Tales of the Abyss Review

Tales fans in the West have been waiting a while for the next title in the series and after the disappointment of seeing another Tales title release only in Japan, they’ve only become more restless. Showing a bit of remorse, Namco Bandai has produced a remake of one of the more notable games in the Tales series, Tales of the Abyss. This classic originally appeared on the PlayStation 2 in 2006 as the series’ eighth title and has made an interesting transition from 2-D to 3-D on the Nintendo 3DS. Although the story is still the same, there are many things that set this remake aside from its PlayStation beginnings, but some of these alterations might be a bit too hard to swallow for die hard fans of the original.

Abyss follows the story of a young prince named Luke Fon Fabre who has spent a good chunk of his life behind the walls of a massive mansion. This lleaves him both naive to the world outside, but also fairly spoilt. After an incident within the mansion, Luke finds himself in a foreign land following the footsteps of a mysterious woman named Tear. Along the way he meets plenty of new friends and enemies who not only take him further and further from his home, but also further from the spoilt prince he once was.

There are plenty of twists and turns within this tale which makes it a very exciting one to follow and Luke’s growth as a character is a fascinating one. Unfortunately though, it takes fairly long for people unfamiliar with Abyss to warm up to Luke as his personality is extremely unpleasant. So, if you can get past his lewd behavior, you may find yourself 30 hours in wondering what the heck is going to happen next.

Compared to the previous Tales titles of its time, Abyss makes a few changes as far as gameplay is concerned. First of all, titles, although they are still around, do not act the same way in Abyss as they do in other titles. By earning titles, a character’s growth is not affected. Instead, titles can help earn you special offers like a free night’s stay at the local inn or health regen boosts. Certain titles are given out after certain cut scenes, but there are a bunch which are hidden and can only really be found by using a guide of some sort. Since they don’t offer much as far as leveling up is concerned, there doesn’t seem to be much of a reason to really go and get them unless you are a completist.

The ‘Ex Gems’ from Tales of Symphonia have been cast out this time and ‘Capacity Cores’ have taken their place. There are 30 types of capacity core in all which offer unique abilities to characters. Depending on what your character’s “role” is, you may find yourself trading the cores around a bit. If you use them enough, you can unlock AD skills which give characters passive in-battle effects which you may turn on and off. There are a bunch of AD skills which could help you beat bosses with ease such as ‘Free Run’ which allows players to move all the way around the battle screen in order to trick enemies. However, many newcomers to the series might find using capacity cores to be a bit too overwhelming. Although it’s not nearly as effective, players can instead choose to frantically run around the screen hacking and slashing.