Tales of the Abyss First Look
Imagine that your entire life (as far as you remember it) has been spent sheltered from the world. Now imagine that cocoon is invaded and shattered, leaving you to discover who your friends and enemies really are. Sounds like a tricky landscape for anyone to navigate through, but for Luke fon Fabre, the protagonist of the upcoming Tales of the abyss game from Namco Bandai, this is the back story for his adventure. We had a chance to check out the latest chapter of the Tales franchise at an event this week, and while the game stands alone from other titles in the series, it should have enough correlations to appease Tales fans.
Luke fon Fabre is the only heir of a powerful family in Kimlaska who gets kidnapped seven years ago by the Malcouth Empire. The shock of the kidnapping erases his memory completely, and when he's finally found and recovered Luke is confined in his family's manor for his own safety. Unfortunately for him, his spoiled, privileged world is shattered when a young woman known as Tear invades his palace and a disturbance known as a hyper-resonance is triggered, transporting the pair to another part of the world. Now forcibly thrown into a society and circumstances that he doesn't understand, Luke must seek out Ion, the leader of the Order of Lorelei (the global religion), to discover who he is and what his role is in an ancient prophecy.
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Luke has a huge adventure ahead of him in Tales of the Abyss.
Battle is obviously a major part of the game, and Tales of the Abyss takes the series in a new direction with its inclusion of freely roaming characters. Not only does this make gameplay more dynamic and action packed, but you can also sneak up behind enemies to stagger them or score critical hits. Spellcasters aren't left out in the cold, as they'll be able to cast "magic" using tech points (TP) to target anything on the battlefield and generate what's known as Fields of Fonons. Fonons are subatomic particles that make up the technology of the world, and are built out of six elements: light, dark, air, earth, fire and water. Depending on how often you launch a particular elemental strike, you'll quickly build up greater numbers of these particles on the battlefield, which will allow you to power up these fields. Once you've collected enough Fonons of one type, any attack or skill associated with that element in a field will be boosted, transforming into more effective skills or attacks. However, monsters can also wander into these fields and be similarly augmented as well, so you'll have to plan your strategy accordingly.
Like Ex skills from Symphonia, you'll gain AD skills in Abyss, which you can unlock by various means, such as leveling up or using a particular ability multiple times. These can be augmented with one of four kinds of gems, such as upgrading how much damage it will do, decrease the use of TP, or increase your mobility. This lets you level up each skill in four different ways, allowing players to customize how abilities will be used in battle. Unlike titles in Symphonia that provided level bonuses, each one of the six party members in Abyss has what's known as a capacity core which gives new stat boosts to each character.
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Combos remain the key to success in battle.
This isn't to say that titles, grades or even cooking aren't important or aren't included; on the contrary, you'll still be able to receive titles. These will unlock new costumes and grades, which can be redeemed at a grade shop for new game tweaks, such as additional experience for each monster killed. Shortcuts return as well, and you'll be able to not only set your battle preferences via shortcuts, but also cooking shortcuts to replenish your health and TP after a fight. Apart from these mainstays, we also discovered that while you can adventure alone (with an automated mode that fights your battles for you or a semi-auto mode that puts you in prime position to strike), you can also take three other friends into the game via Multi-tap, which would give each player one character to control on their own. We only caught a glimpse of the game, but from reports that we heard, the 60-95 hours of gameplay and bonuses for multiple playthroughs should keep Tales fans engaged when the game comes out this December.
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