Good
A Long Way from Home
In a world where people's lives are governed by a divine prophecy called the Score, young nobleman Luke fon Fabre has been completely homeschooled for seven years. By "completely homeschooled," we mean "he's never even set foot outside of his manor for all that time." It seems that something happened when he was younger that erased all of his childhood memories, and since then, Luke's been locked up in his house, seeing the outside world only through his windows. Besides his parents, the only other people he sees are servants, other nobles, his best friend Guy, and a man named Van. Van acts as Luke's teacher in the art of swordsmanship, and they've developed a relationship where Luke looks up to him as a role model and mentor. On one fateful day as the two are training, they are interrupted by an intruder -- a young girl who apparently has a bone to pick with Van. She attacks, and Luke raises his sword to defend his teacher, but something happens when the weapons of the two clash -- they vanish!
Luke and the young lass, Tear, wake up in a strange forest. Apparently their bodies reacted to each other in such a way as to cause them to teleport elsewhere, and now they'll just have to trek back. Luke, having been cooped up for seven years, is woefully unprepared for the outside world, and he soon gets a crash course on basic survival skills. They arrive at a small town along the way, where Luke's lack of social graces manages to both offend the populace and cause him to be falsely accused of thievery. After being arrested, he soon comes to meet Colonel Jade and a young man of the cloth named Fon Master Ion. Through Jade and Ion, Luke and Tear learn that the winds of war are threatening to blow across the land, and Luke's noble status is needed to help put a stop to it. But, as always in RPGs, there's more to the situation than meets the eye, and Luke will need to face some terrifying truths about himself and his forgotten past. The story moves at a brisk pace, introducing almost all of the major characters within the first several hours of gameplay, and has more than its fair share of twists and turns. It's definitely an improvement over the mishmash of clichés that was the story in Tales of Symphonia, or the nonsensical mess of Legendia. The primary cast of characters is also a fun bunch, with a great variety of personality quirks that add life and humor to their dialogue and interactions with each other. Throw a top-notch localization on top of everything and you end up with a recipe for a very enjoyable narrative.
Into the Abyss
The first thing you'll notice about Tales of the Abyss is the graphics. Perhaps we've been spoiled after seeing Final Fantasy XII and Okami, but the visuals in Abyss come as something of a disappointment. Character models, though designed by well-loved Japanese artist Fujishima Kousuke, are lacking in detail, with bland, monotone colors and a low polygon count. The backgrounds and settings don't fare much better, with unremarkable art design and low-res textures. In addition, the frame rate in the non-battle sequences is rather choppy, an obvious contrast to Symphonia's silky-smooth animation. The soundtrack, though scored by longtime Tales series maestros Motoi Sakuraba and Shinji Tamura, is similarly lacking in aural punch. While much of the background music in towns and dungeons is unmemorable, the fast-paced battle anthems stand out as being particularly good.
