, it takes a good 15 seconds to save the game. 15 seconds.
Loading times are horrendous, even off a hard drive. What?
Slow rotation on world map makes me ANGRY.
I really, really hate luke. Wow, really, i mean lots of other Tales main chars were kinda fine, i even liked Lloyd. But Luke? fuck, give me tales of destiny 3 or something.
Lack of skit voices or skipping.
From what i saw from previews/fight videos, the only characters i'm going to care about is the archer girl, Ansie and Guy. Sigh... Tear mabye...

Pros:
Very, very talesy. <3 the music. At least the fighting is competent.
The graphics are INCREDIBLE. I can't find any jaggies at all. It's just so clean.
Tear is pretty cool.
Ummm...
I actually have no complaints about the voices yet. Seems pretty decent. Would be unfair to compare this to the current dub king, FF12.

Overall: I guess i'll play some more and hope the story and it's crazy lingo start to make sense really soon.

To be fair, Luke was obviously set up in a way where he will change. Give it time, you'll see... games have character development for a reason. Well, the GOOD games have character development anyway.

The story picks up considerably about a 3rd through the game. Most people agree it's got the best storyline out of any Tales game at the least.

The game takes a year and a half to save because it has to create two save files, although that's not much of an excuse.

The overworld map is so crappy you can glitch it up by taking out the disc and closing the tray and go anywhere in the game, although going somewhere that is obviously ages away can cause you to be permanently stuck there, but it's still fun to roam around and get all those search points.

http://img279.imageshack.us/img279/8424/toamt1xf4.jpg

When you put the disc back into the ps2 though you should probably make sure you aren't in a location that will get you stuck (which can be a chore because you can't see diddly squat since you glitched up the map), but if successful you can obtain lovely prizes at the beginning of the game.

http://img468.imageshack.us/img468/2595/toamt2ea7.jpg

Oh god the lols don't stop, how could they let something like that slip by?

Oh right it's namco, carry on.

This glitch will also apply to a certain event in the game with a certain character, which will leave that person in your party permanently.

Although he sucks for shit and it ruins your chances of doing any sidequests. Still, fun nevertheless!

He would be better than Luke if it werent for his permanent equipment. Rending Saber is also better than Radiant Howl but yeah, permanent low-mid tier equipment makes it sort of pointless other than for novelty.

I think that glitch is pretty cool actually, I dont see why its so "lol" worthy given that not many people are gonna think to open the tray, REMOVE THE DISC ENTIRELY and run around the world map. You cant just open the tray cause all that does is freeze the game, so yeah.

They did fix the Lorelei jewel bug though, which is kinda sucky actually cause that was a very useful glitch. =(

Lacerta, if you do what you said will it effect the game in anyway?

Everything else is identical and you can play through the entire game without any problems. Still, 250 attack power sword = phail. It really isn't worth it.

But yeah, it's only worth it if you mess with it on a second file for kicks.

nvm just got that Meadow Crystal >>;; Sup Swordian Dymlos. Still can't unlock that darn Elven Bow (for Natalia's US Exclusive Hi-Ougi)... Din is the worst girl ever.

Heh I've just learned two of the new people added to the Tales team for ToA were 'overmap' programmers. Yeah, go figure there.

Ouch! I don't dig those long loading times and long saves that people are mentioning now, even if it's as good or better than ToS. It reminds me of the hideous long saving time in Digimon World 3 >_>

Why wouldn't the game be on GCN like ToS? :(

They aren't bad other than on the world map and saving anyway, but I wish it was on the GCN, too.

Ask Nintendo.

Or Namco. Maybe they didn't want to make a game for the GCN. I dunno why though. Didn't ToS sell a lot on the GCN? I love that game.

There really weren't any want for Tales on the gamecube. ToS got ported over to the PS2 like months afterward and it was tons better too.

Also hear that Tales of the Tempest got a horrible score by famitsu, which i'm glad for. A tales game on the DS that's 3d can't be very good =/

<grumpy old man> Tales should have stayed pure 2d! :mad: </grumpy>

The PS2 version had new attacks, 1 or 2 more anime scenes, a working casino and new costumes, but from what I read about it, it was hampered by long loading times. Fans preferred the GCN version.

I bet if they made another game for the GCN, people would go ape over it. I know I would.

It was Nintendo's decision to get Symphonia put on Gamecube, not Namco. It was neglected later by the PS2 port anyway which everyone loved (people are loyal to their Sonys).

Tempest didn't score "horrible", it just received one of those "This isn't anything you should go out and buy right now, but it's not a heaping pile of trash." kind of scores. I guess you'd say it was average.

Their main complaint was poor AI, which has plagued the Tales series since day one so that's not really surprising anymore.

Played for 4 hours and i'm def.liking this. I read on IGN that the reviewer disliked the character "Luke" and his whining,but i love it! The Battlesystem is cool, as i'm not really a fan of real time battle.

The only thing i didn't like (like others) is the worldmap,it looks sloppy(doesn't mean i don't like the villages etc)

I wonder how the sales are doing for the US version of the game. I have a feeling they probably aren't too great. Wal-Mart still has like 10 copies of the game sitting on the shelf as if they aren't selling or something. I haven't seen much advertisement on Namco's side either.

I know this is a game people would enjoy if they just played it. My friend went and purchased the game after playing it with me for a day. Lots of good stuff to be played here. Just not too many people know about it I guess.

Considering the push for the next gen right now, and how Legendia recieved similar amounts of press before it came out, it's not really surprising. Especially since some bigger name RPGs are right around the corner. (You know of what I speak).

That said, the world map in this game is lol bad, but the rest of it is pretty good so far. I've only played it for a few hours and so far I"m enjoying it more than that mess VP2 turned out to be.

I dont think any RPG except mabye FF12 will sell well, and that's not my gigantic Penelo boner talking!

That's my Wii preorder talking. And, also important, how we got a gigantor amount of RPGs in the last 2 months. XS3, Tales of the Abyss, VP2, Contact, Okami, Disgaea 2, are just the ones I have to play.

But the wii and ps3 are coming out! Hype! Preorders! MADDEN! Who cares about dem rpgs!

:rolleyes:

I would def pay if this game hits europe! Great story and you gotta love the Six God Generals ^^ (and the humor rofl!)

Another bug warning:

I've had the game lock up on me three times now in the coliseum exhibition fight which you get after defeating the team advanced level. This is on a fairly new slimline PS2.

Save before you go into the advanced team round.


Update: Yeah I just got it to lock up a 4th time and I think I've pinned down the bug. If your last party member dies to a spell attack then the game will lock up, so I guess...uh just don't lose the fight like I have been.

Go, go Namco QA.

Doesnt seem to happen to me. Am I the only one who played this game all the way through and never had it crash? D:

Probably related to the hi-ougi bug maybe?

Then again the game does like to lock up for no reason at all, so who knows.


You got the golden copy! >=0!

To each their own, but IMO FFXII was a complete waste of time. The only reason I bothered with it is because I want to play through every FF game. I preffer speaking out on my opinions through experience junior. :)

Did anyone else notice the really stupid editing they did on the scene where:



That REALLY ticked me off. Could've been worse I guess...

That's how the original scene was, in all of its crappiness.

I was more bothered by the

So was anybody else surprised to find out Guy actually had a pretty legitimate reason to be afraid of women touching him?

Really? I must be going crazy then.

I've gotten no crashes at all, either.

Wow, just finished the game and clocked in a mind blowing 82 hours which completely shocked me. Between working and going to school full time, a game of this length would normally take me a month or two to get though. I have no idea where I found the time to finish this game so quickly. I just couldn't put this game down though. Every minute of free time had me playing it because I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen next. It's been a long time since I've lost myself in an RPG like this.

Surprisingly the hype held up. By far the best Tales game in every aspect as people were saying and one of the better RPGs to come around in a long time. I don't really feel up to writing a detailed review, but I loved every character, I loved the growth each character went though and the story actually surprised me quite a few times. Other than the load-times, excellent game all around.

And after looking at a guide to get an idea of what I missed, I'm already considering a second playthrough to get the tons of things I missed. This game just has so much to do and doing it usually provides even more character and/or story background which I tend to find far more rewarding then just getting items.

I'm considering getting the guide too. After looking over an FAQ up to the current point I'm at in the game I missed out on a TON of timed events and titles.

Does anyone know if anything was censored in the US version of the game, or is it pretty much the same as the JP version? I'm glad they didn't change alcohol to "Palma Potion" this time around.

At first, I found the game a bit slow. And then one night, I started playing when the game clock was at 9:30 and finished at 22:30. I couldn't believe it. I was completely captivated.

I beat Xenosaga III just before TotA and I actually think TotA has the better story and characters (although they're both very very good).

I'm at around 28 hours now and I suspect I'm nearing the end of the game. I'm at the point where...



Obviously Luke gets the most development as a character but I'm surprised at how in-depth the game goes with the rest of them (aside from Anise who remains pretty much useless and unexplored).

I'm sure that I've missed a LOT of sidequests. I don't tend to do them in RPGs (as they're usually aside from the main story and a distraction). Especially in this game, I've just been plowing through because I want to get to the next plot point as soon as possible. A second run-through will be in order, methinks (especially if the extra stuff leads to further character development, ala Symphonia).

You're actually not as close to the end as you think. I'd say you passed the halfway mark a little bit ago, the last time you saw Sync; which shouldn't have been more than a little bit before where you are at currently.

Just names & minor dialogue changes (like from shit/junk to dreck) were changed. No real censoring there

Hey guys, I wanna ask; is there any voice acting in those private cutscenes(the scenes that follows after you press select)? I don't hear any VA for those but the text holds until their mouth stops moving, as if they follow after the VA. Either that or my game is glitched.

Nope, it was taken out of the US version.

Damn it, they have got to stop doing that. Taking out the VA for the side story after the main plot ends in ToL was bad enough. The VA in ToL was actually great.

Are you SERIOUS? How can the game sustain that much plot? There doesn't seem like there's much story left...

That and I looked at a FAQ and it seemed like I was near the end. Maybe the last few areas are just REALLY big. ;)

Minor spoiler, nothing specific:

Also, some of the coming areas are pretty big, yeah. Absorption Gate is probably three or four times as long as any of the other dungeons you've come across.

Exciting! I wanted to finish this game before FFXII came out but I think I'm going to stick with it for a while longer. I don't mind spending more time with these characters. ;)

Or Tales of Destiny.

Anyways.

Luke has to be my favorite character now, they handled him very well. I've never gone through so many hate/like transitions over a single character before, and even during the parts that will make you dislike him, you'll see why he acts the way he does eventually, or at least figure it out yourself.

In other news, it should be illegal for spellcasters to be as cool as Jade.

The game seems pretty in tact after localization. The bosses are still just as hard, the opening is fairly similar, and the characters still get developed throughout the story. Besides some time-consuming sidequests, most of which you'll miss, and the sometimes monotone voice acting, it's much better than most people probably expected.

Also, Natalia battle gameplay is simply awesome.

Well, the game goes beyond that. Namco Bandai went also far as to give us features that the japanese version didn't have. Such features include

I completed Tales of The Abyss and i must say this is def my Favo RPG of 2006, it should des the title anywayz. Great Story,interesting characters (six god generals,van,...) and i might replay it with my current 'grade' and unlock some extra goodies ^^( 10 X exp a battle :-o!!! ).

It's kinda weird,i wasn't really looking forward playing ToTA, but my attention all year went to FFXII and VP2 but this one proved to be the better one.

Or Tales of Legendia. :) I need to pull myself offa PSU long enough to finish this game...

Just learned how to make an Elven bow. :D

I've run into a few glitches and even typoes, but overall it's still enjoyable. These sidequests are killing me though.

I just started my adventure a few days ago and I'm enjoying myself very much. I could see it being my favorite RPG of 2006, but really, the only competition it has is Baten Kaitos Origins. Still, Baten and Tales of the Abyss are wonderful games to go through before the release of the Wii! Everything's just so exciting!

I'm not so sure of how many of the side-quest I'm going to fulfill. I have a feeling I won't be giving it a second playthrough, either. I've never been one for second playthroughs, not because I didn't appreciate the game enough but because I always seem to have another game lined up and waiting.

What. Are you serious? All the guides I've been reading say that you can only get it after your second run, and I've tried triggering the scene they say supposedly kicks this off.

Oh, this game is fantastic, easily one of the best RPGs I've played in a good bit. IMO, this tops ToS in quite a few places, though not in the technical aspects of the game (glitches as mentioned before).

At the moment I'm trying to get the AD Skills I missed as well as Grade farming so when I finally do decide to finish, I can take the cores, grade, titles and experience into the second pass.

Heck, I may go for the 10x and 2x Grade as well.

Yeah, I beat her. On normal mode I think she only uses Big Bang. I couldn't handle her on Very Hard mode so I switched to just Hard. She managed to use Big Bang twice, Rending Saber, Innocent Shine, Mystic Cage, and Fragmented End.

Trust me, she's not the most fun boss. The Cameo team is, especially on Very Hard mode where they start reviving like crazy and spamming mystic artes. I earned like 60 grade from that battle.

I just had her stunned often enough while my magic folks did their thing. I don't touch normal in the Tales games, since it feels too easy. It seems like if you pump enough levels into your characters along with the right AD Skills, you can keep them (bosses) off their feet.

I heard the same thing from others, so I'll make sure to try that in this game (6000+ Grade, so I have all the important stuff). Sounds like the exhibition match in ToS. Loads of fun with the auto-revive all over.

They revived like, 12 times total and all used their Mystic Artes. I was only level 7x so I couldn't finish them off instantly, which actually made things more enjoyable. Having a ton of AD-skills and overleveling can easily take the fun out of a lot of boss battles.

It's much different from the cameo team in Symphonia. They didn't heal themselves. Mint can cast first aid and heal, replenishing a pretty big chunk of HP, and I remember one of them using revitalize, which means 60% healing for all of their party members. Also, they use life bottles, ressurecting spells, and hourglasses/time stops a lot. Very long battle.

Unknown says hi. I flicked it on and tried Sword Dancer 1 for fun, and it was something else. Definitely a thrill, and that was with my AD Skills/Artes/Etc transferred over from the previous game. I can't wait till I go up against the cameo team and Ms. Black and White later on. From what I've heard, even at maxed levels she's wild.

Some of the AD-Skills border on cheap, though with Unknown as a difficulty option they don't seem as bad. Glory, for example, makes you impervious to staggers. High Reqs but nothing a little sharing of Grandioz won't fix, same with Rebirth, Angel's Tear and Auto Aid. The first two I've seen in action so often that some would call them broken.

Moving along my 2nd game at a decent click. Here's a link to the various costumes available for the characters. Beware though there's a spoiler or two in there:

Bah, hello. Everyone says this is a cool game, yet this poor thread is on the 2nd page. You'd think it'd be on the first page.

And no, I love FFXII!! I read many comments (not here, but elsewhere) from people who, after playing this game, concluded that FFXII sucks. I never knew you had to like only one game and not both. Both games are so vastle different that it's stupid to compare them in the first place.

I posted thoughts/opinions on my playthroughs in my journal, but nobody is replying, so I guess I should just post here in this thread that everyone has abandoned. Maybe I'll have better luck.

Reposts from my journal!

Entry #1

My little sister was upset because she couldn't play until a 'certain item' was found, according to the manual.

Now that she can play, she's upset again 'cause she's not learning new techs (she plays Tear) while I got two already. In ToS, most techs were learned after doing earlier techs 50 times, but she hasn't gotten any so far.

I love how the in-game characters are capable of displaying more emotion than in ToS. Some of these expressions are damn priceless. I'm happy the game is just as funny as ToS. Makes me wish the skits were voiced now. Lots of the ones in ToS were hilarious.

Mieu: "But I'm a boy!"
Luke: "You sure don't sound like one."

Their conversations are the best! Can't stand the little bugger myself.

"Luke...called me a...thing...38 times..."

The overworld map isn't -that- hideous as people say (rotating is slow, but still doable, although the environment is crummy), but sometimes it takes around 5-10 seconds just to start a battle. It doesn't happen all the time though, thank goodness.

Entry #2

I saved in the Pass on the way to that city that I can't spell or pronounce. It starts with 'A' though!



Abyss is quite the opposite of FFXII. FFXII hardly had any cutscenes, as opposed to Abyss' constant scenes every few screens, and FFXII hardly had any voice acting, as opposed to Abyss' voice acting in virtually every scene.

I saw my first anime cutscene after the trip down the Abandoned Factory. Damn, it was cool, and it actually had the characters in it!! Although I do love Symphonia's scenes as well, only the ending featured the characters, and even then, it only showed two of them! Bah! Does Abyss have more anime scenes than Symphonia? I wasn't expecting to see one so soon in Abyss. Asch(sp?) looks a lot cooler in the scene than in-game

Speaking of Asch, the Records menu shows a HUGE spoiler : /

P.S. Oh, and Dist, especially when he's angry, sounds like Arkana from Yu-Gi-Oh! somewhat. I wonder if he has the same voice actor.

P.P.S. Is there any way to DL those cutscenes?

Entry #3

Okay, I take it back. Although the world map still isn't that bad, it seems to be taking longer and longer now just to start a battle, and to exit a battle. Expect a longer wait if it's a boss battle. Man, I miss the fast loading times of the ToS.

SPOILERS! At the Springs. Don't read if you're not there yet!



I'm like, probably the only person who thinks so anyway :D

OTHER NEWS

To celebrate my uh, purchase of ToTA, I made an avatar/sig. It's Tales of Symphonia themed, actually, but who cares. ToS is a great game.
I'd make a ToTA chain if I actually had some pics.

Oh, yeah, can someone send me an MP3 the theme song to ToTA opening? The one with and without the lyrics? Thanks.

The music isn't as great as ToS, not that ToS had great music anyway. However, ToS had some really good tracks, like the Summon boss battle and the battle theme in Thetehalla or whatever the hell it's called. I haven't heard any music in ToTA that topped those yet.

There's a new Tales game coming to PSP that features characters from past Tales game. Damn, I saw Symphonia characters in screenshots. Looks awesome, but I don't want a PSP.

Oh!!! Is there any formal costumes in this game like in ToS? I loved those!

I'm about to beat Final Fantasy XII (finally) and consider playing this next. However, I heard that the voice acting in the US version is rather poor so people made an "undub" version of this with the original Japanese voices in the US version of the game.

Can anyone comment on that? Is the voice acting really bad? Should I start playing the Japanese dub version or stick to the regular copy?

If you liked the voice acting in Tales of Symphonia, the voice acting in Tales of the Abyss won't bother you at all. I love the voice acting in both games. Same goes for FFXII. I'm impressed that more people are putting forth a greater emphasis in voice acting these days.

Good god. Whoever told you this deserves a slap to the face. Seriously, I hate people who whine about Namco not including a English and Japanese track on each Tales game. When a game is released in the US most players prefer to hear the characters speak in their own native language. Not everyone is a super wap anime fag.

Anyway, I thought the voice acting in Tales of the Abyss was terrific. Tear's voice sounds a tad bit too old for her character and luke may come off as annoying at first but later on their voices grow on you and they get better at it as you get further in the game. Everyone else sounds pretty good. I'd say Jade had the best voice acting in the game. The way his character is played suits him perfectly. Sure, there are a few bad voice actors in the game, but these are usually NPCs with a few lines of text.

Namco Hometek is really getting the hang of doing these localizations since Abyss' writing and voice acting is a huge step up from the last few Tales games.

Thanks for clearing that up. I would have preferred English voice acting anyways, so I'll go with that.

Yup, there's tons of costumes, actually. IIRC, there's more of them here than in ToS and they're much better too. This game just seems better in nearly every aspect except for maybe the silent skits (and that can't be helped due to the low popularity of the series on this side of the pond the costs it'd incur). Some of the costumes can only be had on your second playthrough along with several areas.

There's not really any formal costumes. Many alternate ones, but not all of them are particularly fancy, except maybe Luke's Viscount costume and Natalia's princess costume. Still, there's tons of costumes.

http://n.ethz.ch/student/wmartin/pic...20Costumes.jpg
All of those costumes are available too. Namco's localization has been much more giving. In fact, TOA had a lot of features added on, as well as glitches, so I'm really pleased with it compared to Tales of Symphonia.

The voice acting hasn't been completely satisfactory. There's a lot of typoes, some sentences that don't make sense, and lack of emphasis. Though the voices can grow on you, I wouldn't go so far as to call it better than ToS. There's still a ton of cliche RPG character dialogue.

The cutscenes are on YouTube and you can also view them in Namcobanda Isle. There's a ton of them, although only 8 of them are actually anime.

I had no issues with the voice acting. I was actually pretty impressed because there's gobs of it. Only Xenosaga III can compare with the amount of voice acting TotA has.

What I'm surprised at is how "large" the world was, or at least seemed, in Tales of the Abyss. ToS had T'ethealla and Sylvarant but neither felt as populated as Auldrant.

I would, mainly because ToS was terrible in that regard. The voice actors and characters fall well short of what we see and hear in ToA. While there were definitely awkward moments and dry deliveries (Tear's VA is the biggest offender here), again, it trumps ToS's best. Cliche dialogue? Yeah, this game isn't perfect.

Let's put it this way: By the end of Abyss, I wound up liking most of the main characters. Symphonia? Raine was the only one I didn't want killed, and it's not surprising that she has a similar (though milder) version of Jade's personality.

That's because there was obviously more than 4 houses in each city.
There wasn't a lot of voiced dialogue in ToS, but the voices were very easy on the ears. Besides Colette, you didn't have to worry about going deaf during the dialogue. You could always recognize the emotion in ToS too, where as characters, Tear especially, often had bland or almost sarcastic deliveries to their lines.
I won't argue about Raine though. She had a great VA and character.
Oh, yeah, the other animated cutscenes were great too, they just didn't have any characters or dialogue.

There's also more people in the towns as well, though I'm sure some of it has to do with the art and overall look of the game.

Except that Tear and Jade are supposed cold/sarcastic/detached given their backgrounds (especially the latter, as they go further into his character later on in the game). What I was pointing out was that during some of the supposed "heartfelt" moments or emotional scenes, the VA's didn't so much as budge from the standard "Tear" voice. That and she had some awkward lines too.

For all the strengths of Symphonia's conversations, the weaknesses were far too many to ignore. The characters often didn't seem to relate to one another well and the banter wasn't any near as fluid and natural as in the latest game. We'll just have to agree to disagree, then.

Not like it would've been appropriate, hearing the Albiore talk or something. Plus, yammering on during said events would detract from it. They talk enough as it is.

Of course, I'd prefer if the cutscenes weren't at Youtube, what with the crappy quality and all. I'm sure there must be high quality versions floating around somewhere, the opening in particular.

...I happen to like both ToS' and ToTA's voice acting...but apparently it appears I am the only one.

Really, I'd rather have a character who has issues (and has a reason for it) than someone who acts too nice all the time. I loved it when Luke was kicking Mieu around, due to my dislike for cute fuzzy woodland creatures.

P.S. I am now heading to the Capital of Malkuth. The waitress mini-game is fun!

All the games had rather strong voice casts. Especially Legendia, which had more charm than any of the games, though tends to become the lesser focused of the three due to design.

They're all really fun games.

I didn't mind ToS's voice acting (or cast). Lloyd was a little too perfect for my tastes but Luke more than made up for that. ;)

Exactly. The cities are big and you could see many houses throughout. In St. Binah you could see a ton of houses if you climbed the ladder in the back, and you could see a lot around Grand Chokmah just by walking around. It made it much more realistic to the plot.
It's not actual sarcasm, just a weird, innapropriate tone in their voices.

True, although I still think it would be nice to see some character interaction in those animations. The quality of the cutscenes would have made it nicer than in-game.

New Year's resolution: Find more hot pre-Luke art.

It could be just me, but I'm not overly fond of most of the cities/towns/villages/hovels I've encountered so far. They don't impress me as much as ToS's cities, such as Flanoir, Meltokio, Sybak and Palmacosta. The only ones I like so far are Ketersberg(sp?) and Grand Chokma(sp?).

Right now I'm in the Zao Ruins for the second time.

There's a scene in the game that's bugging me, and it's probably just an oversight, but when I went to Ketersberg...



My sister went to the FAQs and stuff and found out that we missed a ton of sidequests/items. Dammit. We even missed the Sword Dancer. Bah!

You can't be kidding, but Flanoir is the only one approaching "alive" of the ones you mentioned. Meltokio is a perfect example of a largely vacant town, while Baticul actually seems like it's bustling. Keterburg is another great example of this.

I'm mainly talking architecture-wise in regards to the towns. Abyss is full of boring-looking, browny type towns (to me anyway).

Wow, looks like we're polar opposites on the towns. ToS had rather a rather stale-looking world, probably because they had to split their attention between Sylvarant and T'ethealla. Simply the number of residents, animated buildings and various things you can do with them really makes ToA shine in this area.

Symphonia had about two, maybe three towns/cities in both of the worlds combined that were really spectacular. I think the thing with Abyss was that there was more interaction with things in the cities that makes them more appealing. I would have never imagined going on a sidequest just because I accidentally interacted with a flyer on a bulletin board.

I just started this last night after a long debate between this or Legendia, and so far I'm liking it. Since I finally beat Symphonia after a 2-year break I was looking for more Tales action. Obviously I'm not too far in yet, but I do have two big issues with it.

- No jumping in battle unless you're doing one of the attacks that makes you jump? Please tell me there's an AD Skill that fixes this later. It's a bit hard to get used to since I always took flying leaps at the enemies in Symphonia.

- Good lord, battle load times are ridiculous. Everything just freezes for 10 seconds or so before a boss, and post-battle loading can take as long as 20 seconds. Considering 45 seconds is a long random battle in a Tales game, that's absurd.

I'm enjoying the game immensely aside from those two things.

To jump in semi-manual mode, you have to hold the guard button then press up I believe. In manual, you just press up.

Yeah, not to mention that there's several AD-Skills that let you increase your mobility so much that when you start playing through again (if you didn't transfer over your skills with the Grade Shop) you feel like a brick.

Wait till you get to unknown mode

-------------------------------------------------------

I think ToA had more emphasis on the ruin areas than the towns.

The load times in this game were so bad that I made it a rule to dodge all battles on the world map. ;) They're not too bad in dungeons.

You know, I never even thought to look at that. I just assumed it would start me off in manual mode, but apparently not since that required the Technical Ring. I can jump again, huzzah!

If you cheated, then there wouldn't be a problem. But if you didn't cheat, you would realize that it was tough time when you fight boss

Cheating? You mean leveling in dungeons, and maps and not the "I'm going to glitch any moment now" world map?

Uh, huh? Like most Tales games, I went through it regularly fighting every dungeon enemy I could (and not worrying about leveling). A few of the bosses were irritating but on the whole, it wasn't a difficult game.

Gonna go to bed quick, so maybe you guys can help me.

What is the name of the track that plays during the Luke vs. fight? I got a torrent of the OST, and DLed some tracks from the sections the scene should be in, but haven't had much luck. Don't tell me it's not even on the OST : /

There are a few tracks that are missing from the OST (including, oddly enough, the one track that plays during the majority of the dungeons). There is a chance that the track you're looking for is on the fourth disk. It's hard to remember. The music in the game wasn't exactly memorable.

The name of the track is "The Meaning of Birth". I've got it here if you want it, and if anyone has a higher quality one, please let me know.

Oh, and yes, a good portion of the music in this game is forgettable, just like ToS.

Ha! Fourth disk! I totally called it!

I actually thought ToS's music was more effective in the game. I'm not saying it was brilliant music by any means but it held slightly more weight. I haven't found a Tales score that I've liked yet.

My feelings on ToS's music are much the same as those I have for the locales: boring, sometimes irritating and ultimately forgettable. In ToA's case, the areas are much more interesting than Symphonia's (though that really isn't all that great of an accomplishment) and the music as well. Still the same thing as the previous game, mostly throwaway tracks with some interesting things present.

A lot of the music for ToS and ToA felt like something cranked out of an RPG soundtrack generator. It's difficult to blame the composers because for the most part, they're writing music to archetypes.

"Here! Write music for a generic desert town! And then write music for a generic snow town! And don't forget the music for the generic peaceful village where you just KNOW things are gonna go to hell!"

Fortunately for ToA, it had a world more interesting than what they were able to muster for ToS.

You, my friend, are a fucking genius. That's essentially what the vast majority of the music in both titles sounds like. But why not blame them? Are they not like Sakimoto over at SE, or Uematsu in previous years? Unless the environment over at Namco discourages creativity or is rather strict about what kind of music is needed, it essentially falls of them.

Jesus, just bringing down that hammer tonight. For each of those there wasn't a single memorable note in the music that played in both games, and they had locations that matched your descriptions to boot.

I think that's the large part of the reason why more of the music caught my attention than if it been little more than ToS 2. Again, Symphonia may have fared better if they didn't have to focus on two worlds.

Well, the Tales series (aside from Legendia) has a very specific sound, whether I like it or not. Also, the music is written very quickly on what appears to be a limited budget. There's often a reason why gigantic RPG soundtracks suffer in quality (especially when one composer is forced to write over a hundred pieces).

In the case of this particular series, two men do the majority of the work. My guess is that since they've got a system down that appears to be working, they don't want to disrupt it. Admittedly, it DOES work but just barely. It's effectively sonic wallpaper.

Thanks a bunch of the track!!

P.S. The music in both games are pretty forgettable, but ToS had a few tracks that were good, so I like that OST more.

Edit: The Summon boss battle in ToS was very cool, I thought :3

I think my favorite ToS track was the one that played when you fought any angelic being. "Beat the Angel", I think it was called. ;)

Not because it was anything special (it wasn't) but because it sounded very different from any other battle theme in the game. It stood out.

I don't agre with you. The more worlds there are, the more place we can go and the more secrets we can find out. That is the reason that i like the To series.

Reading through this topic makes me glad to see I'm not the only one who was angry about the overworld map. It was so slow it was practically unbearable. Still, I love Tales of the Abyss and I think it is a superb RPG. I finally beat it recently and I'm sad to see it end. The ending left something to be desired in me and I wish some of it could have been different, but the journey there was nice either way. One thing that truly pissed me off about the game overall was:



I liked that and I thought it made Guy even more unique. Poooor Guy...

The world map had some issues alright, but I enjoyed the game so much, that I just beared with it, and got used to it eventually. It's only really bad when you are on foot. Did anyone else have that bug, where at some point in the game, the world map music wouldn't play at all? it would continue the song that was playing in the area you just exit.

That happened to everyone in the U.S version I think. It only lasted a couple of parts but it was still pretty sad that something that obvious slipped by.

On the plus side, the ridiculous save times are lessened by almost half on the PS3. It almost makes me want to replay it.

I don't remember ever having the world map music glitch, but everything else about it was pretty screwy. It was so nice once you have the Tartarus or the Albiore and no longer have to avoid the battles' ridiculous load times and fight the camera at every turn. Fixing those map issues would've made the beginning parts of the game much more enjoyable.

That's the thing though. If the battles on the overworld map were random, I would have gone insane, but 90% of the time you could easily avoid them, and yeah...because of the loadtimes you wanted to avoid them like the plague.

I was pretty surprised reading about how you can abuse the worldmap by removing the disc. Getting Asch really early on, and getting some overpowered weapons from towns you'd normally won't be able to access.

Of course, the biggest mistake was checking the battle details after a fight on the world map. That seemed to add an additional 10-20 seconds to the load time.

Now that I've beaten the game, I'm tempted to go back and try some of these glitches. Permanently replacing Luke with Asch by walking through the world map mountains during the Mushroom Road sidequest sounded interesting.

Interesting, but crappy. Asch can't ever change his gear so it doesn't take long for him to be the absolute worst party member in your team if you do it. All of the cutscenes still use Luke anyway, so it isn't really that cool of a glitch. :(

To be fair, I believe that many testers don't worry about what happens when the disc tray is open. Because really, if there's a bug with that, that's the user's fault for opening the disc tray.

Now, the other bugs... yeah, no excuse there.

I definitely agree with enjoying the game so much that the overworld map wasn't that big an issue. Once I started using the Tartarus and the Albiore I forgot about it for the most part. I don't recall running into that bug, but I have a pretty awful memory. I never had any problems with bugs while I played.


I loved Asch and I really wanted to use him in my party, but not being able to upgrade his equipment is the exact reason I didn't use the glitch. I don't really care about the cut scenes or not using Luke (I do like him, don't get me wrong >.>) since I controlled Guy almost always.

I used Guy more often too, reminded me of Lloyd from ToS.

I thought the story between Asch and Luke was great. Something I like about the Tales series was the fact that it had good story to it

Heh, glad I'm not alone in using Guy for awhile. I played as him a lot towards the beginning since I'd just finished up Symphonia a few days before starting Abyss, but eventually I warmed up to Luke's fighting method. Once you had some AD skills to make Luke more mobile he was much easier to manage.

Yeah, but I was always one who was more combo oriented and I liked Guys combos more than Lukes. That and Lukes Special Skill was useless if they enemy jumped back

I'm old fashioned, and always stick with the main characters, even if the other characters are so much cooler to play with. Guy was pretty tempting, I have to say. When I played him in the Arena, I noticed what a big difference it was between them. He's so much more agile, and his center skill was awesomeness. It restored a huge portion of his health in a instant. Tempest I couldn't help but love either, it's a lot better then in ToD.

Ha, I always choose the main character no matter what usually, so it was 99% Llo...Luke for me. I did try Guy out and yes, he's a lot faster and Center was awesome, but Luke isn't terrible by any means. Some of his moves resemble Lloyd's, so I was fine with that, since aside from playing Kratos and Zelos for a bit, I was exclusively Lloyd, haha. I loved playing with him. When I played with my sister, she was begging me to play someone else one time XD My sister played Guy in our first game, but refused to let me play him in our second, so I couldn't play him even if I wanted to.

Luke is less likely to be interrupted during a normal attack. I know that doesn't really matter a whole lot at the end of the game when all that matters is spamming your techs but still.

Then again you can have a center-like skill for Luke, just applying the right thing to his crit-up skill. Of course it wasn't as powerful as center, but still.

And ToD PS1? Otherwise I'd be quite alarmed.

Yes, ToD for the PS1. As I recall when Stahn used it he jumped a bit too high in the air, so it had the potential to miss a lot if the enemy was pretty small.

I generally organize my party around the characters I like the most. In Tales of the Abyss case this meant that Anise never left my party. Guy also went in and this meant that the other girls did as well to help him with his "girl" problem. Although I tried every combination of characters to see what quotes I'd get.

I'm glad to see all the Guy love! There's nothing wrong with poor ol' Luke, but I really do enjoy Guy's skill set more and he's so damn fast. I also like a lot of his outfits. ^^

I liked using Lloyd, but I ended up using Zelos most of the time, especially when I played Symphonia with my friend.

I also thought the story and development between Asch and Luke was great. I wish they had included more scenes with Asch, but what can ya do~ Not all of the Tales games have the greatest plots, but I do love the series and most installments are usually pretty good. I think Abyss has the best plot out of the ones I've gotten to play so far.

The load times were aggravating when playing from disc... so if you have HD Loader .8b or .8c just install it to the hard drive (if you have one)... the battle load times are at least gone but the world map issue is still there...

But I'm 40 hours in... and so far I liked Tales of Symphonia better... it just flowed a lot better than Abyss... (and the characters were more memorable)

I dunno..I thought guy and is gynophobia was pretty memorable

Guy is the exception... Jade was ok too... but can you honestly say you were interested from the start of Abyss? The real storyline takes 10 or 20 hours to get kick started... Symphonia threw you in knowing at least a little of what was going on and you had a clear idea of an organization that you were against... can't say much about Abyss without spoilers but yeah.

Wow, I'm no longer the only one. Everyone I know says Abyss is better. Abyss is good and all, but Symphonia has better characters, is funnier and there isn't any stupid cutesy annoying animal in it. It's something I'd rather play more than once as well. I also liked the towns and such more. I love Abyss' Free Run though.

don't remind me of those stupid cheagles... good god... "mieu mieu mieu mieu!!!" "DIE BITCH!!!" I think the issue is that a lot of PS2 owners never got the chance to play Symphonia all the way through and really can't compare it without having either a GC or a Wii.... I happened to pick it up right after I got a Wii. I will admit some of the plot twists in Symphonia were extremely predictable but thats not a bad thing at all when the execution is solid.

And lets not forget in Symphonia you often get a choice of going alternate routes in the game... I've not seen a lick of this in Abyss what so ever. Instead you get a choice of : you go here... then you go there... followed by going back there....

I´m approx. 40hrs in Abyss, and after jumping from one old location to another in the last ten hours or so I began wondering if there isn´t another world to explore (think Sylvarant-Tehtealla). This would be a severe backstep from previous parts of the series (even Phantasia had a second world map if I remember correctly). And no summons, wtf? (Got Undine at the casino, but unfortunatly it´s just a weapon, and not even a very good one). Still like the story though.

TotA was a good step into the right direction story-wise. The gameplay was ok, and the graphics had some nice effects too, aside from all the shoddy character models and textures.

Really, I liked this way more than ToS, but the loading times and the world map lagging sucked so much it hurt. And I wonder why the heck it lagged, since it wasn't exactly breathtaking graphically, and there wasn't much going on either.

Playing this game at the moment, and to be honest its my first Tales game I've ever played so I can't really compare it to any of the other tales games even though I'm sure all of them have their great qualities.

I have to say that I am enjoying the game overall, I kind of like games that take a focus on trying to be master collector. Since when I play any rpgs I have to do and collect everything.

I generally always play with Luke all the time, but I do have my favourite teams that I like to use. My most favourite team to use is Luke, Guy, Anise & Tear. Even though I try to use all my characters as evenly as possible.

I do get some of the glitches as well, especially with the overworld music disappearing from time to time, but it doesn't particularly bother me and I can handle the long load times as well.

i just the fact that during the character conversation events they didn't include any voices, I was kind of hoping to because it would of made those events more humorous, but oh well, what can you do.



I do have one question though, if anybody doesn't have any problems answering it. I'm actually up to level 30, and are seeing other party member using the high level fonic artes, I guess in a sense their super moves when they're in overlimit mode, but I've read how to activate lukes, but no matter how many times I try it, i can't seem to get the timing right, I know you have to perform a fonic arte move in overlimit mode, and hold down the x button for 5 seconds at the end of the of the fonic arte. I've tried it several times but I still can't get it to work, so any help with this would be greatly appreciative.

Once your overlimit gauge is full, press R2 to activate overlimit. While in OL, use a high arte (they have different icons) and hold down the X button. The Mystic Arte should then activate. If that doesn't work, I don't know what the problem is.

you must have learned the "special" AD skill the be able to do a mystic art.