Awesome game.
I am a massive fan of the Tales series, and this one is definitely at the top of the list.

I find this game extremely fun to play in both 1 or 2 players. The battle system is amazing and the FOF system along with all the updates from Symphonia's battle system (such as Free Run) are amazing. Mystic Artes are also more common in this game (with the US release gaining a couple more Mystic Artes).

Definitely recommend this game! 5 Stars.

The best Tales game to date.....
Tales of the Abyss is one of those games you want to play to the end, the gameplay is addictive, they storyline is fairly deep and interesting, the Active battles have been updated and play alot better than Tales of Symphonia and the Characters are all entertaining.

A must buy if you like RPGs or Anime styled games!!!

Not Abyssal
This game was very fun, but wasn’t perfect. It has many flaws.
The graphics weren’t really as good as Tales of Legendia’s. Many things looked awkward. The trees on the world map where just 2D trees stuck together perpendicularly to make a “3D” tree.
Also, Tales of the Abyss suffered from long moments of loading and lag. Maybe there is something abyssal about this game after all… Tales of Legendia definitely beat Abyss in the graphics area… and in loading time. You probably spend more than an hour of overall lag.
Gameplay: the gameplay is A LOT better than Legendia’s. Tales of the Abyss introduces the “flex-range linear motion battle system”, which is basically Tales of Symphonia’s battle system with the ability to run in any direction (“free run”). However, the free run feature makes most battles too easy and broken. Enemy attacks can easily be evaded. Most enemies also suffer from bad Artificial Intelligence( it’s more like Artificial Unintelligence). The monsters are also less original than Legendia’s. They’re pretty much the same kinds of monsters that exist in other Tales of games.
On the other hand, Mystic Artes are present in Abyss, unlike Legendia. The mystic artes look really cool. The characters are also fun to play. I like playing Guy because he can heal himself without wasting a lot of time. It’s very fun to play multiplayer with friends… unlike Legendia.
Music: The music was okay, but not much of an improvement from Tales of Symphonia’s quality. Team Symphonia/Abyss should have provided an orchestra to the composers… Legendia’s music was definitely better than Abyss’, but probably only because it was orchestrated and stuff. Motoi Sakuraba could have done better than he did with the orchestra.
Overall, this game was more fun than Legendia.

best tales ever !
i have played EVERY tales game to come out even those only from japan..and honestly the only one in its league is symphonia but even that just doesnt have the amazing charecter development and story of tales of the abyss

my favorite tales of
everything was great in this rpg; story, characters, battle, side quests were great too. and the japanese seiyuu *voice actors* did their characters very well. While i did like Symphonia a lot, i have to say i like abyss a lot more. ^W^