Wait, You Have To Pay For Things?

[rionaleonhart]

Jade: Well, well, Luke. A lovely lady on each arm?
Tear: I... I'm not... We're not...
Luke: He's not talking about you. He must mean Anise and Mieu.

Luke, you little shit.

Tales of the Abyss is so charming! It won me over very quickly. It reminds me a little of Bravely Default, actually, what with all the optional ridiculous conversations between your party members.

I'm curious about the fact that Guy is apparently in the habit of creeping through Luke's bedroom window to chat and fleeing before anyone else spots him there.

Below the cut are my thoughts on the first eight hours of Tales of the Abyss! I'm just past Chesedonia.



Luke is a clone or otherwise a duplicate of the real Luke. I became convinced of this about fifteen minutes into the game. He didn't lose his memories prior to the kidnapping; he never had them. Luke was kidnapped and never returned. He was somehow duplicated by his kidnappers, and that's the 'Luke' we're playing as.

Luke doesn't want to kill anyone! This is something I have never seen a JRPG address! (I'm sure there must be other JRPGs that address it, but this is the first time I've seen it myself.) I'm so used to soldiers being standard enemies in games that, the first time this game put me into battle against a soldier, I attacked him without thinking much about it, just as I'd attacked all the monsters up until now. And then the game reminded me sharply that it wasn't the same thing at all; this was the first time Luke had ever killed a human being. He may be a terrible arsehole, but that doesn't mean he doesn't grasp the value of a human life.

I also love him suddenly having to confront the fact that, hey, his pal Guy has killed people!

Luke's attitude to killing helped me warm to him a little, but come on, Luke, you could be less of an arsehole to poor Mieu. Although I suppose your cruelty to Mieu helped to ensure that my attitude to Mieu would be 'awww, poor little thing' rather than annoyance, so perhaps on some level it's a good thing?

Did... did Jade just nibble Guy? I had to reload my save and replay that skit to be sure I wasn't misreading things.

I was unhappy when Anise asked me what I thought of Tear and I was forced to choose between 'she's annoying' and 'she's my type'. I don't want to give either of these answers! I like Tear, but I'm not 'shipping her with Luke at all. (I'm slightly 'shipping Luke and Guy. I think I'm slightly 'shipping everyone and Guy. His phobia of being touched by women could make things interesting with the girls, he seems to be one of the very few people Luke genuinely likes, and I cannot get over the nibbling.)

Still, I prefer Luke/Tear to Luke/Anise, and Anise was the one asking, so I went with 'she's my type' in the end.

THIS WORLD HAS SOME SORT OF DUPLICATION TECHNOLOGY. My Luke theory is looking more solid by the second! This could be really interesting.



I'm excited to see where this story is going! But I'm much more excited to see what stupid conversations my party members are going to have next.

Comments

[collartheory]

Have you played any Tales games before? I've only ever played Symphonia, its sequel, and bits of Graces, but I think the series-wide "skits" were the inspiration for Bravely Default(/Second)'s Party Chats. And yeah, I love them too. Given how universal the "a bunch of random people travel the entire world" setup is in RPGs as a whole, not enough of them give a window into what said people are like when they aren't immediately involving themselves in some aspect of their quest.

That said, I haven't played Abyss, so I'm not going to read what was under the cut. Still, I'm glad you're enjoying the game!

[rionaleonhart]

I'm completely new to the series! I'm glad to hear the skits are series-wide, because they're a great concept. All these little glimpses of the characters' lives and interactions are so much fun.