It's funny how the world works. I'm currently on vacation with my girlfriend, a woman who despite all her many amazing qualities, is not the gamer that I am. In fact, most of the games I love she finds atrociously complicated and does not enjoy playing, even if she's playing them with me.
Except for Tales of the Abyss.
I find the fact that I'm talking about Tales of the Abyss to be somewhat amusing. For starters, it is one of those games that my girlfriend admits to not liking, except that she loves it. Secondly, I started this blog by talking about a game that made me cry, which is something that Tales of the Abyss managed to make me do. However, unlike Portal, I really suggest you play Tales of the Abyss for yourself rather than looking to me for reasons. It's a game I believe everyone should experience. To me, it's the best game I've ever played.
Tales of the Abyss, released for the Playstation 2 in 2006 and soon to be released on the Nintendo 3DS, is an incredibly mature game. While it has a lot of silly Japanese anime tropes in it that make it comedic, it is at its heart a philosophic masterpiece. It makes it even more astounding that the game comes from Namco-Bandai, a company that doesn't quite have the same financial backing as Square-Enix or other big names, but always manages to put out something of quality (we will not speak of Tales of Legendia).
Tales of the Abyss is known in Japan as "the RPG about the meaning of one's birth." Another way to look at is as the "RPG of the meaning of life." That's a mighty moniker for a game to bear, but Tales of the Abyss manages to take that title and honor it. Tales of the Abyss (I'm really just gonna start shortening it to TotA right now) is one of, if not the most mature game I've played on a console, and it doesn't need swearing or boobs to make it happen. It is mature in an entirely different sense: it takes you and your thoughts seriously, while posing some very serious questions. The most important of these questions is, unsurprisingly, "what is the meaning in being alive?" Does the game answer that question? In its own way, but telling you what the game's answer is would be meaningless without you having experienced it yourself.
The thing I enjoy most about Tales of the Abyss is that the majority of its characters are startlingly mature and logical. They think things through, takes responsibility for their actions and come up with some incredibly startling insights. This is not a game for your average teenage anime fan: they'd probably find it disgusting how there is almost no angst or brooding throughout the game. That isn't to say the characters aren't without faults; each character has a plethora of them. The thing that makes TotA unique is that these faults don't bog down the characters or the game: they are dealt with in due time, but never to the point where they overtake the more important aspects of the game. Each character is wonderfully fleshed out and appeals to a certain kind of person. That being said, if you leave TotA and don't love Jade Curtiss, there's something wrong with you.
As I said before, you owe it to yourself to play Tales of the Abyss. I might even make a few more posts on it, but those will require massive spoiler tags! So do yourself a favor and GO PLAY IT RIGHT NOW!
