Tales of the Abyss for Nintendo 3DS Reviews by Gamers

Wow this was a looooooong game perhaps longer than any of the Kingdom hearts games. I rented this game Feb 13th and just put it into the mailbox to go back July 25th. Between school and work this game took a lot of time to finish. However, it's a really nice RPG I enjoyed it, although it can sometimes feel a little draggy but all in all very good game. I'm gonna go watch the anime now.

A typical game in the Tales series, with real-time action combat and your traditional JRPG elements. It's a lot of fun to play, with good combat and a surprisingly awesome story. While combat can drag occasionally, the game does give you an option to have the game fight automatically for you, which helps reduce the grind in some areas when you can go and do something else while the game gets through the more annoying encounters. The combat can be either easy or difficult, which makes the game possible for some easy, portable fun, and the option to grind is always there.

The only complaint that I have about this game is that it sticks pretty rigidly to its original PS2 iteration, which is frustrating because it is a portable game. I took this game along for a week of vacation that involved a lot of small spurts of driving, meaning that I needed a long portable game that I could play off and on as the situation demanded. I was pleased with the length of the game; it lasted me for most of the week at a total duration of 40 hours, and you have the option to play through the game again with perks that you can purchase using a currency you earn through battles. However, I was displeased that during long dungeons you cannot save except for at specific save spots, whereas in the open world environments you can save anywhere. Having these long puzzle and battle-filled segments in which you cannot save your game at all means that I oftentimes couldn't chip away at this game in partciular car rides because they just weren't long enough to assure that I would be able to reach another save point in time. This is frustrating, and had I been able to save whenever I wanted (or create a temporary save that owuld be erased upon returning to the game), I would not have had so many frustrating moments while playing.

Also, the game is not original for all 40 hours. Expect to do a TON of backtracking. I have all of the games' dungeons mapped on the inside of my brain now.