tales of the abyss

[Glen]

holy hell, this game is amazing. my second favourite tales game that i've played (all the english ones barring symphonia, which a lot of people think is the best)!

the combat is intense, and while many people think free run makes the game too easy, it's got its fair share of challenges. now i consider myself a tales veteran, having beaten all the games ive played on the hardest difficulty possible, but this one... wow.

they REALLY made the hardest difficulty fucking hard in this one. my god. if you havent played it yourself, picture this. its my second playthrough, and i get special options that i can purchase at a shop with points i accumulated in my first playthrough. i am currently playing on the hardest difficulty, with A TEN TIMES EXP BONUS. meaning i get ten times the exp i usually would. i have been grinding for close to two hours.

and guess what? the first boss has 35,000 hp, and all my attacks do 1 damage per hit. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

anyways guys, talk about the awesomeness that is tota. one of the best battle systems ive ever experienced, and a really really good storyline imo. also, its hella fucking long, wow. my first playthrough took close to a hundred hours.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT1DP-MNRkU

tell me that isnt hot

 

[Firestorm]

Awesome Awesome game.
AvatarST and aamto won't shut up about it and it may have turned people off, but awesome awesome game!

Meaning of Birth is such an awesome battle song.

 

[Yoshi King]

Having played a few "Tales of" games, I'm quite ashamed to say I haven't played TotA yet since I've had a PS2 since January. I was watching a Hi-Ougi showcase though, and the majority just seem to be kind of uninspired. I think that if I get the chance (in between university classes and the shitload of Wii games coming this holiday season) I'm going to do my best to give it a run-through.

(Just because I'm an off-topic bastard I'm just gonna throw out my favourite Hi-Ougi:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK83YDKeT5k ... I like it partly because of the insane length of the name)

 

[Doomsday]

I am getting Swap Magic almost exclusively to play this game. It seems that good. I have to do this since it wasn't launched here on Europe :(

 

[Uskuri]

Waiting for a price drop, because I am a cheap bastard. I mean seriously, I saw Tales of Symphonia selling for $10 last time I was at the game shop. If Abyss even just goes to $20 I will be delighted.

You say its better than Symphonia though, so my I am exponentially interested.

 

[Firestorm]

Waiting for a price drop, because I am a cheap bastard. I mean seriously, I saw Tales of Symphonia selling for $10 last time I was at the game shop. If Abyss even just goes to $20 I will be delighted.

You say its better than Symphonia though, so my I am exponentially interested.

I think that ToS selling almost 500,000 copies in the US (~1mil worldwide) while Tales of the Abyss only sold about 30,000 - 50,000 (~350k worldwide?) is going to keep it from reaching budget price as quickly as you'd like.

Hell, it launched at a budget price of $40 US so you should buy it now! Well worth it.

 

[Glen]

Having played a few "Tales of" games, I'm quite ashamed to say I haven't played TotA yet since I've had a PS2 since January. I was watching a Hi-Ougi showcase though, and the majority just seem to be kind of uninspired. I think that if I get the chance (in between university classes and the shitload of Wii games coming this holiday season) I'm going to do my best to give it a run-through.

(Just because I'm an off-topic bastard I'm just gonna throw out my favourite Hi-Ougi:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK83YDKeT5k ... I like it partly because of the insane length of the name)

are you crazy?! the bulk of the hi ougis in this game are fucking gangster

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzpPhx5Ld18

brilliant overlord is sooo sick looking

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev2Oi464fYw

dont even get me STARTED on lost fon drive

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-D3gRs9aEs

and indignation, as always, looks excellent.

 

[Falkon]

I love this game, but the whole interlude between the two story arcs totally killed my urge to finish it. =/

Definitely one of the better Tales games though. I just wish that there were more party members.

 

[Lupo Aro]

Every time it's brought up in #smogon, I get mad because I don't have a PS2, and there's other stuff I want to buy. (Metroid Prime 3 on Tuesday)

 

[AgostonF]

Tales of Eternia is my favourite Tales game.

 

[Glen]

Tales of Eternia is my favourite Tales game.

thank you, same here. abyss is second.

eternia is just so astoundingly good. it can be difficult without being cheap, and random battles are really enjoyable because of how fast they go.

 

[RougeSoul]

I love this game. I spent 5 hours on the first boss on Unknown mode.

Also the Nebilim Sidequest on Unknown is utter bullshit. Especially when she's raping you with hi-ougis all the fucking time.

I second Brilliant Overlord being the god of Hi-Ougis.

 

[Yoshi King]

are you crazy?! the bulk of the hi ougis in this game are fucking gangster

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzpPhx5Ld18

brilliant overlord is sooo sick looking

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev2Oi464fYw

dont even get me STARTED on lost fon drive

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-D3gRs9aEs

and indignation, as always, looks excellent.

I guess we're gonna have to agree to disagree, Glen .

Personally I liked Lost Fon Drive but Brilliant Overlord just looks like a bunch of Demon Fangs in succession with flashing lights in the background.

Is Indignation a Hi-Ougi in TotA or something? It's been a regular (albeit fucking strong) spell in most of the other games, I thought Indignation Judgement was the Hi-Ougi of it. It was impressive but I still like the bigass I.J. sword, haha.

 

[Glen]

I love this game. I spent 5 hours on the first boss on Unknown mode.

Also the Nebilim Sidequest on Unknown is utter bullshit. Especially when she's raping you with hi-ougis all the fucking time.

I second Brilliant Overlord being the god of Hi-Ougis.

nebilim is intense enough on hard mode, i cant wait to try her on unknown.

ive heard though that you need to grind to level 200 with tutti, otherwise you'll do 1 damage per shot vs her million and some hp. i guess you dont need tutti, but whatever other c core gives you 4 attack per level.

i heard you need 2800 physical attack to deal more than 1 damage to her per hit, so you need luke and guy to level only with tutti or the 4 attack c core to get there EVERY SINGLE LEVEL. that, or stock up on lavenders or red lavenders. which you should probably do anyways, since even if you grind to 200 with tutti youll only do a hundred or so per hit. and that'll take awhile.

 

[Nightsever]

i beat nebilim on unknown at lv 160-170

physical hits will always do 1 dmg so just use luke or guy to lure her and have tear/jade/anise hit her w/ magic

 

[Glen]

i beat nebilim on unknown at lv 160-170

physical hits will always do 1 dmg so just use luke or guy to lure her and have tear/jade/anise hit her w/ magic

not ALWAYS, you just need 2800 or 2900 to break her defence. it requires levelling up with a +4 atk c core every level, and maybe even a couple lavenders.

 

[RougeSoul]

I never actually beat Nebilim on Unknown I just fought her a hell of a lot of times and came close to killing her. I think the first time I beat her was on hard and I had to stop using Jade and had to switch from Jade to Guy because she alway interruted Jade's spells. The second Time I fought her was on Unknown and I couldn't kill her no matter what because I was mostly doing one damage to her. I think the thing that let me kill her hard were free run because evryone knows Meteor Storm is a bitch to deal with and the moon selector thing that let me just shuffle between evryones hi-ougis. I will admit that when I first went into the fight I had 20 apple gels, 20 lemon gels and so on and by the time I killed her I had no lemon or Pinapple, 6 apple and one special gel left. My team when I first fought her on hard was Luke, Guy, Jade and Tear but when I kept dying I took out luke and put in Natalie because Tear couldnt Heal everyone. I have seperate save file of that so that I could at least try and beat her on Unknown.

 

[aamto]

Fuck that. The hardest part about Nebilim on Unknown would be the grinding to get the necessary atk/fatk to break her. The AI is very easily exploited. My Very Hard strat for Nebilim was this: Have Guy run circles around Nebilim while Tear, Jade, and Anise pounded her with spells. She will always target Guy so long as he's closest to her, 90% of the time with spells that are easily avoidable. It was just a matter of time until she fell.

The most frustrating fight -by far- for me was the Exhibition match. My god. I killed one character 4 separate times, another 3 times. It was just terrible. They constantly revive and heal one another. You think you're done by killing the healer, but then she gets life bottle'd. Bah.

The one main gripe I have with this game is the retarded AI. they are fucking idiots. Hell, most of the big boss battles, I just control Guy and set my 3 casters to short-cut spells, that way if they idiotically try to melee, I can abort and save their sorry asses.

But other than that, this is easily my favorite Tales game. And I've hijacked many times chat to discuss this with people.

 

[Doomsday]

I'm sorry. I tried really hard not to bump this thread, but fuck it.
Got my copy recently and oh WOW am I loving this game. Luke is simply awesome and hilarious sometimes (fuck you miueueu), the battle system feels comfortable and Karma (the opening song) is really cool, I like the instrumental version better though. It seems to me that everyone in this game is such an ass, haha. With like 10 hours of playing I haven't seen much of sappy rpg talk and wow do I like that or what! It's a nice change if you ask me. Too bad fuckin' avatarst already spoiled a big part of the plot but I honestly don't mind much, it's just fun to play.

Also I was wondering what is the general rule for comboing moves in this game? In ToS techs had levels and for comboing you'd follow level 1 - 2 - 3. I'm supposing it goes base techs -> Arcane techs but isn't it that too small? Is there any way to link various game, and if yes what is it?

 

[RougeSoul]

After you get a certain Ad skill You can link Base-Arcane-Base moves, For example Luke would be able to link Fang Blade-Fang Blade Havoc-Raging Blast.

 

[Doomsday]

Oh right... AD skills. I'll search around in gamefaqs I guess. Also is it odd that I lost twice at Largo + Sync before finally defeating them?


...because I did :(

 

[Glen]

Oh right... AD skills. I'll search around in gamefaqs I guess. Also is it odd that I lost twice at Largo + Sync before finally defeating them?


...because I did :(

largo and sync is the first (and one of the only) bosses i had trouble with, so its not THAT bad. sync just doesnt get staggered and kicks your ass with stone dragon ascent. are you playing on normal, or hard, out of curiosity?

anyways, it goes attack x 3 > base > arcane > mystic (hi ougis, but you cant use them till you hit level 30 and get the ad skill 'special' [you also have to be in overlimit mode])

you unlock ad skills based on the c core you have equipped, so try to mix them around and get as many ad skills as you can. there is one, as the above poster mentioned, that allows you to squeeze in another base per chain. there is also one that allows you to link arcanes to bases, meaning you can go attack x 3 > arcane > base. with those two skills together, you can go attack x 3 > base > arcane > base, or base > base > arcane, or whatever.

ALSO there are ad skills called add combo 1-4. they basically give you an extra normal attack per chain. with all 4 of them, you can do crap like attack x 7, base, base, arcane, mystic. o _o its crazy. you dont get add combo 1 for awhile, and i doubt youll get add combo 2-4 on your first playthrough.

furthermore, the combo system in this game is unbelievably advanced in most respects. if youre a newbie to it, then dont bother worrying about it for awhile, but you can do some intense stuff with spell cancelling and fof cancelling.

im glad youre enjoying the game, its one of my favourites of all time.

 

[KJay8]

Yes this game is beast its a shame games like these dont get recognized enough.

My favorite is Tales of Destiny (JPN) then Tales of Destiny 2 (JPN) and third Tales of the Abyss.

I hope Tales of Destiny 1&2 get brought to the US sometime. Id say Tales of the Abyss is better than Final Fantasy 12.

 

[Glen]

tales of destiny was actually the first tales game released over here, back on the ps1. however, its pretty terrible. the battle system is ass.

tales of destiny remake looks ridiculously cool, though. they COMPLETELY remade the game, giving it a new battle system and everything (went from the same battle system as phantasia to the aerial linear motion battle system, which is basically all about aerial combos).

http://youtube.com/watch?v=d8lzaUI2KH0 this is the original tales of destiny

http://youtube.com/watch?v=cUCjkjSVaoo&mode=related&search= this is the remade version, lol.

todr is considered to have the fastest and most intense battle system of any tales game, though tales of rebirth isnt very far behind from what ive heard.

we really need these games over here, its a shame the tales series does kinda poorly in north america :(

 

[Alienjesus]

:9 i dont think this came out in uk.

guess i'll hafta wait for tales of symphonia 2 and tales of innocence instead.


i'm really looking forward to tales of innocence