Tales of a Review

A remake I gladly welcome in the “Tales” serie, Tales of the Abyss is a remake of a PS2 game. I gladly accept these remakes as most time, the original versions are ridiculously hard to get or crazy expensive.

With few notable differences between the two versions the first being the PS2 had multiplayer capabilities while the 3DS doesn’t. The 3DS however has the 3D feature and uses the touch screen for the Artes shortcuts and map while on the field. Another slight difference are the resolutions, the 3DS uses lower poly count models, but the game is also native widescreen on the 3DS as compared to the PS2′s letterbox. If you played the PS2 version, you don’t need to play the 3DS version for more story or variations on the story.

With most Tales games having a tendency to have tutorials that are way too long, this one keeps it short and sweet and on a need to know basis, they don’t try to teach you the whole game and rather just show you how whenever the skills become available.

Another good thing about this game is the short intro, a lot of RPGs from that era (Xenosaga to name one) and even some on PS3 (FF XIII is a perfect example) would drag the intro story on and on and on with cutscene after cutscene, forcing story down your throat every inch of the way where as this one slowly delivers it, leaving it open at the start for more development as it goes along. The characters as well still get enough development through the party chat interactions.

The overworld travel system is pretty generic but at least the spawns are easily visible and avoidable if you don’t want to do excessive grinding. My biggest problem with the overworld is the circle pad movement feels stiff, it needs to be pushed to the edge to run unlike towns and fights.

The sub area “dungeons” have little puzzles which gives them a small challenge but can get kind of boring, the annoying part is having to burn things as you go because you need to use the character named Mieu which has the most irritatingly cute voice ever and each time he spits a fireball you either hear “Mieu!” or “Fire!” which I feel you need to be able to mute.

As far as the battle system goes it’s the same bread and butter of the Tales franchise, sidescroller 3D environment with basic attacks mapped to one button, changing actions depending on the direction pressed on the circle pad while initiating the attack, same goes for special abilities. Each character has their own set of weapons and skills, so it gives you the chance to pick one that suits your style.

The final verdict for this remake is:

8 out of 10 if I could mute Mieu’s voice.
7 out of 10 otherwise.

And here’s a TL;DR for the lazy readers:

The Pros

Touch screen shortcut for Artes in battle.
3D effects is noticable, not an afterthought.
The “Tales” party chat system is always appreciated.

The Cons

The FPS drops during the party chat.
There’s loading on a cartridge.
Mieu’s voice.

All said, I’m glad Namco’s giving a chance to the “Tales” serie in North America, bringing this remake and Tales of Grace F on PS3 next month, which I’ll also review so stay tuned.