Tales of the Abyss

[Captain Falcon]

Originally Posted by daftada

I've just finished act 2 with about 55 hours on the clock and boy did those last few hours drag on. I'm finding it a bit of a chore now but I don't want to give up. How long is the third act?

Until this week, I hadn't played this game in over 3 months or more. One of the reasons I did stop was because I felt like it was one long procession of cut scenes and the same locations over and over.

I turned it on yesterday and played for an hour and forty minutes. In that time, I had a grand total of five battles, one of which was a boss fight that barely lasted a minute, in a dungeon I'd already cleared but had to return to. I've played some more today and again, following the story is offering very little in terms of gameplay right now. I went on a sidequest though and found myself in a section of the overworld where I couldn't move for more than 2 seconds without being thrown in a fight with relatively high level creatures that take longer than that last boss. I'd gone from having nothing to fight to being unable to take two steps without being charged by an enemy... made all the more frustrating thanks to some bad slowdown on the map.

And I've quoted you daftada because I'm in the final act and so the slowdown that happened at the end of Act 2 goes into a full on nose dive. I've just had a skit pop up telling me "this is going to be the final battle, will we survive?" after opening up the last section. Of course, before I can go to the last section, I now have to go to Belkend for another meaningless cutscene at which point I turned it off. The third act doesn't seem that long to me unless I'm about to be hit by a 5 hour long end dungeon - but even then it would be much shorter than the other two. It also seems entirely unnecessary too - they should have wrapped it up at the end of the second.

The pacing on this game started badly, they went great, and is now terrible again. The needlessly convoluted approach to the story isn't helping either - the story itself isn't even that complicated, it's just the explanation that's so awful with all the "fon this" and "fon that". I think I must be missing something that a lot of others see as I don't get quite where all the praise for this game comes from.

I might see if I can finish this off over the weekend. I have other, better games to be playing but I've come this far now so I might as well keep going.

[daftada]

It all seemed to pick up a bit at the 'halfway' point, or what I thought was halfway anyway. But yeah, the pacing has been pretty poor throughout. I don't remember Symphonia or Vesperia having the same issue, but I absolutely loved those two so mayve I just didn't notice. Abyss is my least favourite Tales so far (only played ToS 1&2, ToV, ToE) - unforgettable characters, especially outside the main party, dull locations (too many browns and greys), an over-complicated plot, terrible pacing, and no sign of the master chef chap

I'll soldier on regardless though!

[daftada]

Ok, I finally finished this tonight, and I was actually impressed with the final third. The last few locations looked incredible, and the story tied up quite nicely. Still no idea why Asch got so pissy with Luke though.

If anyone is still looking to play this I have two copies for sale, one of them sealed.

[-Dem0-]

Currently £19.85 from ShopTo.

http://www.shopto.net/video%20games/...s-of-the-abyss