Troperville
Editing Help
Tools
Toys
|
From left to right: Natalia, Ion, Jade, Luke, Tear, Guy and Anise. Mieu is that flying thing.
Into this world sustained by the Score, a stone has been thrown. The ripples will soon try to instigate a gigantic change.
A Role Playing Game released by Namco. It is part of the Tales Series.
Set in the fantasy world of Auldrant, Tales of the Abyss follows the adventures of Idiot Hero, Jerkass and White Prince Luke fon Fabre, who has never been allowed outside of his manor since he was kidnapped from his vacation home seven years previously. Due to the trauma from this incident, he developed retrograde amnesia concerning his entire existence, and had to be taught everything again from scratch (even basic skills like how to walk).
His mundane existence changes dramatically when the mysterious Staff Chick Tear Grants breaks into Luke's manor with the aim of killing his swordmaster (and her brother) Van Grants. Upon touching Luke, she and Luke are accidentally teleported halfway around the world, landing right in the middle of the neighbouring enemy Empire. Both are trying to return Luke home while gradually unravelling the secrets behind Luke's status as The Chosen One of legend.
In true Tales Series fashion, it doesn't take long for the first game-changing plot twist to hit.
The game has an Animated Adaptation produced by Sunrise. The first episode aired on October 3, 2008 on TOKYO MX; in addition, another channel had an hour long special the following day, showing both the first and second episode. It has caught fans by surprise by being really, really faithful to the source material, as well as using the greater narrative freedom granted by the medium to elaborate on certain key points.
Tropes Include:
- Acting For Two: The voice actors of all characters that sport replicas, naturally.
- Adaptation Decay: This is most notable in the CD dramas, though the manga suffers from this as well. Many things are left out of the CD dramas, including the Albiore, an important vehicle that you spend several quests and subquests in the game acquiring, reacquiring, and powering up. This doesn't keep the final dungeon from flying in the sky like it does in the game however. How do the characters get there then? Jade and Guy modify one of Dist's robots and fling it off the bridge of the Tartarus. Also left out of the dramas is Mieu, though some would say that's a good thing.
- Ironically enough, the anime adaptation is very true to the game, which is unusual for a Tales anime spin-off.
- However, there are complaints that the anime adaptation does not contain satisfactory fight scenes, which some Tales fans consider to be very disappointing, because the battle system of the series is its most lauded aspect.
- Adaptation Distillation: The Sunrise anime, arguably.
- Adults Are Useless / Competence Zone: subverted by Jade, who is twice the age of the rest of the cast but is often complimented on his ability to keep up with the younger heroes. Lampshaded by his occasional comments about how his joints ache in his "old age" (he's 35), usually giving him an excuse to get out of manual labor (IE crate-moving puzzles; ironically, when he does have to push a crate around, he does so with one hand, the other remaining in his pocket).
- AI Is A Crapshoot: Natalia is this for some. Subversion as she tends to use her healing artes and buffs excessively when she has very low TP, making her frustrating for boss fights. To make things worse, even if you set her a limit to using her TP, the healing artes do not count, so she'll still heal Guy when he's at 75% health (and he can heal himself, ironically).
- Melee AI can be pretty frustrating with their quasi-phobia of Tear's Healing Circle. Yes, Guy, please run out of Healing Circle so you can die.
- All Your Powers Combined: Nebilim. She has the best Strike and Fonic Artes in the entire game. She also has Mystic Artes like Rending Saber, Mystic Cage, Indignation, Innocent Shine, and Fortune's Arc.
- Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: The location of the final battle...but only for the Crowning Moment Of Awesome.
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: You only fight with four characters, while you have a total of six; complete with Hand Wave as to what the other characters are doing while you're main party is fighting.
- Alas Poor Villain: Arietta and Largo, for certain. The other god-generals as well, but rather less so.
- Allergic To Love: Guy is afraid of women, to be specific, although that doesn't stop him from hitting on them and then running the hell away.
- Justified by the circumstances of his gynophobia: as a child, Guy's servants as well as his older sister sacrificed themselves to protect him from an enemy attack. He ended up buried in a pile of dead women.)
- Lampshaded by a number of characters, particularly Luke, who ask him whether it's fair to lead women on that way.
- It's also suggested that he doesn't entirely know that he's turning women on, as seen when he compliments Tear on her appearance.
- Aloof Big Brother: Asch to Luke, Van to Tear.
- Anime Theme Song: "Karma" by Bump of Chicken — the vocals were removed in the English localization. It was even recycled for the animated adaptation.
- The Atoner: Luke, after he realizes what a complete ass he's been and gets an Important Haircut.
- Anise, after Ion's death. She gives up her gold digging ways and is determined to become the first female Fon Master, and practically all her conversations after that point have her saying that Ion would have wanted her to do something, or that Ion would have liked a certain course of action.
- Jade, arguably. He managed to turn "I wish I'd never been born" into a snark, though, so it's hard to tell.
- That skit's been bugging this troper. She wishes she could play the undub to see what he really meant, because the expression he said it with...
- It's pretty clear cut that Jade wants to atone for being the creator of fomicry and replicas.
- Spinoza, after the death of his colleagues due to his betrayal.
- Ax Crazy: Nebilim.
- Back Story: Essentially all of the Character Development for Guy and Jade comes from their past.
- Badass Grandpa: Everyone but Spinoza in classes I and M, all the way. Culminates in four Heroic Sacrifices.
- Beard Of Evil: Van. Lampshaded by Anise in a skit.
- Beta Test Baddie: Played straight by Sync, and likely most all of the other God Generals as well. Inverted, ironically enough, by Asch.
- Bitch In Sheeps Clothing: Anise. Sugary Sweet on the outside, utterly cynical on the inside and prone to swearing like a sailor if noone she's trying to fool is around to hear her. Mind you, she's not all that bad on the inside when the chips are down, being ultimately something of a Jerk With A Heart Of Gold In Sheeps Clothing.
- To be honest, she really doesn't swear all that much aside from her famous death threat. Japan-wise however she uses very rough pronouns and terms which are on the level of offense that swearing has in English. Sadly, the rating can't give her a colorful vocabulary past that of a JRPG adult, but the death threats help.
- If you use her Mystic Arte Final Fury without Jade or Luke in your party, she'll cry out, "I'll kill you bastards!"
- Bittersweet Ending: Depending on who the red haired person at the end is, Tear or Natalia will be very sad.
- This troper was under the impression that Luke and Asche merged at the end of the game. An optional conversation between Dist and Jade toward the end of the game seems to indicate that this was slowly starting to happen, and in the final sequence there's that bit where Asch's body and Luke are drawn together before being engulfed in light...
- Then there's the matter of the theme song. The last few lyrics (which don't exist in the American version of the game) are When we finally bury our reasons for fighting and build a cross on top of them, my promise will be fulfilled and we will become one. Apparently that was unimportant enough to leave out.
- However, they left open whether that person has Luke's mind or Asch's.
- Probably Luke's, given that Asch was, y'know, dead when they merged...
- So was the original cheagle, but that didn't stop the Big Bang, did it? Actually, the conversation between Dist and Jade seems to imply that the original dying first is a resquisite of the Big Bang.
- But Luke felt something warm falling onto him. The original cheagle's scenario happened like this: it died and then felt something falling onto it. Luke's situation is the opposite.
- All of the above is exactly why fans are still debating.
- This Troper doesn't understand how people can argue over the cheagles, thus here's an explanation on how the Big Bang works? A is replicated into B. The Big Bang occurs and A's fonons get transferred into B, gaining all of B's memories. Including, you know, receiving A's fonons, which as Luke demonstrated, feels like something warm falling into you.
- I personally don't get how this is even debated at all. Watch the ending, look who get's the most focus. (Hint: It's not Natalia)
- Blade On A Stick: Jade uses a spear and variations thereof as his primary weapon. Also, in the anime, it's shown that the tip of Tear's staff is sharp enough to pierce flesh.
- Bodyguard Crush: Gender-inverted. Anise has a crush on Ion, and is also his bodyguard. Legretta loves Van and is his right hand woman.
- Bonus Boss: In the Bonus Dungeon, there are clones of the God Generals and Replicantis, and in the Devil's Arms sidequest, Nebilim. Oh, and there's the Tales Cameo Team, as well.
- Don't forget the Sword Dancer.
- Bonus Dungeon: The Replica Lab, which is also a particularly frustrating Escort Mission without an online map.
- Boobs Of Steel: Tear has the biggest measurements in the cast and serves the role of Staff Chick. She shows amazing combat proficiency in cutscenes, however, and she's easily one of the best characters for battle with her light magic, on par with Jade when she has her pendant equipped. And considering that Natalia can also be a Staff Chick herself, Tear can be free to just cast...
- Break The Haughty: Pretty much everything that happens to Luke in the first half of the game. Also, for Natalia, she subdues a bit when she joins the party, realizing quickly that fighting in real life is much different from practice. The real kick for her, though, is when she discovers she's not really a princess, and her real father is one of the God Generals.
- Glowing White Blood With A Slight Red Tint: The anime.
- Cain And Abel: Tear and Van, possibly Luke and Asch
- Calling Your Attacks: Everyone in the main party and Quirky Miniboss Squad does this with their artes.
- Luke, Guy, and Asch will yell out a phrase to accompany their Field of Fonons Artes, e.g. "Blade reveal your fury! Dragon Tempest!"
- Camp Gay: Dist
- Cannot Spit It Out: Luke and Tear, my God. This goes on for about two-thirds of the entire game. The rest of the party easily knows that they have romantic feelings for each other, but Luke can't spit it out because, well, he's seven years old and his fonons are seperating, so, by Luke's logic, why tell her how he feels when she'll just be brokenhearted when he disappears, and Tear can't spit it out because she's textbook kuudere.
- In the ending, Luke... I love you.
- Capulet Counterpart: Tear fits this in some ways.
- Catch Phrase: Anise "Booo!" (or in Japanese "Buu buu!")
- Character Development: Tear, Anise, Natalia, and Luke, but Luke more than anyone else in the game. Debatable whether or not the last arc is actually good development or just derailment, but his character does greatly change throughout the game.
- Childhood Marriage Promise: Natalia and Luke made one, which became one of the defining points in Natalia's life as it contained the ideals to which they would strive to as future monarchs. Luke doesn't remember making it, so Natalia reminds him about it at every opportunity and dreams about how romantic it would be if his first recalled memory was of the promise. It's revealed that she really made the promise with Asch, which leads to much guilt on Natalia's part for forcing her dreams onto Luke, and forms the basis for her own personal struggle to differenate Luke and Asch.
- The Chosen One: Luke. But it's not as simple as that. Asch was the original Chosen One, and Luke was created as a mere decoy. But both Luke and Asch's individual actions coincide with those of The Chosen One, as predicted in the Score. The simplest explanation is that they are both "The Chosen One".
- Church Militant: The Oracle Knights are the guardians of the Order of Lorelei, though even the non-militants like Ion have some pretty awesome abilities.
- Though it does lead to a bit of Fridge Logic, when you consider that the entire world has been following the Score for thousands of years, so who the heck are the Oracle Knights supposed to be there to fight?
- If the Score needs to be enforced, there must be people who've defied it. The Oracle Knights are also there to act as a peacekeeping force in order to maintain Daath's neutrality and protect it from any threats (such as wandering monsters).
- Cloning Blues: Every way you can stretch it.
- Colonel Badass: Jade.
- Combat Medic: Both Natalia and Tear can alternate as a long/mid distance fighter or the healer, depending on which kind of healing you prefer (Gradual area-of-effect spells from Tear, or concentrated single-target artes by Natalia)
- Complete Monster: Grand Maestro Mohs, who manages to come off as evil and unsympathetic even when compared to someone who wants to wipe all life off the face of the planet.
- Convection Shmonvection: Played straight, and lampshaded in a skit. (See Exposed To The Elements, further below.)
- Cosmic Deadline: Funny how you pretty much do nothing different in fights with the Big Bad, and he finally decides to die for good after roughly 60 hours.
- When you defeat him the first time, he really was beaten, though, and would have died if he hadn't succeeded in absorbing Lorelei into himself.
- Creepy Child: Jade's childhood development of fomicry caused him to have a rather warped view of death and killing, not to mention his Creepy Monotone and overall fonic genius, but he's grown out of it.
- Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming: When King Ingobert accepts Natalia as his daughter after he knows full well that she is not his real daughter.
- Also when all the citizens of Baticul help Natalia get escape her execution, because they don't care that she's not royal by birth, she's a good leader and they want to keep her as the princess of Kimlasca.
- When Duke Fabre and Susannah accept Luke as their son too, and not just as a clone of their son, despite his frequent arguments that Asch is superior to him in every way, made this Troper go d'awwwwwwwwww.
- Related to that: when Luke tricks Asch into reuniting with his parents after seven years, and they treat him exactly as you would a long-lost son. Quite possibly one of the few times you feel Asch is happy, despite himself.
- "You're the only Ion that matters to me" and "Replica or not, you're real to me."
- For this troper, Guy waiting for Luke (and Tear) after the rest of the team temporarily disowns him.
- If you think that Luke is the one that returns at the end of the game, then it's heartwarming to see Tear cry out of joy that Luke kept his promise.
- Crystal Dragon Jesus: The Order of Lorelei.
- Cutscene Incompetence: Your party is surrounded by a bunch of Mooks that you've already beaten a hundred times over, and they decide to surrender. Meanwhile...
- Cutscene Power To The Max: ...your weakest party member can put an entire house to sleep, jump off a roof, and nearly kill someone without breaking a sweat.
- Though in another cutscene near the end of the game, she strains herself heavily just putting five people to sleep, claiming that she never put that many people to sleep before. While it may be arguable that she only attacked the people that were currently in the courtyard of Fabre mansion at the start of the game (and only made Luke, Van and Guy kinda groggy, at that), it's somewhat unlikely that *every* knight in Natalia's palace was pretending to be asleep, though they'd probably do it if it meant that Natalia would be safe.
- It's worth noting that Tear was already feeling weak from the miasma before she put that band of replicas to sleep.
- Dark Magical Girl: Arietta.
- Little Miss Snarker: Anise occasionally descends into this.
- Dead Little Sister: It's actually Guy's older sister.
- Dead Baby Comedy: As a child, Guy was traumatized after being smothered by one dead woman after another, all dying because of him, an experience so horrifying he blocked it from his memory. Now he's terrified of all women. Hilarious!
- Deadpan Snarker: Jade is quite possibly the king of this trope.
- Death Seeker: Played straight by Asch, subverted by Luke.
- Desperation Attack: Luke's Lost Fon Drive Mystic Arte is usable only when Luke has less than 15% HP.
- Distressed Damsel: Fon Master Ion, a rare male example, and further supported to his extremely girly appearance. (And female voice actress.)
- Dont Say Such Stupid Things: Every time Luke opens his mouth.
- Doomed Hometown: Inverted: Luke's hometown isn't destroyed, Van's (the villain) is, and it's one of the reasons he hates the Score.
- Duel Boss: Luke fights Asch alone twice, though you're allowed (and expected) to lose the first fight.
- Earth Shattering Kaboom: Subverted, barely. While the world never blows up, manipulation by the Big Bad and Luke's heroic incompetence leads to half the world missing at one point.
- Though, some would say that Luke blasting the Akzeriuth passage rings was pretty earth shattering, though not kaboom enough.
- Easily Forgiven: AAAGH!! ANISE!!!
- Escort Mission: You have to escort a bunch of villagers from their hometown to a new one. If you run into a battle, they will always get injured even though there's only two or three enemy soldiers. Later, there's also the Bonus Dungeon.
- Everyone Can See It: Guy, Jade, Natalia, and Anise all know that Luke and Tear both love each other.
- Evil Is Sexy: I can't be the only one that had a case of tight pants when you first see Nebilim.
- Evil Knockoff: Luke is a grand inversion of this trope.
- Evil Laugh: Dist. Also, Mohs, after his monstrous transformation.
- Evil Twin: Played straight by Sync; subverted by Asch. In the manga, however, it's revealed that this is inverted by the real Ion, who is an evil kid that adopts people as pets.
- Exposed To The Elements: Lampshaded repeatedly in conversation skits. Neither Jade
 nor Tear is safe from this.
- Expy: First reaction to Luke's character design: "Hey, doesn't he look like Zelos?"
- In one of Jade's flashbacks, Gelda Nebilim sure looked an awful lot like Raine Sage. Nebilim even became a teacher just like Raine was.
- False Flag Operation: Attempted by Van and Friends. Subverted in that their intended target doesn't fall for it. (Well, Natalia does. But she at least has enough common sense to ask the other side about the attack before pushing the big red "TO WAR" button.)
- Famous Ancestor: None other than Yulia Jue for Tear and Van.
- Fan Nickname: Even if it's their first time hearing it, fans know you're talking about Van Grants when you mention "Master Badtouch"
- Fantastic Racism: In regards to the replicas that end up all over the world in the last part of the game.
- Fantasy Gun Control: Averted by Legretta; played straight with everyone else.
- Fearful Symmetry: Justified and abused by Luke and Asch.
- Finishing Move: The ever shiny Mystic Artes; and everyone that's important enough gets one. Or more.
- Played very literally with Anise's second Mystic Arte, Fever Time. If it doesn't end the battle, say bye-bye to 20,000 Gald.
- Five Bad Band: The God Generals.
- Floating Continent: Try an entire crust of a planet.
- Friendly Enemy: More or less everyone but Mohs. Almost everybody has had professional relationships in the same military before the fighting starts, and the lack of real animosity is palpable.
- Friendly Fireproof: Annoyingly hand waved by Jade, who says at one point that he can't use artes to fight back, because there were too many civilians around without friend-or-foe markings.
- It might still be hand waving, but a book in Grand Chokmah explains 'marking' and how it pertains to preventing friendly fire. It's better than no explanation, at least.
- Fungus Humongous: Mushroom Road.
- Gag Boobs: They love playing on Tear's melons.
- Gainax Ending: Wait, so, um...Why are Luke and Asch shining like that? What, are they melding or something? Why did the screen go completely white? Why did Asch's hand just twitch? Why are the credits rolling right now without answering those questions?! Oh, good, there's a after-credits stinger. And he's back! Wait, his hair is long again. But his sword's sheath is affixed similarly to Luke's. But his hair is long and Tear seems more surprised than relieved and "I promised someone" could refer to either Tear or Natalia—GAAAAAHHH.
- Didn't Asch only promise Luke he'd survive?
- The promise he made to Natalia ("When we grow up, let's change this country" et cetera, et cetera) was an integral part of Asch's character. It makes sense that "I made a promise to someone" could refer to that as well. It's written to be ambiguous.
- Game Breaker: Long story short, it's entirely possible for Guy to solo Nebilim without ever needing to heal himself because of abusing the temporary invulnerability during a Field of Fonon Arte. See this video for a demonstration. If you don't want to constantly hear Guy yell SEVERING WIND, BLADE REVEAL YOUR FURY, DRAGON TEMPEST more times than you would ever want to hear, then I would recommend against watching.
- Gender Blender Name: Jade.
- Genius Bonus: Apparently, the frequency of the Seventh Fonon is 3.14159265358...
- Genki Girl: Anise.
- This troper thinks Anise just looks like that compared to Tear and Natalia who are too timid and too royal to get excited about anything.
- Global Airship: The Albiore, though this is debatable, since you spend a good portion of the game with it unable to fly.
- Goggles Do Nothing: Guy's Hopeless Dreamer outfit has a pair of goggles on his forehead.
- Gold Digger: Anise. Justified in that she is trying to shovel her parents out of debt. Nonetheless, it's slightly squicky to see this thirteen-year-old girl trying to twine herself around Luke.
- The Squick isn't as strong if you take Luke's age at face value (17). However, if you go by his real age (7), It Got Worse.
- Good Is Not Nice: Asch is trying to accomplish the same thing you are, to stop Van from destroying the world and replacing it with a Replica world, but that sure doesn't stop Asch from passionately hating Luke and threatening to kill him.
- Goldfish Poop Gang: The Dark Wings.
- Guest Star Party Member: Asch.
- Guide Dang It: Many of the sidequests are Lost Forever if you're not too careful, annoyingly some are important in understaniding some plot points in the game.
- Din's Shop is also pretty complicated, but it's the only way to get some of the best armor, and Natalia's strongest bow, which is needed for her second Mystic Arte.
- On the topic of Mystic Artes, many probably had to look up how to do the second-playthrough Mystic Artes.
- Guns Akimbo: Legretta.
- Have A Nice Death: If you die on a boss battle, you can view a small skit that helps you exploit the enemy's weakness.
- Harder Than Hard: Unknown. All enemies stats are increased fourfold compared to what they were on Normal. Mystic Artes can and will destroy you. Bosses have such incredibly high defense that you're essentially forced to spend millions of Gald on a potential Game Breaker sword for Luke and Guy in Chesedonia if you want to do more than one damage per hit when said bosses easily have over 70k HP even in the first chapter of the game.
- He Knows About Timed Hits: Opening combat tutorial.
- Heroic BSOD: Luke, after he commits an act that makes everyone in the party hate him, even though he's the main character, exacerbated after he finds out he's a replica.
- Further exacerbated by the fact that he had been post-hypnotically manipulated into doing it by his beloved master who also gave him a You Have Outlived Your Usefulness speech at the same time, and that his father and uncle knew that they were sending him and his party to suicide bomb a city so that they could use it as an excuse to start a World War, and that the destruction of Akzeriuth destabalized the entire continent, leading to potentially thousands more deaths. And did we mention that Luke is one of the few RPG main characters that absolutely hates killing people, had a BSOD the first time he killed someone, and still has nightmares about every person he kills?
- Heroic Sacrifice: Ion, Asch.
- Also, after he realizes what a complete ass he's been, Luke slowly begins to develop an inferiority complex and think the only way to redeem himself is through this. Arguably, he finally manages to do so in the end.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: The fight against Asch, though it's very much winnable in terms of game mechanics. Once you go back to the cutscene, though...
- Rare subversion when Tear sings the Grand Fonic Hymn in the last phase of the final battle with Van. At that point, it's impossible for you to lose.
- Horrible Judge Of Character: Just think Akzeriuth. Luke had Van's betrayal coming from a mile away.
- See With Friends Like These. As per Luke's experience at that point, the six most trustworthy people in his party were, in order, Van, Guy, Ion, Van, Van again, and Anise. Of them all, only Ion doesn't end up being revealed to be a traitor at some point in the game, and even he was holding back what was probably the only piece of information that would have made Luke doubt Van—that Luke was a Replica.
- Hot For Teacher: Luke/Tear, as she did teach him, and then there's all the Luke->Van and Asch->Van implications.
- Ho Yay: Some people take Guy and Luke's relationship to mean more than just really good friends.
- Jade and Peony as well, much to the former's own dismay.
- The same can also be said of Jade and Dist, though one has to wonder... (see below).
- Jade also tickles, then nibbles on Guy in a cut scene.
- The "*nibble*" was actually an awkward mistranslation. In the original Japanese, it was the Japanese onomatopoeia for pushing one's glasses back up, which has no English equivalent.
- Hundred Percent Completion: (although all you really get is a stat-boosting title and the Bragging Rights Reward)
- I Named The Rappig Jade: ... and Luke. And Nephry. And Saphir...
- I Will Wait For You: Tear says this to Luke right after you defeat Van for the last time.
- Idiot Hero: Luke. My God, Luke.
Jade: You're amazingly dense, aren't you, Luke?
Guy: Are you stupid? Only a child needs kindness to be blatantly obvious in order to see it.
Anise: Luke. Do you actually think there's anyone in the world who'd say "yes, I'm pushing myself"? You're so dumb!
- Luke's stupidity (and in particular, Guy's line above) takes on new meaning when you find out that he's only seven years old, mentally.
- Important Haircut: Luke gets one at the end of the first part.
- Infant Immortality: Subverted; see what happens after Akzeriuth in this scene. (only the first 55 seconds is relevant)
- Instant Runes: When casting spells, and most definitely with Jade's Indignation.
- It Gets Easier: subverted as Luke never gets used to killing people, Jade even mentions that he knows that Luke doesn't sleep at night, because of the nightmares he has when killing people. Played straight with Natalia though
- James Bondage: Ion, who manages to get himself kidnapped more times than most female damsels.
- Jeigan Character: Jade, before he conveniently has his powers sealed to the same level as the other party members.
- ...And slowly works through said seal, conveniently gaining power at the same rate as everyone else.
- Jerkass: Luke, before he realizes what a complete ass he's been and gets an Important Haircut.
- Mind you, the trope is also somewhat justified; Luke has been isolated from the world as long as he can remember. He also acts pretty much as expected for a seven-year old; nevermind that he's also physically seventeen and is probably ridden with teenage hormones in addition to his mental immaturity.
- Jerk With A Heart Of Gold: Jade and Anise. No wonder they get along so well.
- Luke at the start of the game qualifies as well. For a seven year old member of the highest levels of nobility with the life experience of a toddler, he's surprisingly down to Earth and his rudeness is tempered by his extreme aversion to killing and desire to protect people.
- Jiggle Physics: If Tear is your on-screen character, her Gag Boobs bounce when she runs.
- Can be noticed in certain cutscenes as well, e.g. a scene that involves Tear walking towards the screen with her entire body in clear focus.
- Though oddly enough, its the relatively more modestly endowed Natalia who has the far more revealing alternate outfits.
- Just In Time: Can be averted, surprisingly enough. If you take too long to save Ginji and the Albiore I, he really will fall to his death, leading to another NPC taking his place as the pilot of the Albiore III.
- Oddly, though, the game is playing this straight at the exact same time: the entire reason you're trying to save Ginji and the Albiore I is to save the people remaining in St. Binah before it sinks, which conveniently takes long enough for the party to go halfway around the world and engage in a Fetch Quest. The anime adaptation rewrites things to make more sense: the party doesn't take part in the first-mentioned act at all, and Noelle happens to arrive at St. Binah with the Albiore Just In Time.
- Karma Houdini: While everyone was busy guilting Luke, no one seems to mind that Asch tried to kill him at least twice, the first time while he was helping the other God Generals slaughter the 140 crew members of the Tartarus. Doesn't go under Easily Forgiven, because they never seem to even remember it at all.
- Also, the only ones who seem to mind that King Ingobert and Duke fon Fabre knowingly sent Luke and his party to die while destroying an entire city are themselves... and even then, it seems that its primarily for trying to kill Luke and not for allowing Akzeriuth to fall.
- Similarly, Tear doesn't seem to have a problem with the fact that her Grandfather Teodoro quite calmly allowed it to happen and supported Mohs' attempt to toss the entire world into War, only changing his mind when it became clear that Van was going to kill everyone... and by doing so, apparently invalidated the Score which had been Teodoro's justification for waving aside all the bloodshed that he'd been complicit in.
- Kick The Dog: Plenty from villains all around; the most overt would be Sync's blow below the belt towards Anise.
- This troper thought that the slaughter of Belkend and Sheridan's old-fogey tech-heads was pretty horrific too.
- One that particularly hit hard was the party's surprise meeting with Van in Belkend, which ends in a stalemate, neither side having convinced the other. The kick comes when Van, the only person Luke had ever looked up to, pretty much tells Luke "You Suck" and dismisses him entirely. Even considering the fact that this is the Big Bad who's saying this and thus Luke really shouldn't care, you can still tell that it stings.
- Kissing Cousins: Natalia and Luke. Subverted: while Luke's mother is Natalia's father's sister, Luke as you first know him from the story is actually a clone, and Natalia was adopted from another family when the real princess died in infancy. Double subversion because the two of them are royalty, meaning it's practically mandated.
- Kuudere: Tear, of course.
- Law Of Cartographical Elegance: A particularly egregious example, as part of the plot involves going to the North and South Poles... which are right next to one another when traveling on the Field, even though the cutscenes makes it clear that Aldurant is a globe.
- Laser Guided Amnesia: Subverted in that Luke isn't really an amnesiac; he's actually a clone of the "real" Luke: Asch. The game makes it clear that clones are a complete blank slate; Guy recalls Luke having to learn to walk.
- Lets Split Up Gang: Forced upon the party during the first trip to Absorption Gate. A platform collapses and separates the party into three pairs: Luke and Tear, Guy and Natalia, and Jade and Anise.
- Lets You And Him Fight: Subverted in that, although Asch is working towards the same goal as the party, he hates Luke personally, and would gladly kill him if given the opportunity. To be fair, he has every reason to, thought it isn't the reason you think...
- Lethal Chef: Princess Natalia is the text book example, and to a lesser extent, so is Luke.
- While Jade is a decent chef, according to skits he uses his cooking as "non-lethal" experiments to the group. It's usually mild things like putting in disliked ingredients or testing their tolerance for spiciness, but it probably wouldn't be the smartest thing to have him cook while you're in Mushroom Road.
- Loads And Loads Of Loading: The load times after a battle on the world map are generally bad, but become far worse if you're in the Zao Desert. It's particularly bad in the Inista Marsh because the game treats the area as if you're still on the world map and not in an actual dungeon like any other area listed in the dungeon listing of your map.
- Locked Out Of The Loop: Jade figures out early that Luke is a replica of Asch but doesn't tell him... it's not like its an important part of the Big Bad 's plan or anything.
- Love Hurts: Really bad.
- Love Makes You Crazy: Anise, Arietta, Legretta, Dist, and Jade, of all people.
- Low Level Advantage: If you're on a New Game Plus and you carried over your Capacity Cores, it's recommended to fight as few battles as possible until Ion gives Luke his first Capacity Core in the Cheagle Woods.
- Luke I Am Your Father: Largo is Natalia's true father. He didn't particularly care to tell his child about this, though...
- Although technically, Luke has no father, Van could be considered his father because he created him. Jade could also be considered his father as he invented fomicry. Neither of them though, uttered the famous words.
- Made Of Plasticine: The anime is full of this.
- Magic Music: Tear's best abilities are her fonic hymns, which require her to sing.
- Musical symbology is rife in this game. In the Japanese translation, "fonic artes" (magic) is rendered as "tone magic". When Jade uses his "Mystic Cage" arte, he says (in English), "Oh admonishing melody, arise in the name of the Necromancer. Mystic Cage!" And all the titles in front of Order-of-Lorelei ranks (Ionian, Locrian, etc) are all music-theory terms. And let's not forget that the "fonons" manipulated by magic are basic particles of sound.
- Magitek: Fon machines/fontech
- Magnificent Bastard: Heroic subversion: His name starts with a 'J' and ends with an 'ade Curtiss'.
- May December Romance: Here's a fun thought, Luke is technically seven years old with a mindset to match and only has the body of a seventeen year old, while Tear actually is sixteen years old. Tear knows Lukes real age and yet by the end of the game both of them love each other. Sorta weird on Luke's part, kinda creepy on Tears's part.
- Not to mention Anise/Arrietta and the current Ion, who is *two.*
- Meaningful Name: Asch. He's the leftover ashes of The Holy Flame.
- Also, Luke himself: the name actually does mean "Light".
- Also, Sync is a clone; Largo is really big; Legretta is really quick; "Vandesdelca" means "one who would seize glory"; Guy is afraid of women; and most of the God Generals have musical names which ties in with the overall sonic theme of the setting.
- On a related note, Names To Run Away From Really Fast—an in-universe example! You have to wonder what Van's parents were thinking, naming him something like that...
- Don't forget Guy's parents. Gailardia is similar to the scientific name of the Blanket flower by the way. Long names must be a tradition of Hod, with the exception of Mary.
- Mary's not really an exception, when you look at Marybelle Radan Gardios as her full name.
- Natalia a double whammy. First off, Natalia means birthday, and that comes into play when Luke finds a locket with that date inscribed on it. It's Largo's prized possession, to commemorate the birth of his daughter Meryl, who is actually Natalia. Secondly, Meryl means shining sea. Natalia birth mother committed suicide by drowning in the Sea of Baticul when her newborn daughter was taken from her to replace the original Natalia, who was stillborn.
- Minor Injury Overreaction: In the anime, all it took was one minor scratch to his chest to make the final boss of the Absorption Gate declare himself defeated, and throw himself over the edge to (presumably) his death while giggling like a maniac. Not the case in the game, however, as it takes quite the boss fight first to defeat him there.
- Same goes for Sync. Once his mask is broken (if that can be called an injury) and his identity is revealed he goes on a spiel about Cloning Blues and promptly jumps into the abyss. Keep in mind, he was kicking everyone's collective ass up to that point.
- Mirror Boss: Most of the God-Generals, especially Luke and Asch.
- The cameo team battle in the Arena is essentially this. Reid is Luke/Guy, Mint is Tear/Natalia, Philia is Jade, and Nanaly is Anise.
- Mix And Match Critters: Rappigs, half rabbit, half pig. More like 9/10 pig and 1/10 rabbit, really. They're basically pigs with bunny ears.
- Moral Dissonance: Everybody keeping secrets from Luke and then berating him for not trusting them, with predictably horrible results. In a curious play of this trope, this appears to be intentional: the blatant hypocrisy of the rest of the party is about the only thing that would make the player sympathise with Luke at this point.
- Moral Event Horizon: Mohs forcing Anise to betray the party by threatening to kill her parents and personally murdering Ion.
- More Hero Than Thou: In the third chapter of the game at Daath, Luke and Asch argue over who should commit mass-suicide at the Tower of Rem with all the replicas to destroy the miasma. Luke initially goes through with it, but Asch helps him once he realizes that Luke had the Jewel of Lorelei all along; Luke just absorbed it into his body because he and the Jewel are made entirely of Seventh fonons. The Jewel's ability to disperse fonons actually began to cause Luke's body to disintegrate when Luke could see right through his own arm.
- Names To Know In Anime:
- Narm: This Troper is slightly worried that she has a giggle fit everytime she watches Guy's flashback to when his family was killed. It must be the slo-mo...
- I don't know about that scene, but there are some scenes, particularly ones that attempt to have a dramatic camera angle, where the drama is a bit lost for me. Maybe it's just the dated graphics that ruin it.
- Nice Job Breaking It Hero: The party manages to solve many of the world's problems only to create new problems instead, the biggest example being when Luke sunk Akzeriuth. Most of these also result in other pseudo kabooms.
- Nietzsche Wannabe: Sync.
- No Export For You: Live in Europe? Get a region 1 PS 2 or learn japanese and import a japanese copy, it's the only way you'll ever see this game.
- Not So Fast Bucko: The part just before the Absorption Gate dungeon has "Ending" written all over it, you apparently kill the God-Generals, the Absorption Gate itself seems like The Very Definitely Final Dungeon... And then, when you're watching the supposedly final cutscene, you see a completely new area of the dungeon, with a treasure chest in it, just to make it clear that you're going to be able to go there.
- Not Quite Dead: Dist. Dist. Dist. He really is as "tenacious as a cockroach."
- Oblivious To Love: Luke just never really seems to put the pieces together that Tear feels the same way.
- Older Than They Look: Though all the characters are at seemingly young ages, it was stated in the game that a year on their planet is 765 days long, meaning that everyone is actually twice as old by our time. More than likely though, the humans of that planet age at a slower rate than we do, evening it out.
- Ominous Pipe Organ: The organ music continues to go on even after the villain gets up...
- Omnicidal Maniac: The Big Bad intends to destroy the whole planet so that no trace of the Score remains, before replacing it with a Replica.
- Overrated And Underleveled: Jade.
- Perpetual Frowner: Asch seems to be physically incapable of being happy.
- Player Punch: Mohs' killing of Ion(he dies), Tear finding out she's dying(she doesn't), Luke finding out he's dying(whether he does is debatable)... take your pick.
- Poor Communication Kills: Luke is particularly guilty of this (even Jade says that he should have told them when it came to what happened at Akzeriuth).
- Though this is used just as often against Luke to keep certain information from the player. This leads to several maddening instances in which the other characters berate him for not knowing anything while intentionally keeping him out of the loop.
- Indeed, if Jade had told Luke the vital plot point that he had figured out (that Luke was a replica of Asch) then he would have saved Luke a lot of angsting and may even have prevented the destruction of Akzeriuth. Instead, he has the nerve to berate Luke for keeping secrets.
- Later on, Jade acknowledges somewhat-off hand that he's also to blame for what happened, as he could have prevented the whole thing if he had just opened his mouth. His reason for not talking? He didn't want to go through the trouble of explaining
- Also, whether he understood it or not, Luke should have known better than to hold back any messages from Lorelei. They could have had a whole extra month to foil the Van's plans during the second half of the game, if he had told anyone in his party about the message he received about "The One Who Would Seize Glory." Though its a mystery as to why Lorelei didn't just say Van or even Vandesdelca, since it is quite capable of using proper names...
- Power Limiter: Jade has 2. The fon slot seal Largo used on him early-on in the game to even out his level with the other characters, and through an easy to miss sidequest, you learn that his glasses prevent the fonons gathered in his eyes from destroying himself and whatever he happens to be nearby.
- Pride Before A Fall: Before Luke's Heroic BSOD and quite literally with the fall of Akzeriuth.
- Prisoner Of Zenda Exit: Sync in the anime after his mask breaks.
- The Psycho Rangers: Though they may just be Evil Counterparts, The God-Generals are all related to a member of the main party, and often use the same skills and abilities. Luke/Asch, Tear/Legretta, Anise/Arietta, Jade/Dist, Natalia/Largo; arguably, Anise/Sync, Ion/Sync, Guy/Sync and Guy/Van.
- Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Six God-Generals, complete with matching outfit.
- Rebellious Princess: Subverted by Natalia, who often works her world-saving duties in with the duties to her kingdom.
- Recurring Boss: And most of them are that boss too.
- Redemption Equals Death: Luke's mindset in the final third of the game, Asch (kinda, since he was grudgingly on your side anyway).
- Relax O Vision: Censoring on how Jade ''
rapes beats up'' Dist.
- Replacement Goldfish: Take your pick in a game that centers around Cloning Blues.
- Royally Screwed Up: Kimlasca-Lanvaldear is riddled with incompetence. Malkuth, on the other hand, has many competent leaders, and it shows if you talk to the people of Grand Chokmah. They'll say things like, "Well, if Emporer Peony says so, then I'll believe him." People don't talk about King Ingobert like that, but they do like Natalia. In fact, every time they say something good about their country, it's something Natalia did, and she's not even the real princess. Duke Fabre and King Ingobert are both fairly incompetent for a large part of the story. See Wall Banger.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Almost completely averted. Almost. King Ingobert is very incompetent. See Wall Banger below.
- Running Gag: "Guy, explain."
- Say My Name: Twice in this game!
- Scary Shiny Glasses: Jade and Dist, although the latter generally only uses the right lens.
- The Scrappy: Not that big, but Anise managed to gain some hatedom for her responsibility for Ion's death.
- Luke, whether for his arrogance in the early game or his Wangst in the late game.
- Finally, Mohs, who is just repulsive and for being the direct cause of Ion's death.
- Scrappy Level: Meggiora Highlands and Inista Marsh are infamous because they take place on the world map, which has a low frame rate and takes forever to load back up after a battle. Particularly annoying, since the first time you go to Meggiora Highlands, you have a timed mission.
- Screw Destiny: What everyone wants to do, heroes and villains.
- Self Fulfilling Prophecy: What the Score ends up being. A lot. The most egregious example: it's implied by Lorelei in one of the final scenes that the success of Van's plan—one that was designed to avert the Score—would have been the "destruction of humanity" predicted in the original Score Of Destruction.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: Both Luke and Tear say this repeatedly about the other, though everyone else knows better.
- Shout Out: Typical for a Tales Series game. Noteworthy examples are three of Anise's dolls being modeled after Cless, Philia, and Presea. Jade's belt buckle is Pac Man.
- Sinister Scythe: Largo.
- Slice And Dice Swordsmanship: Oddly enough for a Tales game, it's played straight.
- Small Annoying Creature: Mieu. Lampshaded by Luke getting pissed off at his hyper-cutesy speech patterns the second he starts talking and calling him "Thing" for the first half of the game.
- Smug Snake: Grand Maestro Mohs.
- Snow Means Love: During the first visit to Keterburg, the party stays at the inn and the girls talk about how romantic Keterburg is, with Ion included in the group, to further cement his status as a girl. Their options are rather limited because Luke is worried about his tummy freezing, Guy is scared of women, and Jade already found a pretty girl of his own.
- In fact, unlike the Tales' series normal Snow Means Love scene, Tales of the Abyss' takes place in a desert city.
- Stealth Based Mission: The forest outside of Grand Chokmah is a section of forced stealth. Thankfully, though, if you screw up enough, you can just choose to fight the guards.
- Spanner In The Works: Luke to the max.
- Spoiler Opening: In the anime: Natalia joining the party, the fact that Van is a villain (implied by him showing up with other antagonists), Asch's face (he goes on as The Faceless for awhile in the show proper) and the fact that he and Luke have some kind of connection, and Luke's Important Haircut. And that's not even getting into the lyrics themselves...
- Stalker With A Crush: Dist the
Rose Runny Reaper spends an awful lot of his time trying to get Jade's attention.
- Sword Beam: Luke's second Mystic Arte, Lost Fon Drive, involves Luke slashing the enemy about eight or nine times and then firing a massive beam of fonons at the enemy.
- Talking Is A Free Action: Typical boss fights have a lot of banter that goes on even while the characters are hitting each other.
- Talking To Himself :Replicas = same voice actor
- Tastes Like Diabetes: Mieu. It's astounding how one character can be so cringeworthy.
- Team Pet: Mieu, though Luke is the one that technically "owns" him.
- Tear Jerker: Sweet Jesus, way too often.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Nebilim's Fragmented End on higher difficulties. On Unknown, this Mystic Arte can hit for over 100,000 damage.
- Token Loli: Anise, also Arietta.
- The Ditz: While not being a full blown example like Colette Brunel, Natalia has her moments of profound stupidity. While in the Shurrey Hill Sephiroth, Anise convinces Natalia that Van's beard and eyebrows give him special powers. In a skit in Daath after the party has spent significant time in a desert region, everyone remarks about how sweaty they are. Instead of being worried about whether or not she may actually be a real princess, Natalia is more concerned about smelling bad.
- That One Boss: Sync and Van usually give most players trouble.
- Trauma Induced Amnesia: Luke's kidnapping. Subverted. Guy's gynophobia: Played straight.
- Treacherous Advisor: Luke's teacher, Van.
- Viewer Gender Confusion: Ion. Seriously, did he have a sex change at some point?
- Waif Prophet: Ion often collapses whenever he uses his power.
- Wall Banger: Kimlasca and Malkuth's sheer stubborness in continuing their war even as the Score unravels before their eyes; the party ripping into Luke for not trusting them when they had provided very little reason for him to do so; Mohs, the villain who most enjoys kicking the dog, gets an Alas Poor Villain moment...Let's just say this game is prone to stirring up Internet Backdraft.
- Asch's death. There's no logical reason why a door, fonic or otherwise, should have stopped two characters that can each generate a hyperressonance, who also had the two halves of the Key of Lorelei on their person. There's also the fact that Luke didn't give his weapon to Asch after Asch gave him his sword, though they did swap blades in the Anime.
- They probably didn't switch because that would mean permanently losing whatever weapon you had at the time, although, the only weapon more powerful than the Key of Lorelei is the Soul Crush and that's a bonus from the optional Arena. I sure as hell wouldn't want to lose my Soul Crush.
- The entire Albert-style subquest. The party refuses to let Luke use any of their money to buy back some books sold by one of his maids (never mind that they teach him very valuable elemental techniques), on the grounds that the money belongs to the group and they can't waste it on personal quests (never mind that you can easily pay for them with a few run throughs of the Colliseum's Advanced Singles Tournament). Then when he gets money from his insanely rich mother, at least one party member is there to haggle it down to the exact cost of the book you're trying to buy at that moment, in order to teach him the value of working for his money, for some reason.
- Don't forget that at least once during the whole sidequest, the party will give Luke a hard time for always using his mother as a personal ATM to pay for the books when the party forces him to do so at all.
- Wangst: Luke goes through quite a bit of this in the last third of the game. Also, if you defeat Asch in Yulia City, the resulting cutscene shows Asch doing a bit of wangsting of his own after being defeated by a mere replica.
- Asch has his moments of justified angst in the storyline, particularly in his pre-fight banter with Luke at Eldrant: "You can't possibly understand how I feel! You stole my past and my future! Now is all the time I have!"
- Well Intentioned Extremist: Half the villains in the game. Van in particular: he is attempting to destroy the Score because he knows that it predicts the complete destruction of humanity, and since the people of Auldrant take the Score's word as law... So Yeah.
- What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: If you're familiar with Friedrich Nietzsche, then you may think that the title has something to do with Nietzsche's famous quote about The Abyss, but it never really has any bearing on the game itself.
- What The Hell Hero: Luke after the events at Akzeriuth. Your Mileage May Vary on whether or not he actually deserved it.
- The White Prince: Luke.
- Why Did It Have To Be Snakes: Guy's rampant gynophobia.
- With Friends Like These - Let's recap the truthworthiness of the party from the perspective of Luke by the time they reach Akzeriuth: a strange woman who tried to kill his beloved teacher and won't tell him why while openly working for and defending the honor of a guy who seems to have Big Bad written all over him (and who was 100% supporting the event that everyone blamed Luke for), a smartass who constantly insults him, his best friend who trusts Van explictedly, a spacy kid, a creepy gold digger, a disliked childhood friend who literally blackmails her way into the party... and aforementioned beloved teacher/father figure who is not only a world-renowned soldier, but the only one in the party to treat him with respect. Yes, Luke was acting like a jerk up to that point but god damn that was unfair.
- The Woobie: Once you revisit Baticul after Akzeriuth and travel through the Inista Marsh, you might end up wishing you could give Natalia a hug.
- If Luke's character development in the third chapter doesn't repulse you, then you'll feel terrible for Luke when the God-Generals begin mass replication; it creates a whole myriad of social and ethical issues. Replicas are treated like monsters and subject to violence. Replicas have no place to call home because the originals despise them. The crowning moment of woobie for Luke comes when the world leaders ask Luke to die at the Tower of Rem to save everyone from the miasma. It doesn't get better after, because Luke is dying.
- And because he just deliberately killed thousands of basically innocent replicas in order to save the world, though oddly enough that fact is only mentioned once after the fact, despite Luke's dual Thou Shalt Not Kill and Replicas Are People schticks...
- Woobie Destroyer Of Worlds: With the exception of Asch (who fits The Woobie part but not the Destroyer Of Worlds part) and Legretta (who fits the Destroyer Of Worlds part but not The Woobie part), pretty much all of the God-Generals.
- You Cant Fight Fate: Believed by most of the world. Although it emerges that it's possible to Screw Destiny, this later changes when it is revealed that everything is guided by the planet's memory. But by the end, they manage to Screw Destiny anyway. Another noteworthy example is that the Score said Fon Master Ion was supposed to die, and the original thought that creating copies would defy the Score. He was wrong.
- On the other hand, Van unintentionally subverted this by creating Luke, who was supposed to take the original's place in dying at Akzeriuth. Both the original and the clone survived the incident, in contradiction to the Score. The party later points this out to Van in an attempt to convince him that the Score can be defeated, Van merely passed it off as an insignificant detail.
- But then later, the party realise that if Luke goes ahead with his Heroic Sacrifice at the Tower Of Rem—built on a site similar to Akzeriuth—then he would have fulfilled the Score anyway. But then he doesn't die during that incident after all, subverting the Score again. It's hard to really say what the game is trying to say about destiny.
- Interestingly enough, it's suggested that Yulia left hidden meanings in the fonic hymns urging humanity to break from the Score before it ultimately destroyed the world.
- Not to mention, after they defeat Van, Lorelei congratulates Luke on managing to avert the Score of Destruction that it had predicted... which means that, in rebelling against the Score of Destruction, he was causing it instead.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Said by Van, after he gets Luke to destroy Akzeriuth.
- Youngest Child Wins: Tear makes Van vulnerable to the killing blow using a lullaby he taught her as a child.
- Your Mileage May Vary: Luke's character development in the third and final chapter of the game. During the month that passes after the Disc One Final Dungeon, Luke develops an inferiority complex and loses any and all self-confidence he once had. Of course, it is justifiable that Luke would have a pretty poor opinion of himself given that he is a clone of Asch and can't seem to decide what his purpose in life ought to be. The storyline really shoves this down your throat to the point that you'll most likely either love Luke for having emotional complexity or you'll want to reach through your TV and choke Luke. Personally, this troper felt for Luke because of having an inferiority complex in his very own teenage years, but, at the same time, I cheered for Asch whenever he would tell Luke to knock it off with the inferiority complex.
- The problem that this troper had with this was that it was a massive step backwards for Luke's character development. By the end of the second act he's grown in confidence and taken huge strides towards throwing off his White Prince past and becoming his own man. The start of the third act has him Wangsting about his purpose in life as if the previous twenty hours of the game had never existed.
- Given that Luke a) is physically on the cusp of puberty and thus is likely to be extremely emotional, b) had the Big Bad tell him his purpose was a waste of time, and c) had a whole month to sit around stewing with nothing to do but think about these things, his apparent reverse-character development isn't so inexplicable. Annoying? That's another matter.
- There's also the fact he's technically seven years old.
|
|
