Gaming Is Tales of the Abyss 3ds port any good?

[romanaOne]

I really liked the English translation of the original Mother JRPG for GBA. Earthbound was just too hard. Haven't gotten around to Mother 3 yet.

Not sure about Final Fantasy. Started off well, but got kind of stupid toward the end. And the optional extra dungeons in the GBA FF 1 & 2 cart really just seemed like a tedious, waiting-for-god(ot) exercise.

I realize this is a port of an old PS2 game. Is it very tedious/difficult? Dungeon crawls can be interesting if they are non-linear and involve puzzles rather than testing how fast I can push the A button.

 

[Nathan Drake]

It's a Tales game, so if you know anything about those, you know what to expect. The battle system is fun, and the story is interesting. For the most part, I didn't really need to grind, although I hit the final battle woefully unprepared despite easily getting through everything up to it. Graphically, the game doesn't look the best. I mean, especially if you compare it to Tales of Hearts R on the Vita, Tales of the Abyss 3DS looks like poop with the PS2 graphics being whittled down some to fit on the 3DS. I found the story interesting and the dungeons no more simple or difficult than what I've come to expect from the Tales series. That means puzzles that can be a little challenging, but don't exactly require a level of deep thinking to solve. On the technical side, the 3DS version of Tales of the Abyss does suffer from some framerate drops on the world map especially. These don't deeply affect the experience, but it's worth noting.

As far as Tales games go, I played it and sold it. It wasn't one I felt like playing through again on NG+, nor did I find it to really excel in any one way. You may like it more than me if it would be your first Tales game though. It was my third or fourth, so I had expectations already that Abyss did not meet.

 

[Ryupower]

the game battle system is NOT turned based like FF/mother

it action based, you control one char chain attacks press a button to block, press button to use arts, you can chain different levels in to one another.
there is also a battle mechanic the magic circle appear in battle and depending on the skill used a different attack happens

there are puzzles

check youtube for videos of "tales of" games

there are many mini-games and side quests to do

 

[osaka35]

I realize this is a port of an old PS2 game. Is it very tedious/difficult? Dungeon crawls can be interesting if they are non-linear and involve puzzles rather than testing how fast I can push the A button.

Out of the tales game, it is by far my least favorite. I found the character's reactions to plot points were based completely off a need to drive the plot forward, changing on a whim when needed, rather than any sort of personality they had. As someone who enjoyed the tales game for the strong and consistent personalities, I was pretty upset and disgruntled while playing.

That being said, the fighting is okay(it's "active" and not turn based), but you might find the dungeons tedious, depending on the kinds of puzzles you like. The dungeons are all puzzle based, or a "go find/press this so you can go make this door open", or "push the right X into the right Y while fending off enemies" type of thing. Usually in games like this, you have a little bit of fun solving the puzzles, but really the driving force is pushing the plot forward.

I found myself disappointed whenever the plot was pushed forward, so I felt unmotivated to push through the dungeon puzzles. Your mileage may vary though. If you ever played tales of symphonia, this game is like a tiny brother of that game that isn't nearly as good. But it gives it a shot.

 

[Cygen]

In my case it was my second 3DS Game (Pokemon Y was my first) and I never regretted buying it.
I once played the PS2 Version for a few hours and thought it was a good game but disliked the long load times.
The 3DS Version seems to be an 1:1 port with improvements and as far as I can tell not a single thing missing.
It loads faster than the PS2 Version and has acceptable looking 3D effects (imo)

If you played Portable or Old pre PS2 Era Tales of Games then you can live with the look of the Graphics and only have the typical "Techno babble" Confusion for specific technology/magic words.
I played 7 Tales games so far and this one was my favourite.

 

[the_randomizer]

The other problem with the port is the battle system runs at 30 fps and not like 60 fps on the PS2 version.

 

[fischermasamune]

One problem with Tales of the Abyss is that the whole combat system is very difficult to grasp if you haven't played any Tales game. Furthermore, it takes 10 hours to really get into the story. But after that, it becomes really good!

 

[kirbymaster101]

I found an undub version. Anyone know if the skits are voiced in that? Gateway coming soon so cant test now . Will give me another reason to play the game again

 

[Pippin666]

I would like to remind you all that this game is not a port, it's a remake from the ground up for the 3DS hardware. Google for source.

Pip'

 

[the_randomizer]

I would like to remind you all that this game is not a port, it's a remake from the ground up for the 3DS hardware. Google for source.

Pip'

Whatever it is, it's not as good as the PS2 version, half the framerate in-battle. bleh.

 

[Pippin666]

I finished both version and the 3DS version is much better.

Pip'

 

[AndreTrek]

The 3DS version has better loading times and a bunch of bugs that were in the original version were fixed in this one, however, the framerate during battles was essentially halved (from 60 to 30 fps) and the textures are generally lower quality. It's a solid port but i wouldn't really recommend one version over the other.
Basically, the PS2 version has better graphics and performance while the 3DS version has shorter loading times and less bugs.
For anyone that's wondering, the japanese version has fully voiced skits, so i believe the undub should too.

 

[WiiUBricker]

The PS2 version is 4:3 and the screen is cropped on the 3DS. 30 FPS during battles aren't that bad. I recommend playing ToA on the 3DS XL.

 

[romanaOne]

I recommend playing ToA on the 3DS XL.

I play everything on the DSi / 3DS XL. Just can't go back to those small screens on the previous DS models.

 

[chartube12]

To be honest Abyss is probably the only takes game where I don't care much for the story. It seems very dry and too straight forward. I don't even remember if I ever finished it to be honest, I don't even care really to look and see if I did.