Tales of the Abyss - End Game Personal Review
Tales of the Abyss
テイルズ オブ ジ アビス
This is more of a personal game review. Please read other resources (IGN, Gamespot) for a more comprehensive game review.
BASIC GAME INFO
System: PS2
Release Date:
December 15, 2005 (Japan release)
October 10, 2006 (North American release)
Publisher: Namco Bandai
Developer: Namco Tales Studio
生まれた意味を知るRPG (Umareta imi o shiru RPG)
RPG to Discover the Meaning of Birth
Note: each Tales game has a phrase that characterizes its story, the above is the one for Abyss. Japan uses this phrase in the game’s CMs (commercials) and advertisement for the game.
Tales of Symphonia's is - 君と響きあう RPG (romaji: Kimi to hibiki au RPG / translation: To Resonate With You RPG)
Example: テイルズシリーズCM集2
Time: 4:29 - TotA CMs
This game is special because it celebrates Tales 10th anniversary. In Japan, this game was released exactly 10 years after the first Tales Game, Tales of Phantasia was released in 1995 (same day) for SNES. In 2010, it was Tales' 15th anniversary!! It's been a while, right?
CHARACTERS
Luke (17), Tear (16), Jade (35), Anise (13), Guy (21), Natalia (18)
LUKE: seiyuu: Suzuki Chihiro / voice actor: Yuri Lowenthal
TEAR: seiyuu: Yukana / voice actress: (unknown)
JADE: seiyuu: Koyasu Takehito / voice actor: Kirk Thornton
ANISE: seiyuu: Momoi Haruko / voice actress: Jolie Jackson
GUY: seiyuu: Matsumoto Yasunori / voice actor: Johnny Yong Bosch
NATALIA: seiyuu: Neya Michiko / voice actress: Stephanie Sheh
(surprisingly, I think BOTH JPN and ENG voices are brilliant!!) I think this is the area that made me attached to this game the most. Abyss is one of the few games where I ended up like ALL of the main playable characters enough to use all of them in the battles (there are 6 main PCs - playable characters). I don’t feel this way toward most games (even FF7 and FF8 - I almost never used Irvine or Selphie from FF8 and Vincent or Cait Sith in FF7). I can’t even remember the last game I had this exact feeling as I do for Abyss. It’s natural that you use certain characters more than others for fights, but this game, I was okay to use any character. At first, I didn’t like Natalia and Anise too much but in time they grew on me and they also became important people that were part of the main plot.
Tales series has a way of making you see the antagonists’ point of view really well. It’s so good that sometimes you might even like the antagonist characters more than the protagonist characters. This was the case for me for Arietta vs. Anise.
A little bit about favourites: My favourite characters obviously became Jade Curtiss (a colonel of the Malkuth military) and Guy Cecil (servant of Luke, but he keeps many secrets of who he really is). Jade is sarcastically really funny and it adds so much fun to the script. Too bad he is a very cold human being. Jade is the main Fonic Artes (magic) user in the group with lances as his weapon. This is an awesome combination! Guy is kind of like a ladies’ man but not really because he’s just a natural sweet talker. However, it’s interesting since he has a phobia of women because of his past. He still likes women but he doesn’t want them being so close to him. His incidents also bring hilarious moments to the game.
Mieu (the little blue and white creature) was also a nice addition to the game’s cuteness. He contributes to some of the game’s hilarious moments as well. So were the rappigs (they serve as people’s pets in the game sometimes, aside from cats and dogs). The rappigs were much cuter in the game than in the anime version of Abyss. The rappigs in the game were bigger and round almost. They cannot be picked up and held in one’s arms like it was shown in the anime version. I love games with field actions available, such as jumping. This game doesn’t have jumping on the field available, but it has Mieu Fire and Mieu attack. Of course, sometimes it brought grief because of the camera angle and the aim is not exactly the best (i.e. Mt Roneal’s incident where you have to shoot fire and light up all these candles by bouncing them off mirrors - that took me like 5-10 minutes ~_~).
The Luke/Tear and Asch/Natalia pairing were very sweet… more like very bittersweet. I have to say the romance part of Abyss’ story was much deeper than Symphonia. The interactions between Jade and Dist are very funny, so is the rivalry between elderly people - Belkend’s researchers Hencken & Cathy’s group (Class I) and Sheridan’s researchers Iemon & Tamara’s group (Class M).DESIGN
Character Designer: Kōsuke Fujishima (藤島 康介)
Something I’d like to comment are the design of the towns. They are utterly beautiful! Especially the capitals of the two main powers of the world.
Grand Chokmah - capital of Malkuth, is a city fortress floating on water.
The main theme of Malkuth is water and their main colour is blue.
Their opposing country is Kimlasca-Lanvaldear - its capital is Baticul.
It’s a city making use of height so there are strong winds where it’s located. Their main colour is red.
Both cities are designed in such a way that you would love both. I have to say Eldrant has a very beautiful design too! Too bad it’s the last dungeon. Upon knowing the character designer of Abyss is the same as the one for Phantasia and Symphonia, I was little shocked! Granted I had played part of Phantasia but never finished it and I really loved Symphonia’s characters and story. Out of all the Tales series, I was first attracted to characters of Phantasia, Symphonia, and Abyss. Now I kind of know why! Mutsumi Inomata (いのまたむつみ) was the other Tales series’ character designer who designed Destiny and Destiny2’s characters. Again I always admire how designers make up a whole different language just for their story. In Abyss, it features the regular every day used Fonic language and the Ancient Ispanian language, it’s comparable to Latin. Some of the characters’ names have meanings in Ancient Ispanian. For example: “Luke” is light of the sacred flame in Ancient Ispanian.STORY / PLOT
To tell the truth, I was biased because I really loved Symphonia’s story. I didn’t think Abyss’ story would be nearly as good as Symphonia (its predecessor, released in 2003/2004), however it proved me wrong! It’s true that I still liked Symphonia’s story more but Abyss’ story was good in its own way. It’s not too attractive in the beginning but it definitely keeps you playing to find out more. Surprisingly, I knew Ar Tonelico 3’s story before I knew the overall plot of Abyss’ story. (I put off playing this game way too long. It’s 2011 and it was released 2006) Abyss - like Ar Tonelico 3 has a backbone story regarding saving the actual planet itself from destruction, also seen in FF7. Japanese game designers love this theme don’t they?MUSIC
Main soundtrack composers:
Primary - Motoi Sakuraba (桜庭 統) and
Secondary - Shinji Tamura (田村 信二)
Main theme song composer: Motoo Fujiwara (藤原 基央)
- composer of “karma” by BUMP OF CHICKEN
- composer of “Fuka”「譜歌」(Tear’s fonic hymns sung by Yukana)
- composer of “Abyss” - Disc 1 Track 1, new game main screen theme
I don’t have to mention again how Karma is such a good theme song for this game sung by BUMP OF CHICKEN. The Japanese lyrics accurately describe one of the main conflicts of the game (Luke and Asch) in an analogy of marbles. See RPGFan's review to hear samples.
Tracks that really left an impression on me throughout the game:
Disc 1 Track 08 - Wedge (travelling on the world map with Tartarus)
Disc 1 Track 18 - Awkward justice (certain special boss’ battle theme)
Disc 2 Track 01 - The Royal City of Light (Baticul - town theme)
Disc 2 Track 23 - Guilt, duty and... (world map theme 2)
Disc 4 Track 01 - The last chapter (world map theme 3)
Disc 4 Track 06 - At the time of farewell (one important boss’ battle theme)
Disc 4 Track 18 - Meaning of birth (one important boss’ battle theme)
Disc 4 Track 20 - Crimson pride (Last dungeon theme 2)GAMEPLAY
Sorry, I have to compare gameplay to past RPGs I liked which obviously is Final Fantasy. Tales series has more of a dynamic game play that is more attractive than traditional FF for the hard core gamers. Every battle is less routine since it has potential to be different depending on your actions. FF gameplay has recently taken more of a dynamic route as seen in for example through Kingdom Hearts but KH is much more 3D and dynamic than Tales series. Abyss is actually one of the first game in the Tales series to use a more 3D approach in terms of controls. Symphonia is the first Tales game where the battle is “3D”. Previous games in the Tales series had been linear range (meaning you can just move forward or backward which is essentially left or right). Starting with Abyss through the use of AD Skill “Free Run”, you can go past linear boundaries. This means you can run in a circle through the button controls. However, if you don’t use “free run”, battle will still be linear.
It retains its grade system. It is a point system that judges how well your battle was fought through how much damage you sustained and blocked, how much damage you dealt to the enemy, and if any special attacks were used. That’s why it was less routine than FF for example. I read that the grade system was implemented later, starting from Tales of Destiny 2 [2002]. This means Phantasia [1995], Destiny [1997], Eternia [2000] didn’t have the grade system at first. Of course some of the older games have been remade, like Phantasia was remade 3 times (for GBA, PSX, PSP). Destiny was remade to be 3D for PS2. Eternia was remade for PSP. Destiny 2 was remade for PSP.
I really like how you can somewhat control all characters by bringing up the menu during battle. You can make other characters cast spells while you take on the offensive and lure enemies to attack you instead of them attacking your spell casters. This is similar to the Mana series gameplay in a way. There is also no bar to dictate which character takes action next. So it is truly a ‘free for all’. In this way, if compared to gameplay from Square Enix’s Star Ocean Till the End of Time, which uses another 3D dynamic battle system, you are not limited by stamina. It’s not as realistic, but I think it’s more enjoyable.
Skits obviously are a great part of the Tales tradition. It’s basically conversations between the party members regarding certain topics. This is where most of the funny conversations take place. Examples are who is the worst cook, how certain characters feel toward this enemy, and such.
I think the only sad part of Abyss was there were NO summon spirits involved during gameplay, which is a shame… I am definitely a fan of summon spirits!! Summon spirit names are mentioned in Abyss only through the days of the week and months of the year (much like how the Mana series used the summon spirit names). Other than Lorelei, of course which is very important to the game plot. Elemental attributes are described as First to the Sixth Fonons. I had such a hard time remember which number was what…
- Shadow, the aggregate sentience of the First Fonon, the Fonon of Darkness.
- Gnome, the aggregate sentience of the Second Fonon, the Fonon of Earth.
- Sylph, the aggregate sentience of the Third Fonon, the Fonon of Wind.
- Undine, the aggregate sentience of the Fourth Fonon, the Fonon of Water.
- Efreet, the aggregate sentience of the Fifth Fonon, the Fonon of Fire.
- Rem, the aggregate sentience of the Sixth Fonon, the Fonon of Light.
- Lorelei, the aggregate sentience of the Seventh Fonon, the Fonon of Sound.
COSTUMES and titles!!! This is one of the coolest part about the Tales gameplay!! Unlike FF games, you can change your on screen character look by either equipping a title/costume for a character. In Abyss though, the titles aren't very useful as much as let's say ToS' titles from what I read. You can change the onscreen character any time you wish (and costumes too out of battle).ENDING
As each story needs a good beginning, a good ending is also important to leave an impression on the viewer. It’s not that the ending of TotA is bad… but it is not conclusive but enough I suppose. All Tales series endings I remember seem to be this way… (ToD2, ToS)ANIME ADAPTATION
Release Date Period: October 3, 2008 to March 27, 2009 Number of Episodes: 26 It's quite shocking... After watching Tales of Eternia: The Animation (13eps), Tales of Phantasia: The Animation (OVA - 4eps), Tales of Symphonia: The Animation (2 sets of OVA) and being let down EACH time pretty much but I still watch it for some reason, I'm happy to say this anime was actually done quite well (for a game to anime port)! Of course the game was better... but the anime took the best parts of the game really well. They left out some good things but it is for the best in a 26 ep series. I definitely recommend people who are interested in the game to watch the anime. The main plot is illustrated fully in the anime (minus General Frings' & General Cecille's storyin my opinion plus those misc side stories).EXTRA MISCELLANEOUS COMMENTS
- I love how there are 3 different normal battle themes - I also love how there are 3 different world map themes depending on your point in the story - they did a great job freaking me out with some dungeon music "Coral Castle", "Abandoned Factory", "Qliphoth", and "Feres Island". It's freaky, but it fits the locations somewhat well. - isn't it cool how Jade never has to carry a weapon around? His lance/spear just materializes when he needs to attack. - I totally didn't know Jade specialized in autopsies (basically a coroner) until a certain sidequest. Why is he such a genius? - I can't help this one...
please enjoy my most favourite and hilarious skit in the entire game: Skit #322 "Keeping Cool" (triggered in Mt. Zaleho - volcano dungeon in the game)
Luke: ...Every time we go someplace hot like this, I always wonder
Luke: if Jade's using some kind of fonic arte to keep himself cool.
Natalia: Yes, I get the same feeling. Mieu: That's not fair...
Jade: Oh, please. There's no way I could use fonic artes that precisely.
Guy: No...there has to be some secret to it...Maybe in those clothes...?
Natalia: Yes, Malkuth could easily have invented air-conditioned uniforms..
Luke: ...Take it off.
Jade: What?
Guy: Yeah, take it off.
Natalia: Yes, remove it right now!
Mieu: Take...it...off!
Jade: C-calm down,you... Wh-what are you...?!
Tear: ...I can't believe you're trying to undress a soldier in his thirties! How could you?!
All: Huh?! ....... Jade: *blush*Will add more as I think of more...First time beating Final Boss: 2011 Jan 27 Thu
Major misses for 1st playthrough: missed aspects of Tear's sidequest, so couldn't get "Locrian Colonel" title+costume.
Sorry didn't keep a record of when I beat the game but I can still beat it probably using what I currently have too: Very bad stats, but just for my own reference:
(as of Feb 6) Luke - Lv 71, Tear - Lv 70, Jade - Lv 70 Anise - Lv 68, Guy - Lv 70, Natalia - Lv 68
Total Play Time: 113h 42m 27s
Skits viewed: 413 / 489
Avg. Battle Time: 34s
Total Encounters: 841
Total Escapes: 16
Max. Number of Hits: 46hit
Max. Damage: 30515
Max. Grade: 13.05
Character Use: Luke: 73% Tear: 59% Jade: 71% Anise: 56% Guy: 72% Natalia: 43% Asch: 1%
Fastest Win: 1s
Time w/o Damage: 3m 16s
Still continuing to play... need to grade farm, learn more AD Skills, "attempt" fighting Advanced Single coliseum matches, improve cooking levels for each character, and beat Nebilim (maybe make more of Din's shop stuff to complete Collector's Book). Still trying to level up to beat Nebilim on Normal mode and steal C.Core: Tutti. Can you imagine fighting her in Very Hard or unknown mode to get the "Tactical Leader" title+costume for Luke in the 2nd playthrough? *shivers*
テイルズ オブ ジ アビス
This is more of a personal game review. Please read other resources (IGN, Gamespot) for a more comprehensive game review.
BASIC GAME INFO
System: PS2
Release Date:
December 15, 2005 (Japan release)
October 10, 2006 (North American release)
Publisher: Namco Bandai
Developer: Namco Tales Studio
生まれた意味を知るRPG (Umareta imi o shiru RPG)
RPG to Discover the Meaning of Birth
Note: each Tales game has a phrase that characterizes its story, the above is the one for Abyss. Japan uses this phrase in the game’s CMs (commercials) and advertisement for the game.
Tales of Symphonia's is - 君と響きあう RPG (romaji: Kimi to hibiki au RPG / translation: To Resonate With You RPG)
Example: テイルズシリーズCM集2
Time: 4:29 - TotA CMs
This game is special because it celebrates Tales 10th anniversary. In Japan, this game was released exactly 10 years after the first Tales Game, Tales of Phantasia was released in 1995 (same day) for SNES. In 2010, it was Tales' 15th anniversary!! It's been a while, right?
CHARACTERS
Luke (17), Tear (16), Jade (35), Anise (13), Guy (21), Natalia (18)
LUKE: seiyuu: Suzuki Chihiro / voice actor: Yuri Lowenthal
TEAR: seiyuu: Yukana / voice actress: (unknown)
JADE: seiyuu: Koyasu Takehito / voice actor: Kirk Thornton
ANISE: seiyuu: Momoi Haruko / voice actress: Jolie Jackson
GUY: seiyuu: Matsumoto Yasunori / voice actor: Johnny Yong Bosch
NATALIA: seiyuu: Neya Michiko / voice actress: Stephanie Sheh
(surprisingly, I think BOTH JPN and ENG voices are brilliant!!) I think this is the area that made me attached to this game the most. Abyss is one of the few games where I ended up like ALL of the main playable characters enough to use all of them in the battles (there are 6 main PCs - playable characters). I don’t feel this way toward most games (even FF7 and FF8 - I almost never used Irvine or Selphie from FF8 and Vincent or Cait Sith in FF7). I can’t even remember the last game I had this exact feeling as I do for Abyss. It’s natural that you use certain characters more than others for fights, but this game, I was okay to use any character. At first, I didn’t like Natalia and Anise too much but in time they grew on me and they also became important people that were part of the main plot.
Tales series has a way of making you see the antagonists’ point of view really well. It’s so good that sometimes you might even like the antagonist characters more than the protagonist characters. This was the case for me for Arietta vs. Anise.
A little bit about favourites: My favourite characters obviously became Jade Curtiss (a colonel of the Malkuth military) and Guy Cecil (servant of Luke, but he keeps many secrets of who he really is). Jade is sarcastically really funny and it adds so much fun to the script. Too bad he is a very cold human being. Jade is the main Fonic Artes (magic) user in the group with lances as his weapon. This is an awesome combination! Guy is kind of like a ladies’ man but not really because he’s just a natural sweet talker. However, it’s interesting since he has a phobia of women because of his past. He still likes women but he doesn’t want them being so close to him. His incidents also bring hilarious moments to the game.
Mieu (the little blue and white creature) was also a nice addition to the game’s cuteness. He contributes to some of the game’s hilarious moments as well. So were the rappigs (they serve as people’s pets in the game sometimes, aside from cats and dogs). The rappigs were much cuter in the game than in the anime version of Abyss. The rappigs in the game were bigger and round almost. They cannot be picked up and held in one’s arms like it was shown in the anime version. I love games with field actions available, such as jumping. This game doesn’t have jumping on the field available, but it has Mieu Fire and Mieu attack. Of course, sometimes it brought grief because of the camera angle and the aim is not exactly the best (i.e. Mt Roneal’s incident where you have to shoot fire and light up all these candles by bouncing them off mirrors - that took me like 5-10 minutes ~_~).
The Luke/Tear and Asch/Natalia pairing were very sweet… more like very bittersweet. I have to say the romance part of Abyss’ story was much deeper than Symphonia. The interactions between Jade and Dist are very funny, so is the rivalry between elderly people - Belkend’s researchers Hencken & Cathy’s group (Class I) and Sheridan’s researchers Iemon & Tamara’s group (Class M).DESIGN
Character Designer: Kōsuke Fujishima (藤島 康介)
Something I’d like to comment are the design of the towns. They are utterly beautiful! Especially the capitals of the two main powers of the world.
Grand Chokmah - capital of Malkuth, is a city fortress floating on water.
The main theme of Malkuth is water and their main colour is blue.
Their opposing country is Kimlasca-Lanvaldear - its capital is Baticul.
It’s a city making use of height so there are strong winds where it’s located. Their main colour is red.
Both cities are designed in such a way that you would love both. I have to say Eldrant has a very beautiful design too! Too bad it’s the last dungeon. Upon knowing the character designer of Abyss is the same as the one for Phantasia and Symphonia, I was little shocked! Granted I had played part of Phantasia but never finished it and I really loved Symphonia’s characters and story. Out of all the Tales series, I was first attracted to characters of Phantasia, Symphonia, and Abyss. Now I kind of know why! Mutsumi Inomata (いのまたむつみ) was the other Tales series’ character designer who designed Destiny and Destiny2’s characters. Again I always admire how designers make up a whole different language just for their story. In Abyss, it features the regular every day used Fonic language and the Ancient Ispanian language, it’s comparable to Latin. Some of the characters’ names have meanings in Ancient Ispanian. For example: “Luke” is light of the sacred flame in Ancient Ispanian.STORY / PLOT
To tell the truth, I was biased because I really loved Symphonia’s story. I didn’t think Abyss’ story would be nearly as good as Symphonia (its predecessor, released in 2003/2004), however it proved me wrong! It’s true that I still liked Symphonia’s story more but Abyss’ story was good in its own way. It’s not too attractive in the beginning but it definitely keeps you playing to find out more. Surprisingly, I knew Ar Tonelico 3’s story before I knew the overall plot of Abyss’ story. (I put off playing this game way too long. It’s 2011 and it was released 2006) Abyss - like Ar Tonelico 3 has a backbone story regarding saving the actual planet itself from destruction, also seen in FF7. Japanese game designers love this theme don’t they?MUSIC
Main soundtrack composers:
Primary - Motoi Sakuraba (桜庭 統) and
Secondary - Shinji Tamura (田村 信二)
Main theme song composer: Motoo Fujiwara (藤原 基央)
- composer of “karma” by BUMP OF CHICKEN
- composer of “Fuka”「譜歌」(Tear’s fonic hymns sung by Yukana)
- composer of “Abyss” - Disc 1 Track 1, new game main screen theme
I don’t have to mention again how Karma is such a good theme song for this game sung by BUMP OF CHICKEN. The Japanese lyrics accurately describe one of the main conflicts of the game (Luke and Asch) in an analogy of marbles. See RPGFan's review to hear samples.
Tracks that really left an impression on me throughout the game:
Disc 1 Track 08 - Wedge (travelling on the world map with Tartarus)
Disc 1 Track 18 - Awkward justice (certain special boss’ battle theme)
Disc 2 Track 01 - The Royal City of Light (Baticul - town theme)
Disc 2 Track 23 - Guilt, duty and... (world map theme 2)
Disc 4 Track 01 - The last chapter (world map theme 3)
Disc 4 Track 06 - At the time of farewell (one important boss’ battle theme)
Disc 4 Track 18 - Meaning of birth (one important boss’ battle theme)
Disc 4 Track 20 - Crimson pride (Last dungeon theme 2)GAMEPLAY
Sorry, I have to compare gameplay to past RPGs I liked which obviously is Final Fantasy. Tales series has more of a dynamic game play that is more attractive than traditional FF for the hard core gamers. Every battle is less routine since it has potential to be different depending on your actions. FF gameplay has recently taken more of a dynamic route as seen in for example through Kingdom Hearts but KH is much more 3D and dynamic than Tales series. Abyss is actually one of the first game in the Tales series to use a more 3D approach in terms of controls. Symphonia is the first Tales game where the battle is “3D”. Previous games in the Tales series had been linear range (meaning you can just move forward or backward which is essentially left or right). Starting with Abyss through the use of AD Skill “Free Run”, you can go past linear boundaries. This means you can run in a circle through the button controls. However, if you don’t use “free run”, battle will still be linear.
It retains its grade system. It is a point system that judges how well your battle was fought through how much damage you sustained and blocked, how much damage you dealt to the enemy, and if any special attacks were used. That’s why it was less routine than FF for example. I read that the grade system was implemented later, starting from Tales of Destiny 2 [2002]. This means Phantasia [1995], Destiny [1997], Eternia [2000] didn’t have the grade system at first. Of course some of the older games have been remade, like Phantasia was remade 3 times (for GBA, PSX, PSP). Destiny was remade to be 3D for PS2. Eternia was remade for PSP. Destiny 2 was remade for PSP.
I really like how you can somewhat control all characters by bringing up the menu during battle. You can make other characters cast spells while you take on the offensive and lure enemies to attack you instead of them attacking your spell casters. This is similar to the Mana series gameplay in a way. There is also no bar to dictate which character takes action next. So it is truly a ‘free for all’. In this way, if compared to gameplay from Square Enix’s Star Ocean Till the End of Time, which uses another 3D dynamic battle system, you are not limited by stamina. It’s not as realistic, but I think it’s more enjoyable.
Skits obviously are a great part of the Tales tradition. It’s basically conversations between the party members regarding certain topics. This is where most of the funny conversations take place. Examples are who is the worst cook, how certain characters feel toward this enemy, and such.
I think the only sad part of Abyss was there were NO summon spirits involved during gameplay, which is a shame… I am definitely a fan of summon spirits!! Summon spirit names are mentioned in Abyss only through the days of the week and months of the year (much like how the Mana series used the summon spirit names). Other than Lorelei, of course which is very important to the game plot. Elemental attributes are described as First to the Sixth Fonons. I had such a hard time remember which number was what…
- Shadow, the aggregate sentience of the First Fonon, the Fonon of Darkness.
- Gnome, the aggregate sentience of the Second Fonon, the Fonon of Earth.
- Sylph, the aggregate sentience of the Third Fonon, the Fonon of Wind.
- Undine, the aggregate sentience of the Fourth Fonon, the Fonon of Water.
- Efreet, the aggregate sentience of the Fifth Fonon, the Fonon of Fire.
- Rem, the aggregate sentience of the Sixth Fonon, the Fonon of Light.
- Lorelei, the aggregate sentience of the Seventh Fonon, the Fonon of Sound.
COSTUMES and titles!!! This is one of the coolest part about the Tales gameplay!! Unlike FF games, you can change your on screen character look by either equipping a title/costume for a character. In Abyss though, the titles aren't very useful as much as let's say ToS' titles from what I read. You can change the onscreen character any time you wish (and costumes too out of battle).ENDING
As each story needs a good beginning, a good ending is also important to leave an impression on the viewer. It’s not that the ending of TotA is bad… but it is not conclusive but enough I suppose. All Tales series endings I remember seem to be this way… (ToD2, ToS)ANIME ADAPTATION
Release Date Period: October 3, 2008 to March 27, 2009 Number of Episodes: 26 It's quite shocking... After watching Tales of Eternia: The Animation (13eps), Tales of Phantasia: The Animation (OVA - 4eps), Tales of Symphonia: The Animation (2 sets of OVA) and being let down EACH time pretty much but I still watch it for some reason, I'm happy to say this anime was actually done quite well (for a game to anime port)! Of course the game was better... but the anime took the best parts of the game really well. They left out some good things but it is for the best in a 26 ep series. I definitely recommend people who are interested in the game to watch the anime. The main plot is illustrated fully in the anime (minus General Frings' & General Cecille's storyin my opinion plus those misc side stories).EXTRA MISCELLANEOUS COMMENTS
- I love how there are 3 different normal battle themes - I also love how there are 3 different world map themes depending on your point in the story - they did a great job freaking me out with some dungeon music "Coral Castle", "Abandoned Factory", "Qliphoth", and "Feres Island". It's freaky, but it fits the locations somewhat well. - isn't it cool how Jade never has to carry a weapon around? His lance/spear just materializes when he needs to attack. - I totally didn't know Jade specialized in autopsies (basically a coroner) until a certain sidequest. Why is he such a genius? - I can't help this one...
please enjoy my most favourite and hilarious skit in the entire game: Skit #322 "Keeping Cool" (triggered in Mt. Zaleho - volcano dungeon in the game)
Luke: ...Every time we go someplace hot like this, I always wonder
Luke: if Jade's using some kind of fonic arte to keep himself cool.
Natalia: Yes, I get the same feeling. Mieu: That's not fair...
Jade: Oh, please. There's no way I could use fonic artes that precisely.
Guy: No...there has to be some secret to it...Maybe in those clothes...?
Natalia: Yes, Malkuth could easily have invented air-conditioned uniforms..
Luke: ...Take it off.
Jade: What?
Guy: Yeah, take it off.
Natalia: Yes, remove it right now!
Mieu: Take...it...off!
Jade: C-calm down,you... Wh-what are you...?!
Tear: ...I can't believe you're trying to undress a soldier in his thirties! How could you?!
All: Huh?! ....... Jade: *blush*Will add more as I think of more...First time beating Final Boss: 2011 Jan 27 Thu
Major misses for 1st playthrough: missed aspects of Tear's sidequest, so couldn't get "Locrian Colonel" title+costume.
Sorry didn't keep a record of when I beat the game but I can still beat it probably using what I currently have too: Very bad stats, but just for my own reference:
(as of Feb 6) Luke - Lv 71, Tear - Lv 70, Jade - Lv 70 Anise - Lv 68, Guy - Lv 70, Natalia - Lv 68
Total Play Time: 113h 42m 27s
Skits viewed: 413 / 489
Avg. Battle Time: 34s
Total Encounters: 841
Total Escapes: 16
Max. Number of Hits: 46hit
Max. Damage: 30515
Max. Grade: 13.05
Character Use: Luke: 73% Tear: 59% Jade: 71% Anise: 56% Guy: 72% Natalia: 43% Asch: 1%
Fastest Win: 1s
Time w/o Damage: 3m 16s
Still continuing to play... need to grade farm, learn more AD Skills, "attempt" fighting Advanced Single coliseum matches, improve cooking levels for each character, and beat Nebilim (maybe make more of Din's shop stuff to complete Collector's Book). Still trying to level up to beat Nebilim on Normal mode and steal C.Core: Tutti. Can you imagine fighting her in Very Hard or unknown mode to get the "Tactical Leader" title+costume for Luke in the 2nd playthrough? *shivers*