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Tales of the Abyss [3DS] |OT| "The wait better be worth it!" - PALland

Luigiv

Member
If you want proper S3D (i.e, not the fakie Triovis crap), the only things you can render once are the HUD elements and framebuffer reprojections in 2D (things like video billboards for racing games etc)

There's no way to get around the stereo rendering requirement (unless you go the Triovis route, but that looks like garbage and no 3DS game does that thankfully!)

Well I won't claim that I know for sure. I'm just parroting what I've read on these boards before. I think it was something along the lines of any processing that textures need to go through before being drawn only needs to be done once or something like that. But again I could be mistaken.
 

Santiako

Member
Would have bought on day 1 but it doesn't help at all that this releases just between Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7.
 

grumpy

Member
Pre-ordered on amazon UK. It will be the next game I play after Skyward Sword / 3D Land / Aliens: Infestation.
 
You Europeans better purchase the shit out of this game.
european , here .
lack of japanese voices and the fact that i've finshed this game 3 times will make me miss this title .

Will buy Tales of graces F ...
BUt IMO abyss 3DS wasn't needed ( unless the information that the game has multiples text languages is true )
 

Zafir

Member
european , here .
lack of japanese voices and the fact that i've finshed this game 3 times will make me miss this title .

Will buy Tales of graces F ...
BUt IMO abyss 3DS wasn't needed ( unless the information that the game has multiples text languages is true )

It was for europe. I mean I imported the game from the US, but many people won't have bothered because they hadn't hacked their console.
 

Labadal

Member
If anybody has any burning questions, I'm playing through a copy of this for review right now and can answer.

Never played this, so here are a few questions:
1. How do you rate the battle system compared to other games in the series?
2. How is the voice acting and are the characters likeable?
3. Does it get annoying playing the game on a small screen, because I'm expecting a lot of things to happen during battles.
4. Is the font easy to read on these screens?
5. Is 3D worth it?
 

redlemon

Member
european , here .
lack of japanese voices and the fact that i've finshed this game 3 times will make me miss this title .

Will buy Tales of graces F ...
BUt IMO abyss 3DS wasn't needed ( unless the information that the game has multiples text languages is true )

I'd argue against that. Abyss is a fine game and this is a great opportunity to get it for anyone who didn't have a modded ps2
 

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Well I won't claim that I know for sure. I'm just parroting what I've read on these boards before. I think it was something along the lines of any processing that textures need to go through before being drawn only needs to be done once or something like that. But again I could be mistaken.
You aren't. That mostly includes shadow (volume) maps and.. well, that's about it on the 3DS. Other than that, I remember speculating with M3d10n about the possibilities for skinning occurring once per mesh per frame, but that'd require gpu paths known as 'transform feedback', which 3DS may or may not have.
 
This is probably off topic, but how is the 3DS looking as an RPG system?

I'm debating a chirstmas purchase of the 3DS and Tales of the Abyss is high on the reasons list because I never played it. Interested in trying the Devil Survior game too
 

Boken

Banned
This is probably off topic, but how is the 3DS looking as an RPG system?

I'm debating a chirstmas purchase of the 3DS and Tales of the Abyss is high on the reasons list because I never played it. Interested in trying the Devil Survior game too

Well do you like Pokemon? And perhaps, MHunter?

It's too soon to tell really. Perhaps MH will bring in the JRPG market. But thats simply a possibility.
 

hiro4

Member
This would be an instabuy if I had the monies.
Too bad about the Japanese voices but I rather have the shorter loading times and higher fps then the Japanese voices tbh.

Can't wait till my bday when I get some money.
 
It was for europe. I mean I imported the game from the US, but many people won't have bothered because they hadn't hacked their console.

I'd argue against that. Abyss is a fine game and this is a great opportunity to get it for anyone who didn't have a modded ps2

i agree . I forgot that it never went to the pal countries. For those who haven't played this game (yet i hope ) this is great, especially if there is indeed all the text languages ..

It's just that .. the 3ds doesn't seem to do this game justice. ( at least i hope that the loadings & bugs are gone ).
After all the original tales games that went forgotten, i'm sad that this one made the cut, while some games are still mysteriously in japanese.
 

Famassu

Member
This is probably off topic, but how is the 3DS looking as an RPG system?
Quite decent, actually, especially if the pace keeps getting better or even stays the same in the coming years, or at least doesn't slow down noticeably. Basically:

Paper Mario 3D
Kingdom Hearts DDD
Beyond the Labyrinth
Bravely Default
SMT: Devil Survivor Overclocked
Tales of the Abyss
Fantasy Life
Heroes of Ruin
Rune Factory 4
Fire Emblem
Inazuma Eleven Go

I think that's most of what we know is coming for 3DS, unless I'm forgetting some (there's Monster Hunter 3G & 4, but I don't know if those are considered RPGs). And of course you can expect Pokemon to hit 3DS eventually.

It's not a massive list, but RPGs can be slow to move from one generation to the next and the list already has some promising Nintendo, Square Enix, Tri-Ace & Level 5 love. Apart from the couple that've been released already, those are 2012 releases. Hopefully 2013 will be as good for 3DS RPGs as 2012 is shaping up to be.
 

Vanillalite

Ask me about the GAF Notebook
One of my more anticipated 3DS games. Why do I feel the screens all make this game look polygon starved though? Am I crazy for thinking this?
 

XPE

Member
I would say Symphonia is better than Abyss but if you like Symphonia then you will like Abyss.


Not the best timing for me, playing zelda and mario right now and still need to pick up skryim, so I'll be waiting till the new year for this.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
In my opinion, it is better than Symphonia but not as good as Vesperia.
Yep. Xillia's getting up there for me in terms of narrative, I think. While there were people in the main cast I didn't like in the Team Symphonia games, Xillia and Graces have a cast that I like very much. Graces is good for combat, though; Xillia's good for narrative and character relationships.

Enjoy the game, PALland! For those who aren't going to like the game during the first few hours (you'll know why, trust me), it gets sooo much better after that. I have a few gripes with the narrative regardless, though. In terms of combat, I like it a lot better than Symphonia.
 

Luigiv

Member
You aren't. That mostly includes shadow (volume) maps and.. well, that's about it on the 3DS. Other than that, I remember speculating with M3d10n about the possibilities for skinning occurring once per mesh per frame, but that'd require gpu paths known as 'transform feedback', which 3DS may or may not have.

Cheers. I knew I wasn't crazy.
 
I haven't played an English copy of the game yet, but I did pick up a Japanese copy the day it came out here so I can speak to that.

The biggest change is definitely the load times. If this is your first time playing Abyss, you definitely picked a good time to dive in.

While the 3D didn't blow me away or anything, I found myself preferring to play with it on. Made the visuals feel a bit more vibrant and alive.
 
I haven't played an English copy of the game yet, but I did pick up a Japanese copy the day it came out here so I can speak to that.

The biggest change is definitely the load times. If this is your first time playing Abyss, you definitely picked a good time to dive in.

While the 3D didn't blow me away or anything, I found myself preferring to play with it on. Made the visuals feel a bit more vibrant and alive.

+1 on the load times, so nice compared to the PS2 version.

Otherwise, this is Abyss. A really good entry into the Tales series. If you haven't played it before, great time to pick it up.
 

M3d10n

Member
You aren't. That mostly includes shadow (volume) maps and.. well, that's about it on the 3DS. Other than that, I remember speculating with M3d10n about the possibilities for skinning occurring once per mesh per frame, but that'd require gpu paths known as 'transform feedback', which 3DS may or may not have.
Skinning can be done on the CPU too. The 3DS CPU, as any other console CPU, should be able to manipulate vertex data without having re-uploading as a PC does. It's not as fast as GPU skinning and uses more RAM (needs a vertex buffer for each character instance), but depending on the requirements of the game it might be worth it.

RE: Mercenaries is likely doing this since it reduces the framerate of the animation on distant enemies. That would be pointless with using GPU skinning because all vertices would need to be processed every frame regardless of animation state (vertex shader changes are not persistent without transform-feedback).

Animation sounds like a good task to have running on the 2nd CPU if devs can really load arbitrary code there now.
 

@MUWANdo

Banned
Paper Mario 3D
Kingdom Hearts DDD
Beyond the Labyrinth
Bravely Default
SMT: Devil Survivor Overclocked
Tales of the Abyss
Fantasy Life
Heroes of Ruin
Rune Factory 4
Fire Emblem
Inazuma Eleven Go

There's also another Harvest Moon game, a DQ Rocket Slime game, a DQ Monsters remake, that FF Theatrhythm game (if that counts), Eternal Eden, plus the SMT/Etrian Odyssey games Atlus said they were making like two years ago but haven't been mentioned since.

The problem, of course, is that many of these games haven't bee confirmed or even hinted at getting an international release, and the 3DS is region-locked.
 

Stuart444

Member
So is it known if the english version has the Karma lyric or instrumental version?

edit: Found out it's the instrumental version from someone else. Which isn't bad, I enjoy both versions :D
 

Alrus

Member
I haven't played a Tales game since Symphonia... I'm gonna pick this up when I have the money (sometime in January probably). Hope it'll still be easily available then.

Oh and btw, this isn't the first time Namco release an english only game in Europe, they did the same thing with God Eater.
 

Famassu

Member
There's also another Harvest Moon game
Not sure if I'd say Harvest Moon is an RPG, more like some kind of a farm life simulator. Rune Factory is the Harvest Moon RPG.

a DQ Rocket Slime game
I consider DQH Rocket Slime more of a Zelda-ish adventure/action game than an RPG.

that FF Theatrhythm game (if that counts)
It being a rhythm game, probably not. :)

Eternal Eden
Hmm? What is this?

plus the SMT/Etrian Odyssey games Atlus said they were making like two years ago but haven't been mentioned since.
Yeah, I knew about these, but... those were not definitive announcements and we haven't heard anything after they were first announced. They seem like the kind of announcements all platforms get before launch (OMG, LOOK, WE ARE GETTING FRANCHISE X & Y & Z) that might not turn into anything. I mean, think about PS3 pre-launch. Stuff like a Shin Megami Tensei project, Konami RPG, Gradius VI etc. were announced but they were either canned or they never even existed. My guess would be that, atm, there might not even BE Eternal Odyssey or "mainline" Shin Megami Tensei games in production.

The problem, of course, is that many of these games haven't bee confirmed or even hinted at getting an international release, and the 3DS is region-locked.
I'm pretty sure most of those games will be released at least in the US. The only ones I could see being left as Japan exclusives are DQH:RS3, Fantasy Life & Inazuma Eleven Go (apart from Sony's franchises & Professor Layton, L5 doesn't really have the best of records when it comes to localizing some of their games), the rest are more or less high profile releases, imo, which have all the chances in the world of being localized.
 

Zafir

Member
I cancelled my order yesterday with game and went with shopto. Shopto shipped it today, so hopefully tomorrow.

Really don't trust GAME anymore...
 
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