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Rating: 
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I picked up this game for 30 bucks at a Gamestop in the mall. At first I had my doubts but I was surprised. Let's get started.
I'll start by looking at different factors of the game and grading them.
Gameplay: 8/10
The gameplay for Tales of the Abyss is exceptionally fun and pretty easy to learn. You are not stuck with using any characters as long as you have them in your party, with only a couple of story-triggered exceptions.
I was not used to the new battle system but even so, it didn't take long to master. You can control your allies in battle, what they should do, and if you're worried, you can just make them do whatever you want them to, regardless. You can also change the battle formation of your characters. It's easy to assign Strike Artes as Luke for the controls and easy to actually execute them.
Story: 10/10
This story is full of excitement, a little romance, drama and mysteries, not to mention interesting characters. There was not a moment that I can remember being bored while playing this game. A lot is resolved during the game's plot and if not, replaying the game and doing a sidequest might answer any unsolved questions the player might have.
Graphics: 7/10
For a 2005 game, this game is not bad. The graphics are not horrible but they are not formidable with say Tales of Vesperia. The graphics are more realistic than Tales of Symphonia's graphics, which is something that I liked. I often saw blurry blades of grass and textures of trees while playing the game that disappointed me but as I said, this is a game published in the year 2005 and developed even earlier than that. The graphics are decent and allow you to enjoy the game.
Music: 8/10
Well, I love a couple of the epic instrumentals this game has and I love "Karma" by Bump of Chicken and its many versions. Other than that, though, there is nothing too exceptional about Tales of the Abyss's sound track.
Voice Acting: 9/10
The English voiceacting was very well done, in my opinion. I give it a 9/10 because there is always room for improvement but everyone had a remarkably good voice that suited their roles. I found myself searching for voice acted cutscenes on purpose. I usually don't like English voices but even Mieu won me over.
Replay Value: 9/10
There are many sidequests, I have heard, for this game. I have also seen people play this game as many as 5 times. That speaks for itself.
Rating: 
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I am a fan of the Tales series (tales of Symphonia on GC) and this is a great update to the series. The battle system is the first great update. In the GC game you were only able to focus on one player at a time, even though most of the time you play with a team of four and its a 2 player game. In Abyss the camera pans to the players that you are using, not just Player one. The fighting controls are basically the same but elements are added in this game such as Fire and Wind. Abilities are upgradeable also. Beyond the battle system, the storyline is a bit confusing and hard to follow at first, (kind of like the Harry Potter series if you only saw the movies) but the more you learn the easier it gets. The CG animation are worth the effort of getting though the game and the games' characters are complex, fun and interesting.
This is a must have for any RPG fan, young and old. You will enjoy it more with 2 players. Great game.
Rating: -
Thanks for such great service. Item was well packed and shipped quickly. I will be back!
Rating: -
After quitting this game in disgust, I later picked up it to become entirely engrossed. What happened?
I started this game off with high hopes, as my first foray into the Tales of series, and found myself dumping the game about a third of the way into it. I'm very sensitive to poor acting, and the voice actors are utterly intolerable in this game. There really is no reason for Saturday morning cartoon-level acting like this. It cheapens the emotion impact of the dialogue and is offensive to players with matured taste in drama and narrative.
As the story progressed, I had no issue with the system or combat engine, it's nothing shockingly new, but I found it solid and enjoyable. The auto feature is fairly nice for money and EXP farming purposes. However, I was extremely disappointed with the main character--he seems intolerable. I also found the written dialogue slightly more than "kiddy fare" and was extremely tempted to buy the import to see if it was any less inane in Japanese than English. I frequently will give a game a break if I find it suffers from shabby translation, but in this case I didn't feel like spending the cash, and set the game aside where it sat on my shelf. I was extremely disappointed after having been so fascinated by the character designs and the game play.
However, I picked it up an honest year later and simply just fell in love. After a while, the character developement speeds along and you end up with a drastically different person on your hands than you started with. The rest of the cast fleshes out equally well and eventually become amusing and endearing. The world may not be as deep or complex as some more infamous RPG titles, but it's a fun ride most of the way through. The dialouge gets a mite less 4th-grade-reading-level, but I would qualify my recommendation by saying it never fully approaches an adult or mature level of sophistication. But for the range it aims at, it's awfully fun. You just have to tough it out for a good half of the way before you realize you've got a little gem on your hands.
Most folks, even RPG nuts, aren't going to want to do that, though.
And for the record, the Japanese spoken dialogue is a little corny, too. I'm playing through in Japanese and enjoying myself immensely. Luke sounds a little too fruity for his own good... go have a listen on YouTube.
Rating: 
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This game has poor graphics. The storyline, dialog, and voice acting are all very lame. The music is unremarkable. The gameplay, while fast paced, I found mundane.
This game is a hybrid of sorts between an adventure game with JRPG cliches and a fighting game such as Street Fighter or King of Fighters. The fighting game aspect is really like a poorly made fighting game, though. It features gameplay from both adventure games and fighting games, but excels at neither. Tales of Legendia has this same problem.
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