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[10/27/2010]
(This is an old post, from the old version of this blog. I did not update it in any way.)
It is no secret that I am a fan of the Tales series of JRPGs, made by Bandai Namco.
Well, actually I consider myself a mere passerby in regards to any game that isn't Tales of Symphonia or Tales of Eternia, back then known as Tales of Destiny 2 for some copyright reason I only pretend to understand. I have tried to enjoy the other games in the series, but failed miserably. Tales of Phantasia had a very slow and sometimes clunky battle system, if compared to later games which I have played before it; both real Tales of Destiny games were never translated, etc.
One particular instance made me wary of trying, however: Tales of the Abyss.
You see, everyone said it had great character development and the same battle system the games are known for, but refined, so I played with all of this in mind.
Turns out it has a very slow start and said refinement was just being able to run around your enemy, which honestly I've never felt the need to do in Symphonia. It also had a very obnoxious character: Luke, a spoiled young man that happens to be the protagonist and made it very hard for me not to split the game in half.
I somehow managed, though, but not without some raised eyebrows.
Beware of spoilers ahead.
See, because of Luke, a big city is destroyed and lots of people die. All of the other characters blame him and thus character development begins, even though all of them know he is but a seven-years old Replica — a child — constantly spoiled and prevented from knowing the outside world and manipulated to do those bad things by the only person he cared about, his instructor Vandesdelca.
At first I thought he deserved all of that, the stupid, annoying pest with retarded hair.
But!
Luke is shunned even when he is trying to make up for his mistakes, as if they think he will go and destroy many other places along the way. What? And to make things even better, another character, Anise, a murderous, cunning 13-year-old later betrays the group (or rather, was betraying from the start), which leads to the death of Fon Master Ion. She is instantly forgiven.
This is never adressed in the game.
Good character development my ass.Labels: games
Por Allec Ribeiro às [10:40 PM]