Tales of the Abyss

I liked Tales of the Abyss. I really did. The character designs are the best in any Tales Of game other than Symphonia, and arguably the development they get is better...and this game doesn't have Regal's stupid little shirt-thing holding it back. But while the characters are some of the most likeable and multifaceted in the JRPG world, within their series or not, the unfortunate fact is that they're in a bloated, overlong, self-important and really rather dull game, and that is why it has taken me very nearly two years to play this game through. So many other 3DS games became the ones I wanted to play, and I ended up only crawling through Abyss when I wanted a long soak in the tub. 

In a bit of a twist on the usual two-worlds theme of Tales Of games, Abyss deals with a fantasy world in which technology has allowed the perfect replication of not only objects but people and even whole countries. The two worlds thus co-exist, but are divided into real and replica. Well, there's also a vast underground segment of the planet that's a little closer to the more typical Tales Of divisions, but that's the less interesting part. Alongside this idea of replication, the central question of Tales of the Abyss is about free will and predetermination: a series of predictions called 'The Score', discovered through study into the elementary particles of sound, have been so accurate that the world of Auldrant essentially adapted so that all human life adheres to it. The story revolves around those who struggle against this predetermined path and the right and wrong ways to resist a higher will. 

Central to it is Luke von Fabre, initially a very irritating, spoilt young man who has the most effective coming-of-age through guilt and angst that I've yet seen in a JRPG, and believe me, they do that bit of plot contrivance a lot. He is barely tolerable initially, but - symbolic hair-cutting and all - eventually becomes an admirable protagonist, if a little whiny around Asch. He is joined by a very colourful cast: the stony but soft-hearted Tear, adorable and precocious little Anise, handsome but detached Guy and of course Jade, the sarcastic and cold-hearted but quite brilliantly cutting scientist who I have to say is the character I've found most uncomfortably like myself in quite some time. The bad guys were also a good mixture of formidable and ridiculous, and I very much liked the Ion/Sync dichotomy. The voice cast, featuring some of the big names of dubbing (for what that's worth), have fun with their roles and often hit just the right notes, and most of the really hammy performances suit their characters, especially with Dist and Natalia, though Mohs really just sounds absurd. Mieu is intended as an incredibly annoying cutesy mascot, and the balance is just right for a character you love to hate. 

Gameplay-wise, the system builds upon Symphonia's layout, adding the ability to move in all directions. It's nicely playable, though I ended up liking to play Anise the most because (a) she was great at keeping a single target pinned and (b) the AI was a bit less terrible at controlling Luke and Guy than the rest. Plus Anise's fighting style is just far more entertaining than the others'. It's not as polished as Tales of Graces F, of course, but it was totally playable. 

And while more or less a straight, lazy port from the PS3, I very much enjoyed playing on the 3DS. A lot more could have been done than adding some shortcuts to the touchscreen, and the fact the anime cutscenes were 2D was a bit of a slap in the face (as was the fact that the skits aren't voiced as they are in the original Japanese version, but that's down to the original port), but the fact that this whole thing could be squeezed onto a cart was brilliant and it was a game I was very happy to see on a portable console. Really puts the suggestion that the whole One Piece game couldn't fit on the cart with extra translation in place into perspective. 

So with all these positives, why did it take so long to play through? And why don't I ever want to go through it again getting all the extras? Well, the fact is that it just drags on for way too long. There's too much plodding back to some city you've been to a dozen times just to trigger the next part, and what feels like the game's natural ending is actually only about two thirds of the way through the story. The last act devolves into a sequential culling of all the antagonists one by one, soon becoming repetitive and uninvolving, and the story itself is just too full of the convoluted jargon of fonons and hyperresonances for the much more interesting personal journeys to come through. Tales of the Abyss commits the cardinal sin of not refining its story enough to keep it gripping, leading to boredom and the feeling of artificial padding. And for a story-led genre like RPGs, that is crucial.