Tale of abyss game

Check out some of the intense battles you'll face in Tales of the Abyss on the PlayStation 2. Some battles will be long and challenging, so make sure you are well equipped to handle them. We go exploring and maybe get in a scuffle with some nasty wildlife in the gameplay movie of Tales of the Abyss.

Check out a character trailer for Tales of the Abyss featuring Luke fon Fabre. Here's a character trailer for Tales of the Abyss featuring Jade Curtiss. Tales of the Abyss First Released Oct 10, released.

Unfortunately, his plan requires the original world to be destroyed to make space for the replica. Van uses the Planet Storm to amass enough Seventh Fonons to power his replication machines; this also has the effect of creating powerful earthquakes that will destroy the outer world, killing two birds with one stone. Luke and Tear reunite with the others and save the world by finding a way to lower the floating continents of the world gently.

They defeat the six God-Generals, who are all sympathetic to Van's plan for various reasons, and confront the Commandant in the Absorption Gate. Though Van dismisses Luke as a weak replica, he is defeated in combat and throws himself off a ledge into the very heart of the planet itself.

Several months later, Luke is still struggling with his nature as a replica, believing that he has no right to usurp what it rightfully Asch's place in the world.

He is spurred into action by the reappearance of the God-Generals, revealing that Van is actually still alive and continuing his plan to destroy the world. Worse still, Van has assimilated Lorelei , a powerful being said to be the personification of the Seventh Fonon, into himself, granting him incredible power and causing the poisonous miasma to leak through into the world.

Ion is killed by Mohs by making him read the Planetary Score after Anise betrays the group, having been blackmailed by Mohs into acting as his spy. Mohs's blind faith in the prosperity promised by the Score leads him to aligning himself with Van. Dist places a fonic glyph on Mohs at his request, in order to control the Seventh Fonon and become the new Fon Master.

However, his body is also transformed into that of a grotesque monster. As time passes, his body rejects the Seventh Fonon because Mohs is not a true Seventh Fonist, which causes his mind to deteriorate.

The group, understanding the difficult position Anise was in, forgives her and pursues Van to his stronghold: a replica of his destroyed hometown, now renamed Eldrant. To free Lorelei from Van's grasp, they search for and retrieve two items gifted to them by Lorelei: the Key of Lorelei , a sword granted to Asch, and the Jewel of Lorelei , which is granted to Luke. With the willing sacrifice of the replicas that Van hoped to populate his new world, Luke and Asch use hyperresonance to completely neutralize the miasma.

However, the strain of this causes Luke to develop a terminal condition, which he hides from everyone but Tear and Jade. Deep within Eldrant, Luke and Asch are separated from the rest of the group and, realizing that the room is built in such a way that only one of them can proceed, fight each other.

The fight is not only to determine who should proceed and fight Van, but also to settle their own internal struggles to establish themselves as individuals. Luke is victorious, and Asch gives him the Key of Lorelei. While Luke is on his way to confront Van, Asch truly accepts himself as "Luke fon Fabre" and dies while holding off a wave of replica soldiers. The group finally confronts Van at the heart of Eldrant. Through battle, they force him to draw on more of Lorelei's power, causing him to lose control of the being in the process.

The impact of the release causes the destruction of Eldrant, and Luke is cast down into the earth alongside the body of Asch. Two years later, Tear and the other group members are commemorating Luke and Asch's sacrifice at the site of Eldrant's fall. As they are about to leave, a mysterious figure walks through the flowers toward them: the supposed amalgamation of Luke and Asch, reunited with the group. The game's Japanese theme song is " Karma ", performed by Bump of Chicken and played during the game's opening sequence.

Its lyrics and vocals were removed for the American release however, and the voice was replaced by electric guitars. A few background musics such as "Mirrors" and "Meaning of Birth" are based on this melody. In the anime, this song was also used for the title theme. The game controls are very similar to other Tales games, especially Tales of Symphonia , except with increased maneuverability.

The player can attack, defend, perform a skill or call up a menu with multiple functions, such as using items or commanding an ally to perform an action. This system offers multiplayer co-op battles, and the camera for this mode is improved over the one found in Tales of Symphonia , zooming out as characters move away from each other so that other players are now always on screen. A new feature, Free Run , allows the player character to run in any direction, unlike previous Tales games.

The game features many skills and spells to unleash upon enemies. Characters can learn AD Skills , which can be equipped and unequipped at will, to help them in battles. The game features a large number of these skills, acquired through the use of Capacity Cores , items that give stat bonuses when a character levels up.

Once a certain statistic has a large enough bonus, the AD skill is learned automatically. Whenever a character uses a spell or battle technique that features an elemental alignment, a circle will appear on the ground, corresponding to that element. After being reinforced with more techniques of the same element, the circle will light up in that element's color to signify that an FOF change is available. Finally, if a character stands in the circle and performs a specific skill that corresponds with the FOF circle, the skill will be upgraded into a more powerful version.

Enemies can also use and create FOF fields. This can be filled by completing combos and making critical hits. During Over Limit, characters can use their mystic artes , powerful skills that can only be performed when certain conditions are fulfilled.

Accidental Kidnapping : The plot kicks off when Tear and Luke inadvertently teleport halfway across the world, placing Tear as a "kidnapper" by the view of those back home. Action Girl : Tear, Natalia, and Anise. All three are members of your party and readily leap into battle alongside the others, not to mention each of them has already experienced battle before the game and they also take part in several cutscene fights.

In fact, Natalia tends to do most of the heavy lifting in cutscene fights while Tear saves the entire party multiple times with her hymns alone. Adaptation Explanation Extrication : The anime suffers a lot from this. It's never explained why Ion dies if he reads the Planet Score.

He just does. In the game, this was explained properly, especially in skits. After the first battle against Van , Jade and Guy say that Luke knows how to use his hyperresonance , something that was never brought up until that moment. Guy just makes a brief Hand Wave , saying that "he's being practicing in secret". In the game, this was explained in a whole sub-plot in which Tear teaches Luke how to control his power, we learn Tear's past as Legretta's pupil another sub-plot barely shown in the anime , and she and Luke grow closer making their romance more believable.

Justified once it's revealed that those three 'Aerith' examples are all from the same now-destroyed nation. An Aesop : People can change , not only on an individual level e.

Luke , but the ultimate conflict between the heroes and the Big Bad is over whether society can adapt to a world without the score or whether it is doomed to fall back into its previous ways.

Ain't Too Proud to Beg : Done interestingly near the start of the game, when Jade, an older and far more experienced character, kneels down before Luke, who technically outranks him socially, in order to ask for help with accomplishing his mission to reach the king of Kimlasca. Luke's immaturity in even asking this of him, and Jade's graceful acquiescence, is what allows Jade to keep his dignity in this situation, and the fact that he's willing to go so far underscores just how important their mission really is.

Akashic Records : The Score, which predicts everything from national histories to what an individual person is going to do that day. Only because of the required cute creature in your party burning part of the forest down do you even have a reason for killing her.

She's also Arietta's "mother" You Bastard! What makes her death especially tragic is how All the other God Generals the party kills are at least able to give a moving Final Speech before succumbing to their wounds.

Arietta, however, barely even has time to form a single sentence before dying. She's also the first human boss you actually kill, not counting battles that end with someone falling to their "deaths" only to turn up alive later. And she's a little girl. And her desire for revenge is completely justified by this point. He dies after discovering his daughter is still alive, but is in fact an enemy princess. Allergic to Love : Guy is afraid of women, to be specific, although that doesn't stop him from hitting on them and then running the hell away.

It's also suggested that he doesn't entirely know that he's turning women on, as seen when he compliments Tear on her appearance. All of the Other Reindeer : The older girls in the Order, who did their best to make Anise's life miserable, mocked her parentage, and insisted she was incapable of being a good Fon Master guardian.

Happens to Van and Tear while they are watchers in the Qliphoth. The other soldiers were jealous of them because they came from the Outer Lands and are descendants of Yulia. All Your Powers Combined : Nebilim.

She has the best Strike and Fonic Artes in the entire game. Aloof Big Brother : Van to Tear. Asch to Luke. Alternate World Map : The Qliphoth; a bleak sea of miasma located far below the Outer Lands, with the only notable landmarks being Yulia City and the island that houses the Tower of Rem. But as the story progresses, some of the Outer Lands will end up down in the Qliphoth and remain there until post-Absorption Gate, where the two world maps will re-emerge into one.

There are hints, but it's impossible to be sure. Amusement Park : Nam Cobanda Isle. Animation Bump : Anime of the Game has substantially higher graphical quality than ingame anime cutscenes.

It was even recycled for the animated adaptation. Anti-Frustration Features : A few parts, the plot demands you to go to a town that's half way across the map. The game gives you an option to immediately warp there if you want to. During the stealth section, you have to sneak the party past a large regiment of guards. If you get caught enough times, the game will give you the option of just brute-forcing your way through by fighting the guards in normal battles. You get a fast travel ability right as the plot starts taking you to various known locations at a rapid pace.

Apocalypse Maiden : Luke fon Fabre considering that the Score ultimately reveals the destruction of Akzeriuth was supposed to set in motion a series of events that would result in The End of the World as We Know It. The Big Bad deciding to make it happen on his terms and creating his own Apocalypse Maiden in the form of The Hero to do so is what kicks off the plot. Arbitrary Headcount Limit : You only fight with four characters, while you have a total of six; complete with Hand Wave as to what the other characters are doing while your main party is fighting, with the exception of the final battle, where a skit right before it says that 2 of the 6 party members will be in charge of finding and maintaining a safe escape route as the other 4 take out Van and free Lorelei.

Arc Number : Everything seems to come in sevens : seven fonons, seven fonstones, seven fonic hymns, seven years since Luke lost his memories, seven Ion replicas, seven playable characters though that one might be coincidence and various other examples.

Artificial Brilliance : The AI can actually use items themselves. Natalia is often seen as wasteful, but her AI does seem to know never to touch the expensive or rare items. His AI almost never uses it if he needs it - even if he's the only one taking damage or has a chance. The Atoner : Luke, after he realizes what a complete ass he's been and gets an Important Haircut.

Anise, after Ion's death. Spinoza, after the death of his colleagues due to his betrayal. His friends from Class I also offer their lives to delay Van in order to atone for his betrayal. Mieu is also an atoner since he's been exiled from his village because of his actions.

He is just a small child, but his playing around lead to a horrible fire that killed several of his kind and started a war with another species that is now dominating and terrorizing his people.

They are a pain in the ass to learn how to use , and either require a particularly unfavorable HP level to activate or have a high cost associated with them , gald for Anise. Also, Luke and Anise's only be used once per battle. This means Jade and Tear cannot use their Mystic Artes until someone else uses one with no extension, and nobody can cast a fonic arte. There is also a risk that Anise's can lock up the game if there are no sound effects for Dying Moon, your game will freeze.

Both can only be used once, however. Fortune's Arc also has an extension, which deals extra damage and gives status buffers. Most of Guy's Back Story is right there in the open during the plot. To get most of Jade's, you have to go looking for it. Bag of Holding : Aside from the usual ridiculously large inventory space, both Guy and Luke somehow manage to put the various BFS into hilts far too small to hold them.

Jade has a literal bag of holding that he uses to pull out his spears whenever he needs them, Hand Waved as a Fonic Art. Bare-Fisted Monk : Sync fights with only his hands. Anise's Strike Artes fit this mold also. Bare Your Midriff : Luke, in a rare male example of this trope, always has his cloak showing off his abs. Complete with Fanservice outfits for everyone! It can even be addressed in skits if you take the characters into battle wearing their spa costumes.

Beard of Evil : Van. Lampshaded by Anise in a skit. Because Destiny Says So : Holy crap , does it ever. Why don't the people of Auldrant do anything when something bad happens? Because the Score predicted it, so there's no point meddling. Why does Grand Maestro Mohs want to start a war between the two major superpowers of the world?

Because the Score said it would happen. Why doesn't Tear's uncle think that a city is going to fall? The Score didn't say it would, so physics be damned, he's not even going to go check. NPCs admit to deciding what to have for dinner based entirely on the Score.

Both the heroes and the villains start to see all of the reliance on the Score as ridiculous. Beta Test Baddie : Played straight by Sync. Betty and Veronica : Natalia ultimately sees Luke and Asch as this in regards to her main choices in suitors. The Gainax Ending leaves which one she would choose in the end unknown.

Beyond Redemption : When Van is revealed to be a traitor, Luke and Tear are in denial at first, the former because Van is his teacher and the latter because Van is her brother. After the events of Akzeriuth, both Luke and Tear come to accept that Van has to be stopped, one way or another. Near the end, when Van is in the final stages of carrying out his plan to replace the world with replicas, the party tries to present Van with an alternative and show how his plan to Screw Destiny is ultimately flawed.

Van rejects the party, because he's come too far to back down now. With all other options now gone, the party is forced to kill Van to stop him from going through with it. Bilingual Bonus : Of a sort. The Fonic Language, if you can learn to read it, will provide you with a lot of these, usually in the form of Shout-Outs to other Tales games.

Bishounen : Majority of the male cast fit this trope. Bitch in Sheep's Clothing : Anise. Sugary sweet on the outside, utterly cynical on the inside, and she tends to show this side more around people she doesn't need to impress for example, her battle taunts are considerably more vulgar when Luke and Jade aren't in the party. Mind you, she's not all that bad on the inside when the chips are down, being ultimately something of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.

She is also The Mole working for Grand Maestro Mohs and has been giving him information about Ion and the team since day one. Later revelations reveal Guy is this more downplayed in the present, but in the past he was obsessed with Revenge to the point of planning on killing Luke.

Bittersweet Ending : Depending on who the red haired person at the end is, Tear or Natalia will be very sad. Blade Below the Shoulder : Jade's spear is actually fused into his arm, and he calls it out with a fonic arte.

Blade on a Stick : Jade uses a spear and variations thereof as his primary weapon. Also, in the anime, it's shown that the tip of Tear's staff is sharp enough to pierce flesh. Blamed for Being Railroaded : Luke spends the first portion of the game being a whiny, self-absorbed burden on the party even if he does hold his own in battle. When his actions result in what amounts to an entire town being massacred, he's uniformly blamed by his party members, and continues to insist that it wasn't his fault which is technically true as he was the "gun" in this situation.

To be fair, it kind of is his fault. But to be fairer, there's no other way things could have possibly gone for the player or, for that matter, for Luke as no one gave him a good enough reason to avoid it see Broken Aesop for details. Bodyguard Crush : Gender inverted : Anise has a crush on Ion, and is also his bodyguard.

Ion's former body guard, Arietta, also has a crush on him, which is the main reason why Anise and Arietta hate each other. Legretta loves Van and is his right hand woman. Tear feels obligated to escort Luke back to the mansion and later, to watch over him. And yes, she also loves him, at least later on. Oh, and there's the Tales Cameo Team, as well. This dungeon can only be accessed during the second playthrough. Bookends : Luke's? Break the Haughty : Pretty much everything that happens to Luke in the first half of the game; though it's worthwhile to note it's a serious deconstruction.

Also, for Natalia, she subdues a bit when she joins the party, realizing quickly that fighting in real life is much different from practice. The real kick for her, though, is when she discovers she's not really a princess, and her real father is one of the God-Generals. Broken Aesop : In the events leading up to Akzeriuth , the party, especially Tear, warn Luke that he needs to think for himself and not blindly rush into things solely on others' authority.

Except they give no reason why he should distrust Van other than because they say so despite having plenty of time to tell him the truth. Bubblegloop Swamp : Inista Marsh not only has marsh monsters, but it's got a huge Beef Gate that the player has no choice but to run away from. The swamp doesn't make this easy, since a lot of difficult terrain slows down your movement speed.

Cain and Abel : Tear and Van. The game repeatedly jumps back and forth on which is which before settling on Tear as Abel and Van as Cain. For a significant chunk of the game, it's Tear as a heroic Cain attempting to kill Van's villainous Abel.

The problem? Lorelei used the ancient Ispanian translation of Van's name, "The one who would seize glory". If it had just used his normal name, Luke and the party could have started to head out and foil his schemes a whole month earlier. Dragon Tempest! This goes on for about a third of the entire game. The rest of the party easily knows that they have romantic feelings for each other, but Luke can't spit it out because, he's seven years old and his fonons are seperating, so, by Luke's logic, why tell her how he feels when she'll just be brokenhearted when he disappears , and Tear can't spit it out because she's textbook kuudere.

Tear finally says "I love you. Catchphrase : Luke: "Shut up! When they arrive, the Big Bad is already there, reading up about the same subject. The two of them have a bit of a row, but out of respect for the scholar an old friend of his , the Big Bad leaves without anything coming of it.

As the replica of the real Luke fon Fabre, Luke is essentially a " changeling child " left in place of the "real" one. He doesn't handle it well and it leaves him with crippling self esteem issues all on top of the one closest to being his parent in actions and being responsible for his creation being the Big Bad.

It's subverted when his "fake" parents accept him as their own son despite his origins; though Luke struggles to accept himself as a Fabre long into the latter parts of the game. Changeling Tale : A variation as the original Luke fon Fabre went through this the backstory, being replaced by a replica The Hero and Luke followed from the start , and losing his original identity in the process.

He never regains it and, despite Luke trying many times to give him back his family and position in life, he remains Asch throughout. Character Development : The entire main party goes through different levels of this, but Luke more than anyone else in the game, going from a snotty Spoiled Brat with extra helpings of "Ass" in Ambassador to a genuinely selfless hero.

Chekhov's Gunman : The Dark Wings are mentioned near the very beginning of the game and finally show up a while after. Childhood Marriage Promise : Natalia and Luke made one, which became one of the defining points in Natalia's life as it contained the ideals to which they would strive to as future monarchs.

Luke doesn't remember making it, so Natalia reminds him about it at every opportunity and dreams about how romantic it would be if his first recalled memory was of the promise.

It's revealed that she really made the promise with Asch, which leads to much guilt on Natalia's part for forcing her dreams onto Luke, and forms the basis for her own personal struggle to differentiate Luke and Asch. Children Forced to Kill : Applies to Luke, due to him being actually seven. Though interestingly enough Anise, who is thirteen, doesn't have this problem as a fon master guardian.

Which might have to do with the above trope. The replicas that show up during the third arc deserve special mention as they are at best a few days old when they fight the team. Interestingly enough, all Child Soldiers are part of the Oracle Knights, and it's implied neither Kimlasca or Malkuth would put any one under the age of majority in a dangerous situation or a potentially dangerous post.

The Chosen One : Luke. But it's not as simple as that. Asch was the original Chosen One, and Luke was created as a mere decoy. The simplest explanation is that they are both " The Chosen One ". Chronic Back Stabbing Disorder : Fridge Logic leads one to the conclusion that the God-Generals have this, switching loyalty between Asch during the Akzeriuth quest , Mohs, and Van, despite all three having vastly different goals.

Partially justified in that the God Generals are all Selfish Evil : they all have their own agendas for Dist it's reviving Nebilim, for Sync it's destroying the world , so it's safe to assume that they're just trying to make sure what they want gets done. Church Militant : The Oracle Knights are the guardians of the Order of Lorelei , though even the non-militants like Ion have some pretty awesome abilities. Cloning Blues : Every way you can stretch it.

Colonel Badass : Jade. He's known as "The Necromancer," and people from both sides rightly fear him. Color-Coded Eyes : Luke has brighter blue eyes than Ashe. In the original PlayStation 2 this was maintained for the post-credits scene. However in the anime adaption it was not, and the Nintendo DS has a reduced color scale.

Whenever a character uses [Technique A] which is say Fire-elemental, it leaves a circle on the battlefield charged with Fire.

Stand in that circle and use [Technique B], and [Technique B] will turn into something new and generally Fire-elemental. Coming-of-Age Story : For Luke, absolutely. Competence Zone : Averted by Jade, who is twice the age of the rest of the cast but is often complimented on his ability to keep up with the younger heroes.

Lampshaded by his occasional comments about how his joints ache in his "old age" he's 35 , usually giving him an excuse to get out of manual labor IE crate-moving puzzles; ironically, when he does have to push a crate around, he does so with one hand, the other remaining in his pocket.

Jade : No, no. I've been frail since birth Luke : What's the matter? Tear I don't know. I just suddenly got worried Luke : Don't worry. If worse comes to worst, I'll protect you. Tear : What? Luke : Uh I-I didn't mean it like that Well, fine. I didn't take it like that. Earth-Shattering Kaboom : Subverted, barely.

While the world never blows up, manipulation by the Big Bad and Luke's heroic incompetence leads to half the world missing at one point. Elemental Powers : First Fonon: Shadow.

Second Fonon: Earth and by extension in one case, Gravity. Third Fonon: Wind and by extension, Lightning. Fourth Fonon: Water and by extension, Ice. Fifth Fonon: Fire.

Sixth Fonon: Light. Seventh Fonon: Sound. Element 5 : The seventh fonon: the element of sound. The Empire : Averted, but Mohs tries to convince King Ingobert VI of Kimlasca that Malkuth is this and is trying to mobilize forces to invade Kimlasca, only for the heroes, who had actually seen the country with their own eyes, met a colonel in its military, and visited the locations supposedly gathering forces, to run into the throne room and inform the king of the truth even taking the colonel in question, Jade Curtiss, along with them.

Escort Mission : You have to escort a bunch of villagers from their hometown to a new one. If you run into a battle, they will always get injured even though there's only two or three enemy soldiers. Later, there's also the Bonus Dungeon. Evil Knockoff : Sync, especially after he stops wearing his mask later in the game.