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ruaki (![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} ruaki) wrote,@ 2006-10-15 12:40:00 |
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ToA Impression
Okay, I'm about thirty hours into the game, so I think I can form a decent enough impression for those of you who still aren't sure if you should play Tales of the Abyss or notwhat is WRONG with you?.
In short, I was right to anticipate this game as much as I did. Yes, there are flaws, but there's so much goodness that it's hardly an issue unless you're the type to be bothered by these flaws.
First up, the story. Basically, it starts off as a kid (Hi, Luke!) who's never really seen the outside world, getting thrust into said outside world and the impending war going on between his country (Kimlasca) and the neighbor (Malkuth). There's intrigue and insane political manuevering, and all Luke cares about is getting home. He's totally spoiled, selfish, and whiny, and I swear, you headdesk over him a lot because he's just that much of a jerk. (But it's actually kind of endearing.) You spend parts of the game trying to get home, then more of it trying to stop the war, before you discover the SEAMY UNDERBELLY of it all. Nasty business, when you're a noble brat who's more worried about his own safety than that of his fellow human beings.
But Luke is aided by a great ensemble of a cast. First there's Tear, the female protagonist, a level-headed, practical girl with the patience of a god and the ability to sing special songs that activate the Seventh Fonon. Then there's Luke's manservant, Guy, a kind, calm swordsman with a hilarious fear of being touched by a woman (but he likes looking at them! honest!). He's hot. =O This is followed by Jade, who is quite possibly the most awesome RPG character ever--cool, dry, and sarcastic to a T, a colonel with killer magic and a reputation for raiding the dead. No srsly, Jade is all sorts of win and awesome and everything he says is solid gold. There's Anise, a young girl that guards the Fon Master Ion, who is pretty concerned with landing herself a rich husband and she loves to tease the boys. And finally, Natalia, Princess of Kimlasca, who is every sort of the haughty noble, but her concern for her people and country is tantamount to even that.
There's other people too... Asch, the extremely angry and bitter young man that ... well, looks rather familiar... and Van, the famous and powerful Commandant of the Oracle Knights, who Luke worships and idolizes and it's really fucking disturbing how much he does... and Ion, the Fon Master who ... quite frankly, gets on my nerves, but I never like the sweet, innocent boy types and the fact that he's a Fon Master apparently means very little in the overly politicized environment of Auldrant, since you spend a lot of the game rescuing him...
With such an awesome cast of characters, the localization team managed to snag together an awesome cast of voice actors. It's been a long time since I've heard a game with voice acting this superb, with a great all-star cast who deliver their lines like they were the ones to make the game. There's a few problem spots here--sadly, Tear's VA sometimes fails to deliver the right emotion for Tear's lines (she's not an 'ice queen' all the time) and Ion and Sync sometimes makes me twitch for the way the VA likes to ... ah, deliver the lines like she was shouting--but gawd. It's great to listen to them. (Yuri! Kirk! Johnny! ♥) Considering the Tales of series' status in Japan as a seiyuu heaven, it's good to see the same status starting to really be applied here in the States with these last couple of games.
Graphics are nice; cel-shaded and anime-esque, with great backgrounds. There's a distinct lack of anti-aliasing, but it's not that bad, and there's some weird slowdown at times on the world map which is pretty wtf. The models are a lot more detailed than Symphonia, and go through cute facial expressions during cut scenes. The skits have a huge variety of faces and expressions--it's terribly sad that the skits aren't voice acted because you miss a lot of the little quirks the faces go through as they deliver their lines. The battles are REALLY REALLY flashy and sparkly--it's so shiny and I love it.
Speaking of battles... ToA was meant to be 'revolutionary' in the Tales of system finally moves to a 3D plane. And it does. Sort of. You have to first learn the skill 'Free Run' in order to run on a 3D plan (instead of linear as normal)--but don't worry, you do get it pretty early--and then you have to hold down the L2 button as you move in order to actually use it. This can be troubling at first--you sit there wondering why you can't run around the enemy--but as you get used to battles, you learn to automatically press the L2 button when you jerk on the analog stick. Still, it can be a pain, and looks like that Tales won't hit the 3D realm of Star Ocean's system just yet... especially since the battles move at a gorgeous frame rate, and the character response is a lot more sensitive and timely than Symphonia or Legendia's. (Especially if you play as Guy. Hoshit. Speed demon.)
Meanwhile, the battles are very similar to Symphonia's--combo linking. The AI for the other three people on your battle team is a bit smart--the game really gave you a lot of options to fully customize how they react in battle. Shit, they even use ITEMS on their own now--although they 'request' before doing so... The magi are fun to play now too--they're all competent fighters as well as magi, and the spells can either be casted on the field (if you anticipate an enemy) or on the enemy itself. And with the inclusion of the ability to create 'Field of Fonons' (FoF), you open up a lot of strategy by playing a magi to your computer's fighters.
Meanwhile, the music is Tales of's best--even the quality is a slight step up than the usual Casio-sounding strums we usually get with this series.
Translation is top-notch; I've only seen a couple of grammar errors (and one fully blank speech bubble, but I guess it's better than BK2's error message) and the dialogue is very natural. I know they probably had a hard time getting some of the speech patterns down from the Japanese to English--Natalia has a very proper way of speaking and Mieu speaks very cutely and Peony, despite being emperor, uses very a common tongue--but you get the idea and it's good. Kudos to Fuzzy and his team!
There are some problem spots though.
The loading times are killer, especially on the world map. It's a huge deterrent to wanting to get attacked on the world map, because the loading is just insane. I thought my game crashed. XD;
The game's somewhat linear and a little fetch-quest-y. I say somewhat because there's a few sidequests you can spoof around with, but you spend a lot of your time trucking from Point A to Point B for Objective B and then back to Point A in order to accomplish Objective A. If the plot didn't keep you gripped as to 'why and how and who and what' then it'd probably be pretty tedious. And it is at first, before everything starts...
Beyond that? Fun and awesome. Yes. This is a great chapter in the Tales of series, and if you didn't have the pleasure of Tales of, then I highly recommend picking up this one just to see what all the fuss is about.
Plus? Hoshit, so many hot, slashy guys. ♥ And the game's only $40.
Okay, I'm about thirty hours into the game, so I think I can form a decent enough impression for those of you who still aren't sure if you should play Tales of the Abyss or not
In short, I was right to anticipate this game as much as I did. Yes, there are flaws, but there's so much goodness that it's hardly an issue unless you're the type to be bothered by these flaws.
First up, the story. Basically, it starts off as a kid (Hi, Luke!) who's never really seen the outside world, getting thrust into said outside world and the impending war going on between his country (Kimlasca) and the neighbor (Malkuth). There's intrigue and insane political manuevering, and all Luke cares about is getting home. He's totally spoiled, selfish, and whiny, and I swear, you headdesk over him a lot because he's just that much of a jerk. (But it's actually kind of endearing.) You spend parts of the game trying to get home, then more of it trying to stop the war, before you discover the SEAMY UNDERBELLY of it all. Nasty business, when you're a noble brat who's more worried about his own safety than that of his fellow human beings.
But Luke is aided by a great ensemble of a cast. First there's Tear, the female protagonist, a level-headed, practical girl with the patience of a god and the ability to sing special songs that activate the Seventh Fonon. Then there's Luke's manservant, Guy, a kind, calm swordsman with a hilarious fear of being touched by a woman (but he likes looking at them! honest!). He's hot. =O This is followed by Jade, who is quite possibly the most awesome RPG character ever--cool, dry, and sarcastic to a T, a colonel with killer magic and a reputation for raiding the dead. No srsly, Jade is all sorts of win and awesome and everything he says is solid gold. There's Anise, a young girl that guards the Fon Master Ion, who is pretty concerned with landing herself a rich husband and she loves to tease the boys. And finally, Natalia, Princess of Kimlasca, who is every sort of the haughty noble, but her concern for her people and country is tantamount to even that.
There's other people too... Asch, the extremely angry and bitter young man that ... well, looks rather familiar... and Van, the famous and powerful Commandant of the Oracle Knights, who Luke worships and idolizes and it's really fucking disturbing how much he does... and Ion, the Fon Master who ... quite frankly, gets on my nerves, but I never like the sweet, innocent boy types and the fact that he's a Fon Master apparently means very little in the overly politicized environment of Auldrant, since you spend a lot of the game rescuing him...
With such an awesome cast of characters, the localization team managed to snag together an awesome cast of voice actors. It's been a long time since I've heard a game with voice acting this superb, with a great all-star cast who deliver their lines like they were the ones to make the game. There's a few problem spots here--sadly, Tear's VA sometimes fails to deliver the right emotion for Tear's lines (she's not an 'ice queen' all the time) and Ion and Sync sometimes makes me twitch for the way the VA likes to ... ah, deliver the lines like she was shouting--but gawd. It's great to listen to them. (Yuri! Kirk! Johnny! ♥) Considering the Tales of series' status in Japan as a seiyuu heaven, it's good to see the same status starting to really be applied here in the States with these last couple of games.
Graphics are nice; cel-shaded and anime-esque, with great backgrounds. There's a distinct lack of anti-aliasing, but it's not that bad, and there's some weird slowdown at times on the world map which is pretty wtf. The models are a lot more detailed than Symphonia, and go through cute facial expressions during cut scenes. The skits have a huge variety of faces and expressions--it's terribly sad that the skits aren't voice acted because you miss a lot of the little quirks the faces go through as they deliver their lines. The battles are REALLY REALLY flashy and sparkly--it's so shiny and I love it.
Speaking of battles... ToA was meant to be 'revolutionary' in the Tales of system finally moves to a 3D plane. And it does. Sort of. You have to first learn the skill 'Free Run' in order to run on a 3D plan (instead of linear as normal)--but don't worry, you do get it pretty early--and then you have to hold down the L2 button as you move in order to actually use it. This can be troubling at first--you sit there wondering why you can't run around the enemy--but as you get used to battles, you learn to automatically press the L2 button when you jerk on the analog stick. Still, it can be a pain, and looks like that Tales won't hit the 3D realm of Star Ocean's system just yet... especially since the battles move at a gorgeous frame rate, and the character response is a lot more sensitive and timely than Symphonia or Legendia's. (Especially if you play as Guy. Hoshit. Speed demon.)
Meanwhile, the battles are very similar to Symphonia's--combo linking. The AI for the other three people on your battle team is a bit smart--the game really gave you a lot of options to fully customize how they react in battle. Shit, they even use ITEMS on their own now--although they 'request' before doing so... The magi are fun to play now too--they're all competent fighters as well as magi, and the spells can either be casted on the field (if you anticipate an enemy) or on the enemy itself. And with the inclusion of the ability to create 'Field of Fonons' (FoF), you open up a lot of strategy by playing a magi to your computer's fighters.
Meanwhile, the music is Tales of's best--even the quality is a slight step up than the usual Casio-sounding strums we usually get with this series.
Translation is top-notch; I've only seen a couple of grammar errors (and one fully blank speech bubble, but I guess it's better than BK2's error message) and the dialogue is very natural. I know they probably had a hard time getting some of the speech patterns down from the Japanese to English--Natalia has a very proper way of speaking and Mieu speaks very cutely and Peony, despite being emperor, uses very a common tongue--but you get the idea and it's good. Kudos to Fuzzy and his team!
There are some problem spots though.
The loading times are killer, especially on the world map. It's a huge deterrent to wanting to get attacked on the world map, because the loading is just insane. I thought my game crashed. XD;
The game's somewhat linear and a little fetch-quest-y. I say somewhat because there's a few sidequests you can spoof around with, but you spend a lot of your time trucking from Point A to Point B for Objective B and then back to Point A in order to accomplish Objective A. If the plot didn't keep you gripped as to 'why and how and who and what' then it'd probably be pretty tedious. And it is at first, before everything starts...
Beyond that? Fun and awesome. Yes. This is a great chapter in the Tales of series, and if you didn't have the pleasure of Tales of, then I highly recommend picking up this one just to see what all the fuss is about.
Plus? Hoshit, so many hot, slashy guys. ♥ And the game's only $40.
