Suitable for Who?
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*FA (Fullmetal Alchemist) fans, another philosphy story with magic and tech.
*Like fantasy stories and RPG*
Must Watch Rating: (8/10)
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This anime is an adaption of a PS2 game, "Tales of the Abyss" from "Tales of" series. If you have PS2 and can affort to buy it, I highly recommend you to play it 1st, then watch its anime. The PS2's story was explained better than anime. (Lolx, what would you expect? Cutting short a 70+ hour gameplay story into a 10+ hour anime..) But the anime was well adapted~ (Well, only the begining..) The anime's flashback is awsome! A must watch for all who played the game as it lacked too much flashback..
Intro:
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Welcome to my review! This is my very 1st review, hope to get useful comments from my dear readers~
Might contain SPOILERS. Please don't read it first if you scared being spoiled, intend to watch this anime and want to be surprised by special events. But if you want to judge wheater to read it, please do.
This review is based on a person,me, freezingfeathers, which never played the PS2 game of TotA. (I didn't even know that its a game at the 1st place!!) So this review is based SOLOLY on the anime~ I've played the game, its awsome!! This section of review is based on before I played the game and even know that it's a game~ Rare review, ya? I heard that most review is based on either those who played the game and know its a game but never played it.
One day, I had some extra pocket money and I bought this anime randomly from the store (I was supposed to buy "Rangaok"(How to spell??), but changed my mind). When I watched almost 13 episodes of it, I realise that the story have a RPG feeling. Then later on, it sounded more and more like a RPG. For example, when Luke was trying to confort Tear when he know that she's going to die due to the extreme amount of miasma in her body and the conversations in the headquarters of Order of Lorelei when Luke was going to replace die in Asch place (Tower of Rem incident). Only RPG has this type of conversation, I knew it! Cuz I'm a RPG maniac! (>.<) I started to wonder, it would be great if its a RPG~ After watching the whole 26 episode, I wiki this anime and found out its actually an adaption of a RPG game!!! (How silly of me...) This is when I started to know the "Tales of" series. Later I found out "Tales of Symnopia" was also one of its series..(I saw it in the store before, I SHOULD'VE BUY IT!! I can't find it in the stores now.. *sob) This is also when I started to become "Tales of" fans~ I bought "Tales of Legendia" and "Tales of the Abyss" game and played it. They're all special RPG! Play them if you have the chance!
The Good
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* Its magical fantasy dosen't sound fake. Some magical story environments and system sounds too fake because they just simply use the power with ease. TotA (Short name for Tales of the Abyss) has technology like-magic feeling. With these "High-Tech" machines in it, it just... feel more logical~
* Excellent character interactions, especially the 1st plot. It's just like a party, everyone's chatting and joking~
* Good animations. The battle scenes are smooth and awsome! The magic casting and Guy's sword attack are attractive~
* Some characters have outstanding characteristics. For example, Luke, Jade and Guy. Luke's annoying brat and ignorance attitude is not like other 17 years old attitude. In the 1st plot, everyone's like babysitting him~ Its not usual for teens(Except Jade) babysitting a teen..
* Touching flashback which is not included in the game. If it dosen't have flashback, Asch's story will be left unxeplained on what he's been doing after his kidnap. (This's one of the game's weekness..)
* Special ethical issues like the "Score". It potraits human overreliance on something, the lazyness of human nature to leave the future decided by Score, the egerness to know about the future and the unending greed to know more after knowing some.
* Average character designs. At least they have noticable visual characteristics (Eg: Tear's hair, Jade's red eye, Luke's red with little yellowish hair at the end etc) The costumes are exclusive in TotA only~
* Feels like travelling when watching~ After the Kaizur Checkpoint, the travelling increases~ I love this vacation! Poor Luke had to be the audience's tourguide~ :P
The Bad
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* Too much plot rushing in 2nd and 3rd plot. It gives me the feel that 50% + Of things are not explained.. (After playing the game, I found out that 60% are skipped..)
* Lack of slice and dice interaction in Plot 2nd and 3rd, especially 2nd plot. They only talk how to lower passage ring, this ad that... Quite boring..
* Too many minor characters without background stories... It feels.. ok to just skip them away..
* All protagonist character's indentity. All come from the upper class society (Hmm, Guy's also one, he's a servant in a DUKE'S MANOR and USED to be upper class..) It feels like only the upper class has the chance to save the world..
* Dull background music. Sounds sleepy..
* Too mush spoilers in the Opening Theme. They should't have shown Asch's face first and Tear is related to Yulia. There's also brief preview of the episode.. No more surprises.
Setting
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Graphic: (9/10)
One word: Beautiful~
Setting: (5/10)
Too much unnecessary places, especially when they activating the passage rings... 2 seconds on the scene and bye bye~~
Society: (10/10)
To be continue....
