[PS2] Tales of The Abyss

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.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Just learned how to make an Elven bow.

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

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

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.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

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.

Spoiler:

I personally prefer Luke before he cuts his hair. He may have been obnoxious but at least he wasn't a pussy.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Metal Sphere

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.

That's because there was obviously more than 4 houses in each city.

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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.

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.

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Too bad the Albiore debris dodging is made out of sex and awesome, even if it is 3D, heh.

Oh, yeah, the other animated cutscenes were great too, they just didn't have any characters or dialogue.

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Spoiler:

Silence before I put up the long haired She-Luke I found on 4chan. The hideous personality only made him even worse with his hair long. Though I agree he got kind of bland after that, needed more fire.

Spoiler:

Not so much bland as suicidal and emo. The arrogance was a great character trait compared to him responding to every insult with "you're right." Short-haired Luke looked like a dyke too. The only personality problems with the long-haired one was him whining all the time, which was pretty understandable for his character, and a lot easier to put up with.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Metal Sphere

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.

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.

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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.

It's not actual sarcasm, just a weird, innapropriate tone in their voices.

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Listen to Tear say "Goodbye, my beloved brother." There's a certain tone in her voice that makes it seem very unrealistic, and it exists in a lot of her dialogue. Maybe it's just me who notices it though.

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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.

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.

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Spoiler:

That's not the only flaw he had, though it's possible it's the only one you consider to be a flaw. Luke was literally an amalgam of the worst in a person, so much so that it almost became comical. I agree that Luke before was a much more realistic/rounded character since his good points really shown but he wasn't some completely unbalanced "bearer of light". If post-Akzeriuth Luke had kept a few more of those flaws and the good points about his early self, it would've made a world of difference.

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His whining and poor judgement were the only real problems. Arrogance isn't a huge flaw in protagonists and he had a nicer side as well.

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Now, to ruin your New Year's Eve:



Post-Luke is a dyke? Well that must make pre-Luke femme.

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

FELIPE NO