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[Firestorm]

Speaking of dungeons, my favourite dungeon in this game was the one where

Spoiler

everyone was split into groups of two and you controlled all of them at separate points to join them up. The character interactions in the skits of that dungeon were really well done and the puzzles made since. I really enjoyed it.

 

[Sagitario]

Speaking of dungeons, my favourite dungeon in this game was the one where

Spoiler

everyone was split into groups of two and you controlled all of them at separate points to join them up. The character interactions in the skits of that dungeon were really well done and the puzzles made since. I really enjoyed it.

Really great dungeon...

 

[Mejilan]

The worst parts of Abyss were those horrid 'world-map dungeons.'

It's a fairly interesting idea, but when your world map is such awful shit full of slowdown, it's not exactly the best way to go.

Tell me about it. I've cleared the highlands and the marshes already, but now I'm back in the highlands redux. I have it saved in the beginning and have temporarily set the game aside as I wrap up Ys Book I&II on the Wii...

There was that one where there's a boss at the end they tell you is too strong... I fought him anyway, won, and got 0 exp. Stupid game >=(

I did the same thing. What's so utterly stupid about this segment, though, is that when you finally clear the marshes, you get a little cutscene where your characters realize that they CAN hurt it. If, instead of proceeding with the story, you turn right around and hunt down that Behemoth (any of his spawn spots will do), and fight him, you can finally kill it, getting experience, gald, loot, and permanently removing him from the map (all spawn spots).

So stupid that the battle from 5 minutes before didn't count. All because of a dumb cutscene trigger point.

 

[Mejilan]

Well, all of the Sephiroth are dealt with. Now it's time to head to the Absorption Gate. Though I don't suspect for a minute that this is going to be the final battle, the characters all do. Quite a few of these pre-final battle speeches are damn nice.

 

[ZealousD]

Though I don't suspect for a minute that this is going to be the final battle, the characters all do.

This is a Tales game after all.

 

[Mejilan]

There's plenty to suggest otherwise beyond simply recognizing the Tales formula.

 

[dragonlife]

Speaking of dungeons, my favourite dungeon in this game was the one where

Spoiler

everyone was split into groups of two and you controlled all of them at separate points to join them up. The character interactions in the skits of that dungeon were really well done and the puzzles made since. I really enjoyed it.

Hmmm...I don't recall that dungeon for some reason. Where was it?

 

[Jiggy]

I didn't want to post again, but... yeah, Abyss kind of went back to a downward trend with me fairly quickly. Playing stealth games with soldiers in a forest was good, but other than that the latest dungeons have been, well...


Meggiora Highlands - I now see why others hated these dungeons. Team split good, overworld framerate bad. It's a shame, too, because the idea here is cool, but doesn't work with the game engine. At least it only took like six minutes to beat, I guess, though I'm not sure that should be considered a good thing...

Zao Ruins - Again? It came with a few new rooms at the end, but that strikes me as an iffy way to extend game length, especially when I had to run down the entire thing to get there. Not bad, but you really can't appease me with a repeated dungeon.

whatever the marsh was called - I wish I'd noticed Firestorm's earlier post and/or that I'd read Mejilan's before I played through it. I also killed the "unbeatable" monster, without realizing that I could go back for a reward after the cutscene happened. Booooo, as Anise would say. Also, overworld dungeons suck.

Spoiler

Tataroo Valley

- Well, unlike Zao Ruins, this was quite a bit bigger than the last time the party visited (

Spoiler

really just Luke and Tear last time

), but it was another plain dungeon, neither good nor bad. In my last post I was happy about plain dungeons just because I'd finally gotten past a rocky, text-heavy start and deep into the gameplay, but as time goes on, well... Eh, it's like the dungeons are just eye candy. And they're pretty eye candy and great environments, don't get me wrong. But other than that early-game abandoned factory with the oil, they've been so straightforward that there's almost no difference between this and just tossing enemy gauntlets at me.



As for the story, eh, no comment. I stopped paying attention since my eyes would gloss over at all the terminology, but that's alright. All just a matter of skimming to figure out where to go next and because of a certain pet project I have. Battle system is still awesome, though, and pushes me forward. Hopefully things pick back up again.

 

[Firestorm]

Hmmm...I don't recall that dungeon for some reason. Where was it?

It was an important story point I believe. Might have been the

Spoiler

Absorption Gate

. Mejilan might be able to clarify soon.

 

[Mejilan]

Not tonight. I'm party into the Absorption Gate and so far, we're all together. Seems like a fairly large dungeon, by Abyss standards.

 

[MechaX]

Spoiler

Luke is not to blame for anything in the least, and I hate that the rest of the cast has begun treating him like that

.

You'll find that the Abyss cast gets pretty damn hypocritical as you go along (Pretty big spoilers ahead).

Spoiler

Luke decides that he needs to sacrifice his life in order to save the world. The party instead berates Luke, saying stuff like "You shouldn't throw away your life so needlessly!" Tear does the exact damn thing, Luke tries to get her to stop, and the party says "Luke, you need to understand that what Tear is doing is absolutely necessary" while Tear says "If you say I should stop, then I'll hate you forever!".

Example two: Anise does something later in the game that indirectly gets a major character killed and the enemy in an even better position. Instead of treating her like absolute shit like they did with Luke, they forgive her on the spot with lines like "Somebody important told her this; Anise had no choice".

 

[Blackjack]

You'll find that the Abyss cast gets pretty damn hypocritical as you go along (Pretty big spoilers ahead).

Spoiler

Example two: Anise does something later in the game that indirectly gets a major character killed and the enemy in an even better position. Instead of treating her like absolute shit like they did with Luke, they forgive her on the spot with lines like "Somebody important told her this; Anise had no choice".

Spoiler

The reason the team treated Luke like shit was not because of his role in the event -- after all, Ion had a role in the destruction of the town, too, and they all treated him nicely. It was because he refused to take any sort of responsibility, blamed others, and completely denied Van's involvement.

 

[Jiggy]

Alright, I finished the game. In fact, I finished it a few days ago and had started writing up this enormous wall of text... But eh, you know, forget it. In the end, I don't really want to bash Abyss--because I didn't hate it, but I just didn't love it.

There's only one thing I'll still say in paragraph form, which is that when I consider Tear's story arc, her circumstances, and her personality, I can only say that she's written almost as if they were actively trying to combine Celes and Colette into a single person. Except of course that, in the process, they missed literally every character aspect I appreciated about either girl, but instead incorporated nearly every character aspect that I didn't appreciate. Sucks for me.

Anyway... Let me put that aside. Here are my list wars opinions about Abyss.




Major Positives:
1) Allowing all characters to learn all of their possible skills
2) Enormous battlefield
3) Modifying Artes with the FSC system
4) Phenomenal battle system
5) The few long dungeons were great dungeons

Positives:
1) Most of the non-battle music
2) No oversexed characters in terms of their outfits or their personalities (and before you say Anise, my interpretation is that she just wanted the money)

Minor Positives:
1) A select few very exaggerated and/or contradictory characters: early-game-only Split Personality Anise, Dist and his eccentricities, Phobia Mode Guy, early-game-only Mieu Abuser Luke, Princess "mature enough for international diplomacy, but naive enough to believe Van's power comes from his beard" Natalia
2) High-quality presentation
3) Playable casino games, which should be standard in every RPG




Minor Negatives:
1) Mieu
2) Serious thematic tone
3) Very straightforward characters--they're realistic, but I want fantasy (everyone other than those listed above)

Negatives:
1) Boring movesets, other than Guy's
2) Fighting the God-Generals three times each because apparently the characters are too stupid to realize they can't resolve their issues by talking, and so they keep letting them live D:
3) Teleporting back and forth between three or four select towns (Baticul, Daath, Grand Chokmah) about twenty times
4) Very slow start

Major Negatives:
1) Excess number of dungeons so linear they're not much different from enemy gauntlets
2) Loading times
3) Severely questionable pacing with chunks of text followed by chunks of dungeons followed by chunks of text...

don't even have a word to describe how negative this is:

1) Enough obtuse terminology and world history to fill ten games: hyperresonance fonic hymns Yulia's hymns Grand Fonic Hymn Daathic seals fon slot seals Qliphoth Sephiroth Kimlasca-Lanvaldear miasma toxicosis His Imperial Majesty Emperor Peony the Ninth fomicry isofons aggregate sentience of Lorelei Dawn Age fonstones Planet Storm passage rings Grand Maestro Mohs Fon Master Ion Yulia Jue Yulia's Score PLEASE MAKE IT STOP

2) Revisiting SEVEN DUNGEONS. SEVEN. Do you see that? Let me repeat it. SEVEN. DUNGEONS. Zao Ruins, Tataroo Valley, Oracle Headquarters, Meggiora Highlands, Ortion Cavern, Mt. Roneal, and the Absorption Gate, for all of you keeping track. What the butternut, man. D: Just... really.




Missed from Symphonia:
1) Cel-shading
2) Discovering skills through experimentation rather than getting them all free with leveling
3) Friendship system allowing for (at least minimal) player influence on the storyline
4) Item synthesis
5) Three levels of artes to link together
6) Two possible movesets per character (the concept, that is; in execution there was usually one clearly superior choice)


Really missed from Symphonia:
1) Branching paths of where to go next (also known as replayability)
2) The need for proper timing to use characters' best moves: Mystic Artes and FOF attacks boil down to holding/pressing X and watching the cinematics fly, but with unison attacks it was more like a Valkyrie Profile system of coordinating each hit to set up for the next

 

[Prax]

Alright, I finished the game. In fact, I finished it a few days ago and had started writing up this enormous wall of text... But eh, you know, forget it. In the end, I don't really want to bash Abyss--because I didn't hate it, but I just didn't love it.

There's only one thing I'll still say in paragraph form, which is that when I consider Tear's story arc, her circumstances, and her personality, I can only say that she's written almost as if they were actively trying to combine Celes and Colette into a single person. Except of course that, in the process, they missed literally every character aspect I appreciated about either girl, but instead incorporated nearly every character aspect that I didn't appreciate. Sucks for me.

YES! You feel the same way about Abyss and Tear as me! And the crazy trying-to-make-up-terminology-to-come-off-as-deep-but-is-actually-just-annoying-like-Jade (which by the way, I'm sure Jade made up most of that terminology himself since he's self-declared old-man genius and inventor of everything fony. Nice!) sentiments.

Now, are you or have you been playing ToV? Since it seems like our taste somewhat matches when it comes to characters, I need to know your opinions on those ToV characters to see if the game is worth it (basically might make my boyfriend buy/rent it so I can play it on his 360). But if I'm going to be annoyed throughout and not-love it like I didn't love Abyss, then I might as well skip on it.

 

[Jiggy]

I'm buying Vesperia just because I want to support the Tales series (want Tales of Hearts and Radiant Mythology 2 in English so much ;_, but I think I'll be waiting at least a few more weeks before I buy a 360 to go along with it. So I can't help right now, sorry.


And I do know everyone's been raving over ToV, including lots of people who didn't like Abyss. But I can wait to make sure this isn't another situation like Smash Bros. Brawl or Grand Theft Auto IV where everyone's full of adoration at first and then three weeks later they turn against the game real hard. Plus the longer I wait, the more likely it is that there'll be some insane deal on a 360, and I'll be fine because I have like a dozen other games I want to play between now and December anyway, etcetera etcetera.

 

[Brandon F]

Anyone been playing this on the PS3? I got about 3/4 of the way through it in 2006 playing off HD Loader on PS2, but never went back to it after FFXII and Zelda arrived.

Just curious how the loading handles on the PS3.

 

[Y2Kev]

Anyone been playing this on the PS3? I got about 3/4 of the way through it in 2006 playing off HD Loader on PS2, but never went back to it after FFXII and Zelda arrived.

Just curious how the loading handles on the PS3.

They're much better. I played it this summer. Everyone was warning me about the world map but there was really no big deviation from regular loading times for me.

I think what you're seeing is everyone's PS2 drives dying...

 

[JaMarco]

completely agree with Jiggys review

 

[adamsapple]

am i the only one who didn't mind the loadings on a regular ps2 ?

especially during the dungeons, the loadings in and out of battles were extremely quick.

 

[MrDaravon]

After getting distracted by a few games, I'm back to this. Currently at about halfway or a tad more, I'm going to

Spoiler

go get the hovercraft or whatever to save the people at St. Binah

. The game's pretty fun, but I think Symphonia probably ekes out just a little bit more, if for nothing else the world map being crap. Also I couldn't agree more with Jiggy's complaint about the obtuse terminology; it took me a while into the game before I fully understood what the hell was going on and what they were talking about.

Still a great game though, definitely want to wrap it up before starting Vesperia.

They're much better. I played it this summer. Everyone was warning me about the world map but there was really no big deviation from regular loading times for me.

I think what you're seeing is everyone's PS2 drives dying...

That's what I thought at first when I starting playing, and thought our old fat PS2 was dying, until I checked the game on multiple PS2's. The worldmap loading is seriously that bad. In dungeons/towns/etc it's not really that bad though.

 

[Psycho Penguin]

I recently restarted my 20 hour file in this sometime last week and have now passed the 34 hour mark, I'm going to The Absorption Gate and this game has me hooked.

Spoiler

Even IF Luke is lame as hell now. Bring on the next 20 hours!

 

[dark10x]

am i the only one who didn't mind the loadings on a regular ps2 ?

especially during the dungeons, the loadings in and out of battles were extremely quick.

The loading during gameplay never botehred me all that much. It's the amount of loading that occurs during any story segments or while exploring towns. As they shift around to different areas, you're constantly seeing the Now Loading screen. It's quite distracting.

 

[Mejilan]

I've been distracted by other games recently (Crackdown, From the Abyss, Ultima VII Part II on my PSP, Emerald Dragon, Super Metroid, etc.) but I'm still plugging away at this.

The game's opened up and I'm going around completing a bunch of sidequests for loot, titles, etc., so I'm assuming that I'm actually nearing the end now. I think I've got about 65 hours on the clock so far.

 

[Psycho Penguin]

37 hours in now, collecting everyone again. This game has me hooked like heroin now.

 

[MrDaravon]

Finally had some time to play this today (mandatory overtime sucks), I think I'm about 2/3rds of the way through looking at the guide, maybe a little bit more. There's a lot of backtracking which is getting mildly annoying, but it's quick enough where it's not a big deal, at least not yet. I'm about to

Spoiler

go to Daath to get the flight fonstone back from Dist

.

 

[grandjedi6]

Finally had some time to play this today (mandatory overtime sucks), I think I'm about 2/3rds of the way through looking at the guide, maybe a little bit more. There's a lot of backtracking which is getting mildly annoying, but it's quick enough where it's not a big deal, at least not yet. I'm about to

Spoiler

go to Daath to get the flight fonstone back from Dist

.

haha, I'm at the exact same spot in my playthrough. The stupid backtracking is making it hard for me to keep forcing myself to play. :/ (without the story as motivation....)

 

[Mejilan]

Took a week off from it, but now that I'm getting over my sickness, finished my Star Wars marathon, wrapped up Super Metroid, and got past the bit of grinding I needed to do in Emerald Dragon, I plan on picking TotA up again tomorrow and basically spending all day with it.

 

[HylianScribe]

Resuming it this weekend as well after finishing Vesperia on Hard. So I'm heading back to Belkend after crossing that Marsh area - nearly 2/3 through the game apparently. I fought some monster named "Behemoth" in the marsh against the advisory - Took him down to like 2/5 HP easily before party wiped out except for Luke. Charged Luke's Overlimit up manually with taunts, unleashed Mystic Arte, retreated and repeated process. Took him down. Luke was Level 37, everyone else 33. I was told this was too low level to beat Behemoth. Also, I'm at 19 hours at this point in the game (back at Belkend for like 3rd time, after crossing Marsh), and unless the last 1/3 is super long, I'm gonna beat this game in around 30 something hours, too, which is how long it took me to beat Symphonia and Vesperia on Normal. Why does it take most everyone else so much longer on first try...do most people play it on Hard? I really am not tackling any side-quests, so is that it?

 

[Grzi]

I really am not tackling any side-quests, so is that it?

probably, there's alot of stuff to do in the game besides the actual story.

 

[Mejilan]

For my part, I try to do EVERYTHING possible before moving on to the next plot point.
That does include, on occasion, grinding shit out so that I can afford to purchase all of the necessary equipment for all of my current characters, primary and backup.

 

[Jiggy]

Resuming it this weekend as well after finishing Vesperia on Hard. So I'm heading back to Belkend after crossing that Marsh area - nearly 2/3 through the game apparently.

I think that's quite a bit of an overestimate in terms of how far you are, personally, wherever you read it.

 

[rainking187]

I'm buying Vesperia just because I want to support the Tales series (want Tales of Hearts and Radiant Mythology 2 in English so much ;_, but I think I'll be waiting at least a few more weeks before I buy a 360 to go along with it. So I can't help right now, sorry.


And I do know everyone's been raving over ToV, including lots of people who didn't like Abyss. But I can wait to make sure this isn't another situation like Smash Bros. Brawl or Grand Theft Auto IV where everyone's full of adoration at first and then three weeks later they turn against the game real hard. Plus the longer I wait, the more likely it is that there'll be some insane deal on a 360, and I'll be fine because I have like a dozen other games I want to play between now and December anyway, etcetera etcetera.

When I beat Vesperia I thought "Wow, what an awesome game!" Then I started playing Abyss. Now all I think is "Oh god, I miss Vesperia!"

 

[Mejilan]

I'm playing TotA before ToV (which I already have on my backlog), but honestly, I don't really expect to have all that much of a hard time going back and forth between the two. I popped in ToS the other day, and TotA's refinements certainly weren't enough to render ToS obsolete.

 

[Mejilan]

What the hell, is that it for the Arena? The balloon popping shit is... shit, so I largely ignored that, but I just totally plowed through both difficulties in party and single modes, including the illusionary prior-Tales-characters (awesome music there), snagging the bronze/gold medals, bronze/gold trophies, and tons of loot.

It took like 10 minutes. I remember Symphonia's being more robust and fun. Was that really it?

 

[Dr. Kitty Muffins]

I need to get this off my brother get started after I'm done with vesperia.

 

[MrDaravon]

Spent most of the day with this, good fucking God the game never ends. It's a good game, but dang. I'm at about 70 hours in, and estimating from the guide I'm probably about 80% or so, depending on how long sidequests take. I've been doing more or less all the sidequests and whatnot, but even just barreling through the game on your first try I don't think anything less than 35-40 hours is realistic at all. Right now I'm about to

Spoiler

go back to Baticul to find out about the troops that killed Frings

.

 

[HylianScribe]

I think that's quite a bit of an overestimate in terms of how far you are, personally, wherever you read it.

Well I got to the battle with

Spoiler

Van

at 22 hours. First difficult encounter I've had yet...I thought I was going to lose for awhile there.

 

[Mejilan]

I'm about 5 hours worth of content ahead of you, Daravon (with about the same amount on my clock), and I have to agree. The pacing towards the end is a mess. Tons and tons of backtracking to a variety of locations for no better reason than to trigger the next cutscene. No new content, enemies, equipment, locations, anything. Just VERY needless padding, IMHO. I only FINALLY got to a semi-interesting new dungeon. Feres. I feel like I'm nearing the end of it. Don't think I'll continue and beat it tonight, however.

 

[Jiggy]

The pacing at the end really did kill it. :/

Well I got to the battle with

Spoiler

Van

at 22 hours. First difficult encounter I've had yet...I thought I was going to lose for awhile there.

Hmm, you may make it in about 30 just yet, then.

I've been doing more or less all the sidequests and whatnot, but even just barreling through the game on your first try I don't think anything less than 35-40 hours is realistic at all.[/spoiler].

Yeah, I plowed through with no sidequests (couldn't bring myself to mess with that overworld any more than I had to) and I still hit just a touch over 40.





Speaking of things over 40, I never gave a conclusion to that pet project I hinted at earlier:

As for the story, eh, no comment. I stopped paying attention since my eyes would gloss over at all the terminology, but that's alright. All just a matter of skimming to figure out where to go next and because of a certain pet project I have.

From the beginning, I had noticed that in Tear's first skit she said sorry to Luke two times, that in her second skit she said sorry to him again, and that in her seventh skit--yep--she said sorry to him again.

So I thought, "Huh, I wonder." This was all literally before leaving the first town, by the way, which made it especially stick in my mind. And so, because I'm Jiggy and looking at numbers that matter to nobody except me is what I do, from that point on I decided that for fun I'd make a note of every instance of an apology from Tear. (In hindsight, I'm really glad I did since there was nothing else I cared about in this game's story. ) She then proceeded to not let me down because ten minutes later she was already saying "sorry" two times at the entrance to Cheagle Woods.

Anyway, I didn't need to write down skits because those are on GameFAQs. Turns out she apologizes 19 times in skits (note: you'd only find 17 of them by running Ctrl+F searches for "sorry"; the others are "forgive me" and "we should be apologizing"), and 25 times in the normal script for a total of 44 apologies.

This is more than Colette, by the way--she says sorry 41 times in Symphonia (assuming you pick the story routes that maximize her number of apologies)--8 times in skits and 33 times in the normal script. And I've been counting double apologies within the same scene as two separate instances, I should say; if I reduce those to single apologies, Colette drops to 33 while Tear only goes down to 40.


And now I'm actually curious whether this is the curse of Team Symphonia female leads, so rest assured I'll be counting Estelle apologies whenever I get around to buying Vesperia and a 360.

 

[Mejilan]

Wow.

You know, say what you will about the horribly slow beginning (10+ hours of it), somewhat significant technical issues, highly inconsistent pacing issues, and excess padding, the game is fucking epic. Well done, Team Symphonia.

Symphonia was a safer, more consistent experience. Abyss hits higher highs and lower lows, but on average, it's really held up by truly beautiful gameplay. I loved it. I might just hit up Vesperia much sooner than I expected.

I'm afraid of Tales burn out. Maybe I'll play Infinite Undiscovery first.

But Tales of the Abyss. Wow. I really wish I hadn't given up on the game a year ago, when I last attempted it.

 

[Psycho Penguin]

I ended up finally beating it after pretty much forcing myself to finish it. Jesus christ, how can people replay this after completing it?

 

[JaMarco]

I ended up finally beating it after pretty much forcing myself to finish it. Jesus christ, how can people replay this after completing it?

I have no idea

 

[adamsapple]

well lets see, the game has a lot of side stuff that one can't experience on the first try ..

thats one reason someone might want to replay it ..

 

[Princess Skittles]

I ended up finally beating it after pretty much forcing myself to finish it. Jesus christ, how can people replay this after completing it?

I agree. I'd say the same for Symphonia too.

But, I think I could replay Vesperia at some point (skipping cut scenes and completed side-events from the first game, of course).

 

[Mejilan]

Well, with New Game + and proper usage of the Grade Shop you can VERY easily streamline future playthroughs, especially since you can optionally carry over some of the more annoying sidequests' rewards (titles). Increase your gald and exp gains by a factor of x2, or more, skip the annoying sidequests, and you can a very easily replayable experience. Especially since you can also carry over various masteries, such as artes, skills, cooking, fsc chambers, etc. Bump up the difficulty one or two levels, carry over your data properly, and you can basically continue refining your characters (which cap out a level 200!) to well beyond what you would normally experience, while continuing to challenge yourself.

Yes, the Tales of games are much, much more customizable/replayable than most RPGs. It doesn't hurt that the combat system and character development mechanics are so awesome.

 

[Jiggy]

Well, I was able to replay Symphonia six times (five consecutively, even!) because of its battle system and because Lloyd, Sheena, Zelos/Kratos, and Presea were each fun to play. (Regal would have been too, but I hate that guy too much to bother.) The extras were just icing, like doing the half-experience run or the 10x experience run, or being able to get at least one EX Gem Max for everybody, or getting costumes. I still haven't done a file with the "combo" option selected, and I want to.

(That said, solving puzzles I'd already done sucked and was my one complaint about ToS. If Namco Tales Studio ever remakes Symphonia (which they had better) and it's released in English (which it had better be ;_, then I hope "insta-solve puzzles" is in the Grade Shop. Or at absolute least, let me push blocks faster since there are so many of those kinds of puzzles and it's annoying to know the solution but still need several minutes because the blocks move fairly slow. Colette and Presea have super strength--it shouldn't take so long! :/)



Abyss has an even better battle system if I'm just referring to the core mechanics, but I still wouldn't replay it. Mystic Artes (and FOF Changes) were just this passive experience of sitting back and watching instead of taking part like the unison attacks, which I didn't want since I had to see them so often, and none of the characters had a moveset I liked other than Guy, so I didn't feel the variety in that regard either. (Well... Luke eventually developed a moveset I could appreciate too, but it took him a good long while, and even at his best he never approached Guy.)

The loading also didn't help, and neither did that "lol, go teleport everywhere" 90-minute series of fetch quests toward the end. It still has all the same extras, but that can't do much for me if I just don't want to bother with the core. For people who don't mind those things, though, I can see why they'd come back.

 

[Princess Skittles]

FOF Change in Abyss was awesome. I had forgotten about that!

I guess Altered Artes replaced that in Vesperia (and is better), but I do miss free-running to a spot to unleash a sweet new move.

 

[kiryogi]

Heads up for other folks that haven't caught it yet. The TV animated adaptation for Tales of the Abyss just aired! It's been faithful to the game so far. 2 episodes out, as some stations aired a 1 hour special that included both episodes 1 and 2.

Here's a youtube link to the raw for episode one for those interested and can understand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twex5IVA9nA&feature=related

 

[My Arms Your Hearse]

FOF Change in Abyss was awesome. I had forgotten about that!

I guess Altered Artes replaced that in Vesperia (and is better), but I do miss free-running to a spot to unleash a sweet new move.

FoF crushes altered artes as a gameplay element. They're also much cooler visually.