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As much as I freaking adore and worship ToS, it is getting too much attention and Abyss is being overshadowed and THIS MUST BE BROUGHT TO A STOP.

Listen to these awesome boss themes as I continue to rant.

YouTube - Tales of the Abyss Final Battle Music

I think the character development in this game is better than the other Tales Of games I've played, even with Symphonia's eight endings. Like, even Ion..

MAJORMAJORFREAKINGSPOILERHEREYEAH

[spoiler] That kid I hated SOO much he was so freaking ANNOYING, but even so the game was so well-developed that during his death scene I was sobbing. WTF, during ION'S DEATH SCENE.[/spoiler]

All of the characters have some huge plot twist behind them (or not so huge in some cases, but meh). Cliched, yes. But still awesome.

And despite Luke's whiny emoness I can safely say that this is one of the most awesome games EVAR.

Discuss yse.

One thing I actually liked about Puke fon Fabre being such a whiny **** was that he actually doesn't INSTANTLY mature and then never whines again. He actually reverts BACK to whining and feeling sorry for himself later on, similar to how a real person could do so.

Tear was also a nice change in pace, since she actually is the female healer who happens to be a descendant of Yulia, but that's actually treated relatively minor and she actually isn't going to get kidnapped or fall into every single trap like a specific Chosen of Sylvarant, Merines, or Child of the Full Moon...
...though you can be a litle fair that Estelle actually was GUARDED and Colette kept getting outwitted and overpowered. Doesn't make Colette Brunel any less dislikable in my book though, so when I finally hanker down and play Dawn of hte New world, Brunel, you're skating on thin ice...

The english voiceovers were actually alright. Sure Ion's was annoying and Natalia's battle cry was a little too squeaky but Natalia actually does make up for it. Heck she's kidnapped once but I bet she probably went along with Ion to make sure no one got hurt, she probably could have just shot a bunch of arrows at the guards' faces.

The battle system is the main reason I liked this game way more than Symphonia. The flex-range linear motion battle system just works, especially since in Symphonia enemies could run in 3D yet you could only run back and forth and jump. It was annoying, and now I can't play Tales of Symphonia unless they release a version with Vesperia's battle engine!

And of course, having some things that are better to dodge with the battle system helps. Legretta would have been VERY annoying with Symphonia's battle system, and probably any other linear-motion battle system that takes place along two dimensions. (I think Tales of Hearts has something like that) They really should have tried to fix some more o the bugs, even though a lot of them you'll likely never encounter because they require you to do a really specific thing that no one would have figured out unless they invested a hundred hours into the game.

There's also one part of the game where nothing really happens and it is actually kind of dull.

Wooo discussion. I <3 discussion. :{D

One thing I actually liked about Puke fon Fabre being such a whiny **** was that he actually doesn't INSTANTLY mature and then never whines again. He actually reverts BACK to whining and feeling sorry for himself later on, similar to how a real person could do so.

I totally agree. The character development in this game is amazing.. it's not like Luke is magically all OMG I R NOT WHINY ANYMORE I R PERFECT. He takes time to change, and just tries his best, like a normal dude.

Doesn't make him any less annoying, though. x{D

Tear was also a nice change in pace, since she actually is the female healer who happens to be a descendant of Yulia, but that's actually treated relatively minor and she actually isn't going to get kidnapped or fall into every single trap like a specific Chosen of Sylvarant, Merines, or Child of the Full Moon...
...though you can be a litle fair that Estelle actually was GUARDED and Colette kept getting outwitted and overpowered. Doesn't make Colette Brunel any less dislikable in my book though, so when I finally hanker down and play Dawn of hte New world, Brunel, you're skating on thin ice...

Again, agreed. It was nice to have a sensible heroine who is a strong soldier, who kind of softens up after awhile. Her relationship with Luke is also pretty cool, like at first she's a cold person trying to put up with a totally ignorant dude, then she warms up to him and begins to loosen up a little.

Also in Colette's defense, she may be a very kidnappable OMG SAVE ME person... but she warmed up to me after I realized how kind of sucky it must be since she had been told since she was a little kid that she would have to give up her humanity for the world.

That would kind of suck, and seeing how kind she is anyway kind of makes her character more standable to me.

However, it is definitely nice to have a kick ass and take names sort of heroine every now and then as opposed to the others. Also don't even get me started on Estelle.... x{DDDD

The english voiceovers were actually alright. Sure Ion's was annoying and Natalia's battle cry was a little too squeaky but Natalia actually does make up for it. Heck she's kidnapped once but I bet she probably went along with Ion to make sure no one got hurt, she probably could have just shot a bunch of arrows at the guards' faces.

I loooooved Abyss's voice acting. Just shoot Ion in the face and it's all really good. Natalia does emotions as well as the whole I R AWEZOME PRINCESS thing really well; and I don't really mind her battle cries as much as other people tend to. If I were shooting arrows at people I'd probably screech out EHH YUH YUH too. :{P

Luke's voice is good at both the bratty arrogant son of a duke AND the emo self-loathing i r teh lamez kid.

Anise's voice was really really good EXCEPT for the spell casting. She does the emotions and the I RO SOO OBNOXIOUS LITTLE GIRL really down pat well, but the spell casts don't sound very spell cast-y... they sound like a squeaky little girl. Ah well, her voice is one of the best in my opinion.

Tear's, Guy's, and Jade's voices are all freaking awesome. No complaints here.

However I can safely say that I am ninety nine times more manly in voice and in just about everything else than Ion.

Ahem, moving on.

The battle system is the main reason I liked this game way more than Symphonia. The flex-range linear motion battle system just works, especially since in Symphonia enemies could run in 3D yet you could only run back and forth and jump. It was annoying, and now I can't play Tales of Symphonia unless they release a version with Vesperia's battle engine!

Only problem is that it can be kind of cheap. I mean HELL, I came really freaking close to beating Nebilim as an ANISE solo just because I spammed the **** out of free run. I like what they did in Vesperia, making the characters slightly slower so that it wasnt quite as easily spammable.

Also, the little blue ring showing the battlefield would have been nice. That nebilim solo, I only died because I got trapped between her and the end of the field. That was unpleasant.

Annnyway, I loved the battle system but it was kind of TOO cheap, so I liked the more recent modifications. I do agree however that ToS's was horrible... I quickly learned to jump over enemies repeatedly. Blasted sword dancer is huge.

Abyss characters were the most standable before they all got emo, though. IMO anyway.

Sim Kid wrote:Tear was also a nice change in pace, since she actually is the female healer who happens to be a descendant of Yulia, but that's actually treated relatively minor and she actually isn't going to get kidnapped or fall into every single trap like a specific Chosen of Sylvarant, Merines, or Child of the Full Moon...

In Shirley's defense, she isn't exactly a fighting character anyway. Collette throws discs around.

Tear is overrated when you think about Mary Argent. She obliterated the whole "Chicks have to use white magic" stereotype (Or use ANY magic), rivaling even Stahn in terms of power. Hell, her main weapon was changed to the axe in the PS2 remake when they were binding weapons to characters, since she couldn't use a Swordian. She was also the only female to be able to wear heavy armor.

Now, if you want annoying female in distress, may I introduce you to Reala? Both a maid in distress AND one of the worst Mary Sues ever. Almost as bad as Kanonno. Almost.

^ Tear had up-close fighting attacks too, though, which I spammed. Like the ones where she throws those little knife arrow thingies around. That's why I liked playing as her, Anise, and Jade so much... you can spam up-close attacks as well as casting.

Natalia is just cheap. Fun to play and awesome as hell, but really cheap. x{D

Also, why is it that only the heroine of the game ever gets Pow Hammer? It's such a cool attack. WE SHOULD ALL HAVE POW HAMMER.

e: well, Anise can get Pow Hammer with one of the creepy doll things, but you get my point. :{P

NEED A DISPENSER HERE wrote:
Now, if you want annoying female in distress, may I introduce you to Reala? Both a maid in distress AND one of the worst Mary Sues ever. Almost as bad as Kanonno. Almost.

Oh boy, Reala...really I liked some parts of Tales of Destiny 2, but if they were to remake it, I'd say try to cure Reala and Kyle's cases of Writer's Pet Syndrome. Seriously, you can tell they didn't like Nanaly, even though they liked her enough to put her in abyss. She has like, ONE Mystic Arte, and that's it. Meanwhile even Judas has like what, three? Come on Kyle stop falling in love with Reala...sure it was nice to see her come back at the very end after she begs Kyle to smash the lens and destroy her. (Kyle: RREEEAAAAALLLLAAAA!!!) But it also would have been nice to actually have Kyle be a heartless bastard because he loves Nanaly far more and smashes the lens without her having to beg. TAKE THAT!!!!


And it's not the heroine who always uses Pow Hammer. :B Chat is the Pow Hammer user in Tales of Eternia and lemme tell you this...she really is NOT the heroine, she's practically an optional character.

And in Tales of destiny, doesn't LEON actually use Pow Hammer? :P I say the bigger question is why are so many villains blonde?

..okay Van's probably more brown haired if anything. And I think they're replacing the blonde-villains with white-haired villains. (Duke, anyone?)

Van's hair was kind of grey in the game... but in the anime it looks slightly browner.

Also I totally thought Duke was a chick at first. x{D

not just duke, but Widdershin, Matthias, Alexei, and probably Barbos even if he was really old.

Elraine's the big baddie of ToD2, though, isn't she?

[spoiler]I have no clue how old she is. And Barbatos IS old. After all, he was brought back to life after many, many years being dead.[/spoiler]

My friend had the greatest theory ever involving Ion.

[spoiler]You know how he was chosen because he was 'closer to the original' than all of the others?

We've decided that the original Ion was a chick and the replica Ion we all know and hate was the closest replica to being female, and was thusly chosen.[/spoiler]

Makes sense to me.

NEED A DISPENSER HERE wrote:Elraine's the big baddie of ToD2, though, isn't she?

[spoiler]I have no clue how old she is. And Barbatos IS old. After all, he was brought back to life after many, many years being dead.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]Although Elraine and Barbatos are more prominent, one can argue that Fortuna, who is blonde, is really the big baddie, even if she is more of the Necron Plus in that she doesn't really show up until the end...cept she doesn't quite come out of nowhere.[/spoiler]

I wouldn't say Tales of Destiny 2 was the first one to break the rule though. If anything, Tales of Eternia broke the early "Blonde villain" streak with Shizel having grey-white hair, although I THINK she could have had blonde hair when she was younger, I'm not quite sure.
[spoiler]But since Balir was blonde, wouldn't Meredy have had blonde hair instead of light purple? Granted, she could have been adopted...but how did she get Shizel's Dark Fibril powers?[/spoiler]


Too bad pictures of Shizel are harder to find than straight pictures of Lloyd and Zelos though. :/


My theory about Ion though?

[spoiler]He's so effeminate and weak because he's been sheltered and protected since he was very very young, and never even got to go out and train swords like Luke Fon Fabre at least got to.[/spoiler]

^ Regarding Ion.

[spoiler]Technically he still IS very very very young, since he's a fairly recent replica, isn't he?[/spoiler]

I get your point though.

Doesn't make it any less annoying. :{P

[spoiler]Wasn't Ion created after Arietta was discharged? I think it was because of the new Ion that she was discharged and Anise was put in charge.[/spoiler]

[spoiler] The original Ion was weak and they replicated him because he was bound to die soon. Arietta was in charge of the original, but when he died and the NEW Ion was put in place of him, they replaced Arietta with Anise because Arietta would've easily been able to tell that it wasn't the same Ion.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]And Arietta would have committed suicide anyways because her ion had died. one may argue that she knew, why she called Ion "hers", but then again that really isn't that believable since they obviously state that Gloomietta wasn't told.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]At one point, Arietta tells them 'you've changed, Ion.' So she may maybe know kind of.[/spoiler]

Anyway, just finished up at Akzeriuth... I want to see what happens with the haircut scene if I'm wearing a costume in which his hair is already short. x{D