My personal favourite in the Tales series - it takes basically everything good about Symphonia and cranks it up to 11. The battle system is fast and fluid, and once you unlock some mid-to-late game abilities (or carry them over into NG+), you can really exploit the FoF system. I've probably replayed this one a half a dozen times, and I still love the characters and plot that are both extremely strong. The connections between the God Generals and the main cast add a lot of interesting depth and the world feels expansive and interesting to explore. 100% I will play it again and again.

What an absolute treat this game was. Played the game with HD textures, and it honestly felt like playing a remastered game. The characters were (mostly) great, especially the character growth of some. The combat felt really good, especially once you got the hang of the FoF system. The story was an absolute banger, and I felt invested in the world they crafted and the consequences of everyone's actions. The last arc kept this from being a masterpiece - while traveling back and forth from place to place might make sense in terms of a grand story, it makes for some terrible pacing in terms of gameplay - but it might be the best game I've played this year, and I would recommend it heartily.

Like with all other Tales Of games, I'm mostly in it for the story and it cleared it so hard. Gameplay? Ehh... I can write it off.

I absolutely love Luke and his story and all of the character's relationships with each other. It's incredibly hard to get through the beginning but their character growth is so incredibly worth it to see. It's honestly a shame that some overall negative reviews of the game might be because they couldn't handle the shit garbage of characters that the game shows you in the first 4 hours of the game and I completely understand. I wish it didn't drag it too long, but the pay off is worth it I promise. I'm just a complete sucker for characters that try to get better and that road of being a better person.

Some characters I feel like they could've written them a bit better/ fleshed it out a bit more? But eh, I'm too invested in Luke's story so I'm unfortunately biased lol

Overall a very solid PS2 JRPG and Tales of entry, yet I still feel it doesn't reach the kind of brilliance that would make it completely outstanding. The game feels like it drags on a bit, with you having to visit the same 5 locations every time you need to make the plot advance. I'd say the highlight is near the midway point, where Luke as a character really starts to shine. However, his character direction seemed a bit aimless nearing the finish line.

As I mentioned, it does start to get repetitive and along the same lines, whether it concerns themes or tone.

Certain story events like death of certain characters seem glossed over or with little to no reaction, and certain heinous actions like betrayal are easily forgiven and set aside. The party also doesn't take much accountability in apologizing to Luke.

I do appreciate its attempt to tell a more mature and darked themed story, surely beyond its commercial age rating: dealing with trauma, suicidal tendencies, and mass genocide.

I really liked Karma's accoustic version as a battle theme and wish we got to see more of it.

Este es uno de mis RPGS favoritos.
La historia toca temas muy fuertes sobre la vida, la religión y política. Jugabilidad divertida que evolucionó para siempre los Tales of. Sobre todo con el sistema de los fonones y las Mystic Arts que se volvieron más accesibles comparado a Symphonia.
Los jefes te darán un buen reto aún en dificultad fácil, sin embargo tienes bastante ventaja con la implementación de los ataques elementales que hacen más rápido los combates.
En la música no se queda atrás, Abyss destaca mucho en ese apartado por el gran talento de Sakuraba, sus doblajes tanto inglés y japonés son de alta calidad y cariño que hoy en día siguen destacando.
Lo malo diría que su ritmo al final del juego se siente apresurado pero más allá el juego es excelente.

Personal favorite game of all time (admittedly through nostalgia goggles). Party members are all loveable, with some stellar voice acting to bring them to life. Combat is snappy, but unfortunately higher difficulty fights don't really add much to the game; it's the typical higher difficulty hp punching bag of a lot of jrgp difficulty sliders. However, despite some tropey anime bullshit and jrpg technobabble, Luke's arc throughout the game really resonated with my adolescent self, and there's still a lot my current self can learn through Luke's journey still.

Way better than Legendia, but doesn't quite reach the heights of Symphonia in my opinion.

Whereupon Legendia took a major step back in the battle system from Symphonia, you can see the leaps forward in gameplay with Abyss. I enjoyed the story and music too.

One of the characters can potentially turn folks off of this game though... especially early on. Personally though, I found it to be a very unique experience playing a game where a major playable character acted like this... and it leaves plenty of room for some stellar character development throughout the game's lengthy adventure. No spoilers. :)

The game's biggest flaws are two-fold:
1. The biggest gripe I had with this game is the insane amount of backtracking. It is RIDICULOUS in this... easily the most egregious of any game I think I may have ever played. The number of times you revisit the same location... it has been so long, I could be very well exaggerating, but the backtracking is imprinted upon my memory of this game.
2. Slow loading times - very noticeable on the world map.

Even with this, I'd say this is more than a solid JRPG, and one of the better experiences I've had with a Tales of game.