I may be in the minority on this, but I actually love all the technical talk in the game. What elevates it above techno-babble for me is that if you dig into it, it actually forms a cohesive magic system. Rather than being smart-sounding words to hand-waive away plot events, you can actually understand the mechanisms behind them, making it a relatively hard magic system. As a result, its inclusion served to further my immersion and enjoyment of the story and world. I do admit, though, it can be overwhelming at first.

The whole terms thing being thrown at the player right and left actually makes sense and made it more immersive for me,since I was putting myself in Luke’s shoes in that I know nothing about this world and it makes sense since Luke has “Amnesia”. I absolutely loved Abyss, it’s my top tales game story, character development and gameplay-wise. So far, i haven’t played a tales game yet that managed to match my attachment to this game (still do full replays to this day)

Tales of Abyss is my most favorite Tales so far... The story, the characters and the gameplay is superb

Fun fact: Abyss was my first ever Tales game, and I didn't realize it at the time, but it would soon grow to be my favorite Tales game, and easily one of my favorite JRPGs of all time. I loved the way Luke grew as a character, and how my feelings on him grew as well. To this day, I still go back and give it a play here and there! Hell, I even played it so much that I've had multiple New Game+ runs, so much that I've filled up all the star slots on a single save file!

The field of fonons is still my favorite system in the series. The main issue with it is that you can't really take advantage of it unless you're playing with friends. Coordinating attacks to maximize the altered arts really takes the game up another level.

This is a game I'm begging for an HD Remaster of!

I didn't see a comment on it, but Jade's ultimate spells quest line mentions that Dist's self esteem is so low that being taller than people make him feel powerful, so he floats in the chair to prop himself up.

Tales of the abyss had the best character development in video game history

Abyss is not only my favorite Talee game, but my favorite JRPG period.

Saying the Four Grand Cardinals are better than the Six God-Generals is wild. I think the God-Generals being such good characters and all having direct links to the main characters is part of what makes TotA so great

this video made me watch the Anime ending with subtitles and the game ending with the english VA back to back The english VA for this literally is multiple levels above the actual visual presentation of a PS2 game. Hearing the acting in the ending alone reminds me how much those VAs added to what was already a great story. It is like night and day reading likely a slightly closer translated sub vs the superbly well done VA. They just nail the feel each scene goes for. To that end, I also think Tear's VA is one of if not the best. Her whole thing is that kind of empty, almost emotionless personality that finally cracks in the ending. And she nails it so hard, its nearly impossible not to choke up hard at that final interaction. This game need a remaster so bad, not just because that is the thing nowadays. To somehow make the visuals match the quality of the voice acting.

The best songs in this game are the ones composed by Motoo Fujiwara from Bump of Chicken, I'll never forgive how the western versions didn't get the true version of the opening. I think the Luke at the end is just Luke, having absorbed Asch into his body to survive.

24:32 "Johnny Yong Bosch has such a cool ass voice" lol when you talked about wanting to be a VA seconds before I was like "well, you already sound like Johnny Yong Bosch" and then you say that ha

This game is and will always be light-years ahead of Vesperia.

I recall there being no voice acting in the English skits due to the fact that stuff was added to the American version that wasn't in the Japanese version. They ended up prioritizing the newer content such as extra mystic arts over the voices and it prevented it from being able to fit on the disc. So they had to pick one or the other

Tales of the Abyss is still my favourite Tales game to this day!

Abyss is my favorite game of all time and I didn’t know it was loved as much as it was by tales fans until they started doing surveys on all the different games

I started with Tales of Destiny on the PS1 and I have been hooked ever since. A great starting point into the series, would be Tales of Symphonia or Tales of Vesperia. Tales of Abyss is an amazing game and I am looking forward to Tales of Arise.

My favorite Tales games!

Abyss, from what I can remember, is all around my favorite Tales Of game. The only ones I haven't played are the ones that came out after 2014, Destiny Remake, Destiny 2, or Symphonia 2. I agree that the world looks pretty dull, especially when compared to Vesperia and Symphonia. The palette for the game just feels very stone-washed and earthy, which is fine. But given the saturation of the series' other worlds, it's hard to feel as immersed. Thankfully, the plot is probably the least convoluted and embellished in comparison to many JRPGs. There's plenty of side quests to partake in. There's plenty of customization options for your character stats and in the way of outfits. And the battle system itself is superb - you can really feel the weight of your attacks and each hit you take, and I love how fast-paced it feels. The cameo battle in particular is done perfectly. In comparison, while Vesperia is fun in its own right it feels a bit too sluggish and less impactful. Abyss deserves a remaster, or at the very least a direct port to newer consoles and Steam.

the chambers helped FoF a lot since you could do the changed artes with the 1st stage fields which meant after a allies spell you could chain a FoF arte directly after , without doing that though you'll not use them super much

I watched through the majority of this video, paused near the end and played through like 90% of the game and beat it before I finally came back. Worth it.

This is one of those games where I started it, didn't like the main character for most of it, and kinda had to force myself to keep going, but.... by the time it was wrapping up I wasn't ready for it to be over.

This game truly was something special. The writing was just something else. So much depth and interlocking ideas that it can almost be hard to fathom at times. And add to that that pretty much every character, both main and side, even some of the villains, have their own character arcs. And it blows my mind that there are people out there who see Arise as better written than Abyss, which quite frankly I find laughable given just how wooden and shallow that games writing and characters was. People finding Alphen better written simply cause he is an empty self insert meant for a power fantasy over having an actual personality like Luke. You can really see which one is better simply by seeing how their amnesia is handled. In Abyss it is critical to the character and the plot as it has actual impact on what happens and on how other characters perceives him. Contrast this with Arise where it is simply used as the usual amnesiac protagonist to have an excuse to feed exposition to the player.

I recall really enjoying this game as a kid

You missed that the first arc of the story. Are the seven steps of a tragic hero (Luke Fon Fabre)!

Bump of Chicken has been my favorite band for years so when I played TotA in 2019 in my 3ds and searched the opening on KZfaq (Because for some reason it doesn't have the lyrics in the game) I was pleasantly surprised to see that they were the ones that made it And then later for every reuse of the song, it never got old, ESPECIALLY BY THE END, it's been almost 5 years, but there's still not a single time I hear "Meaning of Birth" and not cry, it's such a powerful song, such an emotionally charged fight with themes that really hit me personally at the time, out of the 4 Tales games I've played it's definitely my favorite duel (Idk if the Fandom calls them that) Even if Symphonia is my favorite game and will probably beforever, Abyss will always be in my top 5

Nice review. Totally true about the scene between Luke and Asch.

My favorite Tales and one of my favorites games of all time. I love this game.

I remember this game as one of the best games on the PS2, yet I still have mixed feelings on it. On the one hand it has great gameplay, an amazing story, some of the best villains in the series, and a fantastic soundtrack. What drags it down for me though, are most of the party members, who I legitimately found to be awful people. Obviously this is just my opinion, but the way they treat Luke throughout the story just really bothered me, and I especially hated that they never once got called out on it. A few noteworthy examples off the top of my head *(HUGE SPOILERS, DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED THE GAME):* - Admonishing and shaming Luke for not being immediately ready to kill someone in self-defense. - Blaming him for Akzeriuth, which I would argue really was more their fault than his, seeing as they actually knew what Van was up to, but didn't bother telling Luke about it. - Giving him a giant guilt-complex, like Guy by telling him he should spend the rest of his life to make up for Akzeriuth, or Tear seriously suggesting he should never feel happy again. - Jade and Anise repeatedly saying they wish Luke had died. - Everyone acting shocked and once again admonishing Luke when he suggests sacrificing himself, like they have nothing to do with him being suicidal in the first place. - This last one doesn't involve Luke, but Anise basically murdering Arietta for no clear reason by lying and saying she killed Ion and then outright taunting Arietta about it also really pissed me off. The fact that she then cries about it as soon as Arietta is dead, like this was not at all avoidable just made it worse. Lol, sorry for the rant, but there were so many small moments like these that just really made me dislike most of the party members by the end. I get that this is all really subjective, and I'm not even saying this makes them bad characters, but _man_ do I wish the game would just call them out on some of this stuff.

I stopped at the half way point when I first played and then started all over when I played the second time. I have such fond memories of playing this and phantasy star universe back to back

they really took a risk with luke, he's such an ass in early part of the game, there are unlikable characters at the start of a jrpg like cloud, but no one as far as luke, that's what make his redemption journey so well done, love abyss

Best Tales.

I had what was, for me, a unique relationship with this game. I played it on the 3DS and, when I first gave it a go, I could only stomach about 3 or 4 hours of it. The washed out, muted color palette, uninspired, too-quiet, mega-meh music, and Luke's unbelievable unlikeability (not to mention Tear's robotic, emotionally vacant personality) turned me off hard. It clashed so strongly with the love people had lavished on the game, and I just couldn't deal with it. Fast forward a couple years, I decided to give it another try. I powered through those first few hours and really began to dive into it. Luke's transformation definitely is this game's main attraction, IMO. I was very impressed with the extent to which he was held accountable for all of his misdeeds, bad behavior, and general, casual meanness. Courageously facing your flaws while keeping everything meaningful to you moving forward in your life is incredibly challenging, and this game demonstrated that beautifully. In fact, spurred by the speedy-leveling mechanic and other new-game-plus goodies, I played the game a second time immediately after finishing it the first time, totaling about 110 hours when all was said and done. It was really nice to re-experience the beginning with knowledge of how it would all resolve, and gave me even more respect for this game's character crafting. I don't think anything will ever beat the raw joy, for me, of a Tales of game with a joyful, curious, fun protagonist. But this one made a truly worthy effort, and I regard this game quite fondly now.

Abyss was my first tales of and, after many others I have played since, it's still my favorite hands down. I really love the darker story and the system of its world, especially the moral and ethical questions in the story. Something extra: I really don't get why people love vesperia so much, it's easily the most underwhelming and clunky tales of I have played.

My first tales of game , and my favorite jrpg.

Great game and a good thing it was ported to 3DS, or I never would have got my hands on it.

Luke is the no.1 character that I hate and love. Early game he make me curse him often, but in late game he is the one who I alway praise. The scene he try to sacrifice himself, all characters at that time show true feeling is the best. Guy is good too. He is the best friend that I want in my life.

I replaced my PS2 at least four times back in the day for this game and star ocean 3 I think I also replaced the games them selves at least three times… I just recently bought a PS2 and a new memory card to play tales of the abyss❤️👊

This one of those perfect games I've never played but I know I'd love. I got one of the games that was like that for me with lost odyssey. Someday I I'll play the shit out of this

I have it headcannoned that between the final boss and the timeskip, Luke traveled the world with Ache in his subconscious and see it for themselves, possibly apologizing for the actions and consequences they caused

Abyss has always been my top favorite in the series, with Graces coming in at a close second and Symphonia just a teensy bit behind that. They are the games I feel best grasped everything that made the series great - in terms of story, character development, and awesome and engaging battle systems. Specifically I loved how close I felt to all the characters, how real they felt - and while the story is a major part of how they’re built up, the true depth of their personalities really comes to life through the skits. I absolutely love the tales series for the skits. Like, you get an awesome, solid story through the game itself, but if you really want to get to know the characters at a whole new level, the skits really flesh them out. It’s actually a big reason why I’ve really disliked most of the more recent Tales games: -Zestiria was a big let down for me, -I just couldn’t for the life of me get into Berseria… -and it upsets me to say this, but I straight up hated Arise by the time I was done with it. So much of it felt like a tales game in name only. For Berseria and Arise in particular, a big reason for why I hated them so much actually had to do with the skits, oddly enough. This is due to the fact that instead of skits being some nice added depth to the characters where they either chat amongst themselves about nothing in particular or comment on recent events - in THESE games, skits are the medium by which a large portion of the story is told. In past games, you could theoretically skip every skit in the game and you’d still come out understanding the story, characters, and how they grew/felt throughout the story. For Berseria and Arise, if you were to skip every skit, you’d eventually have no idea what’s even going on in the story - and what little you got from cutscenes would seem flat and as if you were only getting small pieces of a bigger story. I specifically remember beating Arise, being immensely disappointed, and immediately starting a new file in Tales of the Abyss just to check and see if I was looking back through rose tinted glasses… like night and day, the difference was immediate and palpable. The story, the characters, the cutscenes, the skits - THIS is a tales game. It’s unfortunate that I can’t enjoy the new games like so many others, but that’s alright. I’m glad so many people like them, especially if it brings on more fans to the wider series. As for me, I’ll just stick to the ones I love.

This is my first Tales game and I just started it on 3DS!

I really enjoyed your retrospective. Awesome video! This is my favorite in the series and honestly my favorite JRPG. It’s not one I could objectively call the best for everyone (I tend to recommend the Xillia duology or now Arise for people wanting to play Tales for the first time), but the characters and story made a huge impact on me and the worldbuilding is incredible. The technobabble can definitely be a turnoff to some, but if you stick with it, you find they put a lot of time, energy, and logic into the worldbuilding here. A lot of details are relegated to sidequests or even secondary materials because of just how much they had accounted for. At the same time, if it’s not hooking you in, you’re not gonna wanna track it all down, so I totally get that too. I would love to see it ported again or even remastered, so I could share it with friends on modern consoles.

I think vesperia also has a lot of techno babble. Even more then abyss I think.

Watching while I’m downloading it on my 2DS using hshop 😊

2 years late to the party, but 30:00 ... Mate the Field of Fonon combat system was the best. You may not have tried to use it back in the day, but once you start actually using it, it it the epiphany of Tales combat when combined with FR-LMBS. Tales of Vesperia is a good contender, but imo, it shall always be Tales of Symphonia, Tales of the Abyss, Tales of Eternia (Tales of Destiny 2) in terms of greatest Tales of games. For perspective, Tales of Destiny 2 (Tales of Eternia) is the first Tales I played back on PS1, and have since played every mothership title since).

The most reliable way to pull of FoF attacks is to go into the menu and command an ally to use an arte of the element you wanted. It's still a workaround, I know, and I feel like it could have benefitted from having shoulder button shortcuts

I love the tales of abyss game I First played it on the 3DS

Of all the games that should have been remastered this one was a missed opportunity

Huh, I knew Bump of Chicken had links to Final Fantasy but I had no idea they were associated with the Tales series. Love older Bump of Chicken, back when they produced more Hard Rock/Punk stuff with hints of The Beatles here and there. Their style dramatically changed around the time they partnered up regularly with FF.

The English actors may have made them sound mean, but the Japanese actors were really calm and it just sounded like people were ribbing and testing each other. Very humorous. THis is why I usually play JRPGs in japanese audio not english.

I wish Abyss and Legendia would get remasters for PS4 or PS5

The introduction to the tales games I got was trying to play Vesperia twice and _hating_ the combat system, which means I’ve never played any of the others.

I had accidentally read on a wiki that Luke died and was revived so that bit on the tower with all of the other replicas, had me shook because I literally thought he was going to kill himself and damn I cried tears of joy like a little bitch when he didn't. If it wasn't for the fact that the ending sucked this game would be a 5-5

Finally some delicius tales content. While I agree that the Game isnt perfect and I agree with most of your complains, man I Can't still lower it from my top 5. I really enjoyed the game, the little details on the characters like for Eixample did You know that Luke still has problems sleeping after killing people? Is not mentioned in the main story because they already tackled the themes but the consequences of it never truly disappeard even with the character development of Luke. Also on Luke his summary actually gives extra insight on the character giving his opinion on some story moment. I also really like how ion and mieu interacted with the party in the skits, how the story implements different themes without making them minor, banger ost like the frontier fortress and not to talk about the story scenes like the one where the party consider the possibility of sacfrifiying Luke, just remembering it from this video hitted me on the fells But yeah side quest are annoying even if they have interesting interations, the backtraking can get really tiresome, the characters can be annoying and the combat can be meh but still as you said even with all of that the game is over all a really solid entry and just hurts that it couldn't be even a little better in any of those areas ☹️

Just finished this game yesterday and really liked it a lot, but I completely agree with all the criticisms you mentioned here. Regarding the ending (SPOILERS!) …. My headcanon is that it was Luke returning after having been made whole again by the remains of Asch’s fonons. Tear just didn’t recognise it as him right away. I did think it was a bit anticlimactic though, as she was still trying to be stoic right to the end.

I played this on ps2. now I'm playing on 3ds

To be fair, most of all the technical stuff they talk about is very comprehensible if you know basic (high school level) Wave Physics.

Do you know if you could rename characters in this tales game?

I'm the only person I know who's favorite is Zestiria.

This is my favorite of the games I have played in the series, first and foremost. But, looking back on the game from the later games in the series or, hell, other series entirely, the game used Luke as a player expy on even the most basic of terms and terminology. I like when games do that, even if it goes under the "As You Know..." umbrella, but it's at least TOLD to you IN GAME and explained to you in, many times, basic terms and it's a good way to get a player invested, even if it winds up being more star trek-type techno babble in some ways. The gameplay is also a right combo of basic and in depth, you don't need to go TOO deep into the game's systems, but you are REWARDED for trying to experiment and play with the systems, not punished for not doing so. And the characters, well, they ALL go through some sort of character arc by the end of the game and it's wonderful to see. And, honestly, IMO, Luke is the picture child for "How to do a jackass character" right. He LEARNS, he GROWS, he becomes LIKABLE and becomes a fucking human being instead of what we see predominantly in act one, compared to acts two and three. Compared to when I tried to play Berseria, I really tried to push through, but god damn I dipped by the end of act one (I think that was the end of act one, I can't be assed to find out or not) because I just wanted to strangle velvet with both hands and go full bore on her with my misgivings with her. Jesus, first female main character and...yeesh, revenge this, revenge that, no fucking levity to her character and almost no willingness to even play nice of her own volition, I just outright despised her damn near every time post-time skip into the main part of the game.

You’re right about there being performance differences between the PS2 and 3DS versions. Specifically, the load times for entering the world map are shorter in the 3DS version. This, along with the portability of the 3DS, makes the 3DS version objectively better than the PS2 version.

I love this game so much but the ending kinda sucks. Ash and Luke were two different people not a big fan of them combining together.

As someone who loves this game to pieces, I'm sure we can all agree that Anise is a massive stain on it XD

This is the only game that I prefer english voice over japanese, I'm not from a english speaking country and people often get mad when I say this, but to me american dubbing never get the feel of the JP, it was like I was watching an cartoon (with everyone acting all over the top). This is my favorite tales game and I hope that they release it on Steam someday.

I wanted to like this game so much but there's just so much back and forth that it frustrated me. I never felt like I finished an area cause I had to go back through completed areas over and over... and over. I love the battles and characters, and the cameo fight is my fav in the series, but that frustrated me so much.

I always compare all JRPG to Tales of the Abyss and Wild Arms 5. To me, both games had great story that really grips me. I haven't found any other JRPG that I love like these 2 games. FF series didn't do anything for me including 10.

Well! Well well well, this retrospective is at least halfway decent but I wouldn’t complain about hardly anything you did because I enjoyed every single one of the characters in this game including anise. The God generals they were all amazing and most of them were very much unforgettable for me. I guess the backtracking did get kind of annoying after you were almost finished with the game and you just don’t want to finish it because you’re afraid you missed something along the way and you backtrack… And the thing about tears voice actor, I never really let it bother me that much but since you mentioned it- yeah.. it was kind of underwhelming, granted her character was supposed to be a serious soldier type This was the first game I ever completed for myself :3 it has a special place in my heart and there was absolutely nothing wrong with it -except the lack of voice acting in skits..

Still haven't played a Tales Of game. If I'm only gonna pick one, I'm thinking Berseria. Checking around fan consensus, it seems like it's tied with Vesperia for topping a lot of Top Ten lists.

I played Symphonia first and loved it. I was really excited for Abyss, but it really didn't compare for me. I hated all the techno nonsense, but I did really enjoy the comedy of ignorant jerk Luke, and how much he hated Meiu. Once Luke matured I don't remember any of the characters interesting me as much. Whereas Symphonia had Zelos, once of the best video game characters.

"Tales of Legendia has some fire ass music" biggest lie in the video

Abyss has the same problem as FF13 with those technobable

i remember getting so pissed at the party for their treatment of luke after the town got destroyed. poor luke was emotionally still a 7 year old who was easily manipulated, how was he supposed to know anything about how shit worked? lol

0:35 TalesOf series in technically more popular than the megaten series. Since talesof series is REALLY popular in Japan and talesof series also has more sells than it.

Abyss needs a remaster. Not the kind of like symphonia though

I played this on ps2 the japanese dub and Tear va was amazing!! A few years later i got it for 3ds and was really turned off by Tear english va. Still loved the game but man eng dub ruined Tear big time 😭

🇺🇸勇者だ　優勝　優勝

I like the cast but I do not like the gameplay, it's annoying that the Best attacks use too much TP and you can only caring limited orange gels(aka ethers) to help you and you're skill that gives tp to others NEEDS setup and that sucks... I love Graces since you are reward for more combos due to the player skill management of your action meter instead of the outclassed tp system. Much better and you can change the difficulty setting as will to help you grind and get rewards since during any encounter you get a "mission/task" to do to get rewards, like health, more action points, etc...

yea i cant play as a guy in a belly shirt.

Why this game still didnt get a remaster or rework for pc or newer consoles .. bandai sux fr