If there’s one series I
can count on to put a smile on my face, it’s the Tales series. I’ve had a
fixation on JRPGs ever since my fateful encounter with the (supposedly
inferior) PC version of Final Fantasy 7
back in 2000, but I find myself disappointed as often as I am delighted. I’m not just talking about FF13, even if it’s the straw that broke
the camel’s back and then made liberal use of a jackhammer to its spine for
good measure; I may be more analytical than I’ve ever been, but even a younger
version of me can tell when a game is putting me through some grade-A bullshit.
Everything past the
first quarter of Grandia III. The hiked-up bromance in Kingdom Hearts 2. Trying to
pass off Vaan as the main character in FF12. Corgan’s “I have no knowledge of such things”
shtick in Septerra Core (even though
that’s not a JRPG, but close enough). I
don’t give Past Me a lot of credit -- and can you blame me? -- but I wasn’t
exactly a lost cause. I knew what I
liked, and what I didn’t. I knew what I
thought was good, and what I thought was bad.
And in terms of the Tales series,
it could only be good in my eyes.
But I had to put it
through the paces. I had to give the
games -- Abyss, first and foremost --
a shot to see if they were as good as I thought, and if they were still good
today.
And the answer? To put it simply, it’s a game that’s easy to
love…and easier to hate. Know what I
mean, Asch?
(Warning: spoilers to follow…although it’s, like, six years old
now. Is it really necessary to add a
spoiler warning? And would you really be
here if you weren’t interested in an informal analysis? And a commanding knowledge of the game is nothing but a boon.
On the other hand, midriffs.)
This is a divisive
game, and I can see why. I’m torn
between blasting it for having a number of nitpick-worthy elements and general
annoyances…but at the same time, I want to praise it for so many intelligent
efforts. I don’t even know how to tackle
everything I want to in a single post; should I focus on the themes? The characters? Or just dive right into what ticked me off?
All right, here’s what
I’m going to do. I’m going to talk about
things in a sort of “stream of consciousness” format. Each point will be highlighted by a bold header. Pay close attention to the color of each
header; if it’s green, it’s a positive point.
If it’s red, it’s negative. I’d
suggest that you could tally them up at the end and whichever one wins out
suggests the “proper” opinion, but…well, not every point can be weighed
equally. So unless you have some sort of
mystic measuring device, you’re probably better off just reading along and not
thinking too hard about my suspect formatting.
We clear? Then let’s get started.
Natalia
is now my favorite character.
Ah, the mysterious
“strong female character”…how you evade us writers so.
I’d argue that Natalia
is a strong female character and then some; she’s just an all-around strong
character. She’s got a personality,
mixing royal haughtiness with childish naiveté (and/or amusing stupidity), but
sandwiching that between her self-ordained duties as a member of the
monarchy. Her concern for the people,
from start to finish, never wavers, and sets her apart from the rest of the
cast…or even JRPG characters in general.
Being a princess in any video game condemns you to a life of kidnapping
and macguffin duty; here, the title of princess actually means something. Natalia’s in a position of power, and she
uses it regularly for the betterment of her people -- and even the enemy
nation. She’s proactive, positive, and
lives based on her own noble principles.
Even if the game tries to kick her soul in, she keeps the angst and
self-doubt to a minimum…for the most part at least. Mostly because…
Natalia’s character arc gets dragged down
by Asch.
This being a JRPG, the
developers will be damned if a female
character isn’t consigned to the background, hands clasped and eyes misty, as
she calls out her love’s name. Natalia
and Asch were childhood friends (much more than that; being nobles they very
nearly married each other), but extenuating circumstances split them
apart. They’re reunited, of course, but
on opposite sides. And whereas Natalia
spends most of her time trying to do good for the world, Asch goes
globetrotting and acting as surly as possible.
Inexplicably, this makes him irresistible to Natalia, because she can’t
go three cutscenes without wondering where Asch is, or what Asch is doing. That guy is like a red-headed ball and
chain. And while we’re on the subject…
Asch is one of the worst characters in the
game.
I don’t…I don’t understand
this character. He only has three modes:
aloof, surly, and furious. He spends so
much time offscreen, yet he always swoops in juuuuuuuuust when the characters
need some exposition or need the plot advanced.
Actually, I should say sometimes, because he’ll sometimes show up,
ramble about something that nobody knows about, and leave. (How is he able to get around so quickly and
regularly appear on the scene before/when we do? He only gets an airship late in the game.) Why is he angry for no reason? Why does he refuse to work with anyone but a
small party of thieves and foot soldiers, if that? Why doesn’t he discuss anything with anyone
else? Why doesn’t he go back home and
take his rightful place in the fon Fabre family immediately after he’s given
free reign before the clone (I mean REPLICAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!) steals his
identity and worms his way into their hearts?
Why does nobody bat an eyelash over the fact that there’s a high-ranking
official who looks exactly like the duke’s son?
Why does Asch go from yelling at Luke for calling himself inferior to
yelling at Luke when he decides that he’s not that bad a guy? Natalia even calls him out on this -- she literally says “You’re not making any
sense!” Asch’s response? “Shut up!”
And then he runs off. God, I hate
this character -- and why does he stand with his legs spread so far apart?
Guy
and Jade are great characters.
JRPGs get a lot of flak
for being overwrought angstapaloozas, but I’d argue that there’s a side that
detractors tend to ignore. For the most
part, they have an endearing, charming side to them -- they’re games that can
make you laugh as well as think. Guy and
Jade are prime examples of the “light side of the JRPG” -- not only do they NOT
revel in angst, but they’re consistently entertaining to watch and offer a more
reasonable perspective to the young’uns.
Guy is essentially
Luke’s foil throughout the entire game, no matter what form the lord of
midriffs may take. If Luke is brash,
immature and selfish, Guy is level-headed, wise, and caring. If Luke is uncertain of where he wants to be,
Guy -- in spite of having a significantly-worse life -- knows what he wants and
how to get there. If Luke is willing to
accept his death or wants to die, Guy will not only call him out but outright
respond with anger -- and rare flashes of it, at that. Guy endears himself by willingly playing the
role of second banana; he’s content with being a servant for a large part of
the game in spite of being a (lost) nobleman, and he has no aspirations of
glory besides being Luke’s best friend.
Also, Guy seems to hate Asch, so that earns him fifteen million bonus
points.
Jade is…interesting, to
say the least. He has two primary
functions for the party: be the smart guy who makes their victory possible (a
thankless job, admittedly), and be a troll.
And that’s about it, really.
There’s still the matter of his grim past and the repercussions therein,
but Jade is a consistent character with a consistent role. On the one hand, he’s more or less the same
character at the start of the game as he is at the end (albeit with some
notable differences), meaning that in some respects he’s kind of boring. On the other hand, he does everything so well that you can’t help but be
entertained by his antics. He
continues the proud tradition of being the old man -- old in this case being a
hoary thirty-five -- of the party with all the perks therein. He acts like he can’t do any box
puzzles. He claims to be a sickly man
with a bad back. He proclaims that the
bad weather affects him more than anyone else, in spite of it being the
complete opposite. So few things faze
him in the game, you’d think he has nerves of titanium…and then he’ll ride you
until you cry to your mama. In more ways
than one.
Anise and Tear are a lot more boring than I
remember.
All right, I know I’ve
been throwing the word “angst” around a lot for this post, but I want to make
a(nother) distinction. Angst has a lot
of negative connotations, but it doesn’t have to be all bad. It’s dangerous in excess; move below that
line with proper examination ability, and you can have your characters explore
themes and ideas more naturally and without dragging the plot to a halt. Angst is little more than inner conflict gone
out of control -- and conflict is central to stories and characters.
With that in mind,
Anise and Tear are dull because they don’t have as marked a conflict as the
others. I feel like Anise is the most
underutilized character in the whole game; she’s got her quirks, but…well,
that’s all there is to her. She has a
rival in enemy loli Arietta, but…well, everyone else has a rival, too, and better
ones at that. She has a problem in that
she’s a spy, and her betrayal of the group indirectly causes her
sort-of-boyfriend’s death, but…well, it’s so late in the game and leaves such
little impact that it’s not really worth getting worked up about. She’s not a bad character; it’s just that
there’s not as much to her as the rest.
Tear is even more
baffling. At least with Anise, you can
make the argument that you’re at least being entertained; outside of Tear’s
“But it’s so cute” gag, there’s not much to speak of. She’s the stoic soldier that learns to open
her heart, and that’s generally her arc (if that). A huge amount of her dialogue comes down to
exposition, explaining world mechanics, telling the group what they need
to do, chastising/supporting Luke, and getting embarrassed for showing emotion. The crux of her conflict is deciding whether
or not she can kill her brother (and current villain) Van, but given that
she was ready to kill Van in the first hour of the game, and spends more than a
third of the game mistrusting him, it’s an insincere effort. She’s a mature and level-headed character
like Guy, but without any of the charm.
And while she gets put through her paces (for a while, saving the world
means poisoning her), she handles 90% of the game with determined
stoicism. It makes for a “strong female
character” in theory, but overall, she’s inoffensive, yet unremarkable.
Luke
is a good character on paper.
This is the big one.
In my experience, the
main character can make or break a story.
They’re the focal point of the story’s themes and ideas, and the
struggles will (or should) inevitably have some focus on them. The hero versus
a villain, or an average Joe forced to face the odds and the elements; the
happy ending is (or should be) a result of the main character getting put to
work. Luke should be no exception -- and
I’d wager that it’s because of Luke that this game is so divisive. Perhaps he’s a testament to the stereotype of
what JRPGs are, rather than what they really are, or can be, or should be.
Speculation aside, I
can’t help but like Luke, and what the developers did with him. He is THE main character. He is THE lynchpin to all the game’s ideas. He is THE deciding factor of the happy
ending. Nobody gets more character
development than him, and nobody gets a more thorough and overt character arc
but him. Does he start out as a whiny,
immature, annoying, self-centered, spoiled rich kid? Yes, of course. Does he grow out of it? Of course.
Does he become a much better person before the game’s even done? Yep.
Stick with him, and your patience is rewarded.
I know I gave Luke
trouble for his third-act characterization, and I still stand by that. But I can see why he’d act like that. Auldrant is a no-REPLICAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
zone. It’s only natural that in the face
of human oppression -- even if it’s justified and ill-informed -- Luke starts
to doubt himself, even after all the work he’s done. But even before then, he shows some genuine
intelligence and foresight, identifying the party’s next action before even the
smart members of the group. For a
seven-year-old, Luke does pretty well for himself. It would certainly explain why, even if he’s
got the body of a teenager, he still can’t quite dress properly.
Luke is an annoying character in practice.
There’s still a
lingering question on my mind. Luke
starts out annoying, gets better, and then gets annoying again, and then gets
better. Quite the rollercoaster of an
arc, but here’s a question: why does Luke have to be annoying in the first
place? Why do we have to start with a
midriff-bearing pissant when we can instead start with a much better character?
Tales of Vesperia didn’t have that problem. Yuri started off as a confident and
interesting character and only grew from there.
The same applies to Lloyd from Tales
of Symphonia -- he was a well-meaning idealistic idiot and stayed that way
throughout the game, but improved, and his ideals only made him endearing
rather than annoying. Asbel from Graces f starts out in much the same
way; you see him as a spirited but still-admirable kid, and come time-skip you
see him evolve into a different but similarly likable-from-the-get-go lead. This is not a hard concept, and certainly not
a hard one to execute well.
And really, why does
Luke go through periods of both evolution and regression? What does it add to his character besides
showing how much he waffles? The third
act tramples over the confidence and credibility Luke -- and the player --
gained in the second act. It’s a slap in
the face for all the work and all the hours put into saving Auldrant. Why?
Why did it have to be this way?
Why couldn’t we take Act 2 Luke and go even higher from there? Why do so many cutscenes have to tackle
Luke’s growing inferiority complex? This
is a problem with making one character the focal point of the game: if your
lead sucks, your game sucks. End of
story.
Who the hell thought Mieu was a good idea?
As I understand it, the
Sorcerer’s Ring is a staple of the franchise -- a magical item that the player
uses to solve puzzles, explore new areas, and loot ancient dungeons. In Symphonia,
the power of the Ring changed depending on what area you were in. In Legendia,
it was a fixture of outer-dimensional areas called Puzzle Booths. In Abyss,
it’s fused to one of the most irritating creatures ever to appear in a video
game.
I know mascot
characters are kind of a big thing in Japanese games, but did they have to make
one like Mieu? Did they have to make
Mieu have such an irritatingly high-pitched voice? Did they have to make it so that every time you
use the Sorcerer’s Ring, you have to listen to Mieu should “MIEUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!”
or “FIRRRRRRRRRRE!” or “WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINGS!” every damn time? And did they have to design a game where it’s
aggravatingly easy to miss a shot and have to adjust yourself by a few degrees,
only to miss again and be greeted by yet another “MIEUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!” I gotta say, Luke had the right idea when he
started calling Mieu “Thing.” Why did he
ever stop?
Van
is a much better villain than I remember.
Apparently, I’m one of
those sick and twisted monsters that like the English dubs of anime and video
games. They’re not always stellar, I
know, but they’re regularly competent, and lend the product a character that
can stand on its own, rather than act as a pale comparison to the Japanese
version. And one of my favorite voice
actors is Michael McConnohie. Observe:
Assuming you could look
past that pert blue ass of Seth’s, allow me to continue, and suggest that
McConnohie brings a lot of power and prestige in his role as Van. But even beyond that, I find Van to be much
more intriguing than I did before. He’s
a foil to Luke, but on a different axis than Guy; whereas Luke is (or starts
out) selfish and refuses to understand people, Van makes the opposite qualities
the crux of his character. He’s
dedicated to saving the world, albeit in his own twisted way…but more
importantly, he understands people. He
knows exactly what to say to them to win them over to his cause; in a sense,
he’s a corrupter. Over seven years he
turns Luke from an unmolded ball of putty into his loyal student, and likewise
(presumably) convinces Asch to abandon his life and serve as one of the
God-Generals under his command. He takes
advantage of one’s weakness, tells them what they want to hear, and earns their
unflinching loyalty because of it. Even
if he wasn’t a skilled swordsman (which he is) or an evil mastermind (which he
is), his power of corruption is the most dangerous ability he has.
I should also note a
nice little bit of foreshadowing on the developers’ part. Early on in the story (before he’s revealed
to be the villain), the party decides to work alongside Van and his group,
because apparently the God-Generals aren’t acting on his orders. He leaves first to lead the charge against
him, and the party follows behind. But
the party makes it to the enemy stronghold first, and Van only shows up right after the situation is taken care
of. That’s a little too convenient,
isn’t it, Seth? Or should I say, Number
Fifteen? Or should I say,
REPLICAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA?!
The
God-Generals (Asch excluded) are about the same, though…but I still like them.
The chief victims of
Van’s corruption. Each of them went
through some rough patches in their life, making them hate the world/their lot
in some capacity, and as such don’t mind when they’re given a chance to destroy
and remake the world. Fair enough…but in
the case of Abyss, I get the sense
that the God-Generals’ troubled pasts don’t inspire sympathy as much as they do
offer an excuse. They’ve been through
rough times, yes, but so has Guy. So has
Jade. The God-Generals have reasons to
be angry, but rather than use their skills for good they all become sycophantic
assholes. Admittedly, it’s likely that
any normal person might get corrupted and make excuses just as quickly, but,
well, I just thought I’d bring it up.
Anyway, what can I say
(briefly) about the God-Generals? Well, Largo’s my favorite. I know that his title is “Largo the Black
Lion”, but I prefer to imagine that whenever he goes somewhere, he announces
himself as “Largo, the Best One of the Six”.
Dist is pretty high up there as well, in the sense that he’s the only
one smart enough to use a mech instead of flinging himself at opponents…though
seeing as how he’s Jade’s rival, this only ensures that he’s as threatening as
an incensed gerbil. I also have to give
honorable mention to Legretta, who in spite of having access to guns, resorts
to throwing knives and trying to roundhouse-kick opponents (long after she’s
spotted them), misses, and then calls her target slow.
Ion is the second stupidest damn character
in the game.
God, I hate this
freakin’ character. Not just because of
the way he looks, mind you (and I assure you, that is a boy); he’s more or less
just a talking key in a muumuu and tights.
I wish I could say
something more substantive about Ion, but I can’t. There’s nothing to him besides his high-class
politeness and being a doe-eyed daffodil.
He’s the figurehead of the world’s only religion, yet he uses his
authority only three times, if that. He’s
got access to some of the most powerful magic in the world, but -- of course --
he gets weary and faints every time he uses it.
He gets kidnapped, but for some inexplicable reason he wants to follow
the party into a slew of dangerous areas; in his eyes, the alternative is to be
kidnapped, but he seems to have forgotten the whole figurehead of the world’s only religion deal -- SOMEBODY would try
to protect him. He walks offscreen
silently without as much as a cheer of support when a monster attacks the
party. He withholds vital information
from the party. Oh, and there’s also the
fact that if not for Ion, the bad guys
would have no leverage. Zero. None.
The near-end of the world -- or at the very least, the destruction of a
mining town -- is his fault.
Remember how I said Ion
is just a talking key? Well he is -- and
he’s a key that unlocks the door that’s vital to the villains’ plans…because the villain asks him to. Ion had every reason to resist. He knows Van.
He suspected something was wrong, and even if he didn’t he should KNOW
that unlocking the door to the planet’s maintenance room for ANY REASON is a
bad idea, especially if no one gives him a good reason to open the door. And nobody gives him shit over this…why? The party outright abandons Luke, but Ion,
who’s even more worthy of blame, doesn’t even have his hand in the matter
referenced?
Even Ion’s death
somehow manages to piss me off. He gets
kidnapped (of course he would) by the evil pope Mohs and forced to read the
Score, which will supposedly predict the future. The party doesn’t make it in time to save
him, and only hears the last few paragraphs of relevant information. With his “dying breath”, Ion reads the Score
and tells the party to head to the city of machines in the hopes of finding a
way to save the planet from poisonous gas.
Um…so…why are you telling me something that should have been the next
obvious step if not for us having to come and save your ass? Why is the game pretending that you’re doing
us a great service? Why are you reading
a transcript of the future to an evil pope?
Why don’t you lie to him? Tell
him the future is that he’s going to die, and have him focus on saving himself. Or send him on a wild goose chase so he’ll
finally get out of the heroes’ hair.
This is not a hard concept, Ion!
You’re a good guy! They’re the
bad guys! STOP HELPING THE BAD GUYS!
Congratulations. I’m giving you the award you so rightly
deserve. You’ve been inducted into…
All right, that’ll do
for now. Rest assured, I’ve still got
quite a bit to say about this game, and I will in due time. But for now, I think that’s enough emotional
whiplash for one day. Next time, I’ll
dive into nonsensical organizations, political intrigue, aggregate energy
beings (that are also idiots), and quite possibly a reference to a song that
has “communication” in its title.
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