Tales of the Abyss/YMMV

• Accidental Innuendo: In the English version. Luke learns Sonic Thrust from Guy. At night.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Arietta and Largo, for certain. The other god-generals as well, but rather less so.
  • What makes Arietta's death especially tragic is how...sudden it is. All the other God Generals the party kills are at least able to give a moving Final Speech before succumbing to their wounds. Arietta, however, barely even has time to form a single sentence before dying.
  • They tried to give one to Mohs. The fandom didn't take that too well.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Asch. He's either a tragic victim, or an emotionaly simple villain who murdered scores of people and who can't deal with complex situations. For example, losing to Luke in battle and then Luke still wanting to befriend him. This causes him to send Luke on alone and fight hordes of guards, essentialy commiting suicide.
  • • Luke in the first part: Wangsty loser or child betrayed by both sets of parental figures and treated as a scapegoat by his friends?
    • Luke in the late game: Sympathetic individual who is trying to atone for what he's done and come to terms with being a replica even if he doesn't know how, or wangsty, guilt-driven and suicidal?
    • Tear: Decent person or Straw Hypocrite?
    • Mohs: A good man who put too much faith in a benevolent but powerless god or a Complete Monster who's only out for his own power?
    • Anise: Jerkass Woobie or Jerkass Karma Houdini?
  • The English dubbers actually did this with Tear's English voice acting, and it actually turns out rather well. Both versions make Tear sound like she took military training, but they play to different aspects of her character. Her Japanese voice sounds more childish, but not over-the-top. Her English voice makes her sound more like a child who was forced to grow up fast.
• Breather Boss: Fyr Bronc, the dragon in Mount Zaleho, especially considering that the previous boss was the first fight with the Big Bad and That One Boss.
• Canon Sue: Tear. Think about it, she's the special party member due to the facts that she is. A) a close blood-relation to Van (said to be her only living relative), B) is a descendant of the great Yulia Jue and C) she is the only one in the party capable of using the hymns.
  • You could argue that Jade is this as well. The creator of fomicry so he conveniently provides most of the information we do learn, is best buds with the emperor of Malkuth, and he breaks through a fonic seal that no one has ever done before, and he does that one easily too.
• 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.
• Contested Sequel: Very much so; this is possibly the most polarizing game in the franchise. Depending on how you feel about the story, it's either wildly melodramatic and overblown, or it's the high point of the entire Tales franchise. Not many people take a middle ground.
  • Americans Hate Tingle: It's worth noting that in Japan, it was voted the most popular game in the Tales series in a Famitsu poll.
• Crowning Music of Awesome: "Meaning of Birth" and "Finish the Promise", hands down.
  • "Karma". Even the stripped-of-vocals English version kicks enough ass to compel you to watch the entire opening every time you boot up the game.
  • Happiness in My Hand plays right before you head off to Eldrant. And it's beautiful.
• Cue the Flying Pigs: Namdai is localizing a port (in the US) of a tales game they already brought stateside, please let that sink in a little...
• Dude, Not Funny: When you learn how Guy became scared of women the jokes about it might become a little harder to laugh at. The female members of the party realize that it was wrong to make fun of him for it and apologize.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Asch in the anime, which leaves out his Kick the Dog moments in the game, including his participation in the Tartarus slaughter^[1] and his attacking Tear, making him much more sympathetic. The anime oddly keeps Asch's Ineffectual Loner tendency, which has the effect of making Luke into a Spotlight-Stealing Squad (well, he was one to begin with), especially considering Asch's eventual death.
  • In the original game, Jade. Curtiss.
• Evil Is Cool: Sync is Ion's Evil Twin, and is an antagonist. Guess which one is blessed with... martial arts skills, a slick hairstyle and a snazzy mask. Also, Asch the Bloody.
• Evil Is Sexy: Nebilim.
• Fan Nickname: Even if it's their first time hearing it, fans know you're talking about Van Grants when you mention "Master Badtouch"
• Funny Aneurysm Moment: See Dude, Not Funny for how Guy's gynophobia becomes much less funny when you realize that it was because he was buried under the corpses of many women of his house who died to protect him.
  • Similarly, the part when you realize that Anise's attempts to get a rich husband are not out of greed, but to free her family from their debt, as well as how far she's willing to go for their sake.
• 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.
  • Not to mention the man, at one point with the right configuration, gets a skill to recover 25% of his hp for 15 measly TP.
    • Guy was once generally regarded to as the most durable character in the game. While he has less defense and HP than Luke and Anise, he makes up for it with better speed, Fonic Defense, and Center. With the right setup and leveling, he'd outrun attacks that the other two would get smacked around by, and can still take hits like a champ, before healing them off. Anise can almost keep up with healing, but then it requires you map one really mediocre buff and one mediocre attack, and she's a slug (and on higher difficulties, she's best off sitting in back spamming magic). Luke gets stuck with only one healing move and being slower, but has more flexibility in his combos (able to set off multiple Fo F changes BY HIMSELF), better damage (although for Unknown, this really doesn't matter), and a nonelemental Mystic Arte (again, this doesn't actually matter too much on Unknown).
      • Anise can also get a accessory that restores her HP and TP periodicly. Nearing the end of the game, your HP and TP will be so high that you'll never need to use a gel on Anise...assuming you play on Easy Mode. On Unkown Mode on the other hand....
  • Likewise, Jade. Impressive, especially, since he has no healing abilities. He's strong, and his fonic assaults are powerful. I personally use him all the time, and he has rarely needed healing or resurrecting, and is generally good about avoiding attacks, even when not in use by the player. He really reaches gamebreaker status when you re-play the game and have Tutti on him for his Capacity Core the whole time, since it's +4 for everything, and is thus the best in the game, and his stats shoot through the roof.
• Good Bad Bugs: One of the cutscenes regarding Nebilim (it's the Contamination sidequest, I believe) involves the entire party talking to Peony. It can be triggered when you regain control after the Disc One Final Dungeon & the supposed end of the game, when Luke's your only party member. Apparently, he was literally carrying the entire party around in his pocket just in case he needed them for a cutscene. Talk about Crazy Prepared.
• Ho Yay: Guy's gynophobia plus his close friendship with Luke. See also Jade plus Dist or Peony, both of whom earn innuendo-laden comments from the party Guy. And, of course, Luke's worshipful relationship with his "Master" Van^[2].
  • Luke and Ion have their moments of this, particularly in the first trip to the Cheagle Woods.
  • People tend to ship Luke and Asch together for another reason entirely, though.
• Jerkass Woobie
  • Anise. Her family was the victim of a con and wound up in debt. Mohs paid off the debt, but had her parents become indentured servants, leading Anise to want to earn the money to free them. Unfortunately, she does some morally dubious things to reach this goal, including wanting to marry into wealth, performing occasional scams and serving as a spy for Mohs, leading to Ion's death. How much you sympathize with her depends on how willing you are to forgive her for the latter, spoilered act.
  • Sync is not only allied with the villains but does some exceptionally cruel things for no good reason, such as making fun of Akzeriuth's destruction and mimicking Ion's voice to guilt-trip Anise. However, it's difficult not to feel at least some pity for him when you realize that he was cast away along with the other unused Ion replicas and only kept around as a tool by Van.
• Magnificent Bastard: Van Grants.
  • Heroic subversion: His name starts with a 'J' and ends with an 'ade Curtiss'. Anise Tatlin could also qualify as a Bastard Understudy.
• Moral Event Horizon: Mohs kidnapping Anise's parents, forcing her to act as The Mole, and then personally murdering Ion and making Anise watch.
• Most Annoying Sound: Mieu's sounds for the Sorcerer's Ring, especially when you make multiple attempts to hit something.

Mieu: Fire! Mieuuuu! Fire!

• Narm: The scene just before the final showdown between Luke and Asch. It's fine for the most part, and then it gets to the very end...

Asch (with a totally deadpan expression on his face): Well said. I will make those words your last, REPLICAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

• Nightmare Fuel: The horrifically brutal death of the boy John after the fall of Akzurieth, as he sinks while buried under his father's corpse may very well be the single most terrifying event in the entire Tales franchise.
• The Scrappy: Luke, whether for his arrogance in the early game or his Wangst in the late game.
  • Mohs, who is just repulsive and for being the direct cause of Ion's death.
  • Anise to some. One reason being the fact that she is Easily Forgiven for her role in Ion's death.
  • In-universe, Mieu. He's a Ridiculously Cute Critter with a high-pitched voice who helps the party solve puzzles and not much else. Even after Luke's Character Development, he still calls Mieu "annoying" to Mieu's face.
• Player Punch: Mohs' killing of Ion (he dies), Tear finding out she's dying (she doesn't, thanks to one of Ion's final acts), Luke finding out he's dying (whether he does is debatable)... take your pick.
  • Sheridan. That is all.
  • Seeing that little boy drown in miasma.
    • Later on, meeting a woman whose husband and son were in Akzeriuth, the latter having come to visit the former.
  • Asch's death. Not only an antagonist, but one we just had a final duel with five minutes ago... But it still hurts.
• Tastes Like Diabetes: Mieu. It's astounding how one character can be so cringeworthy.
• Tear Jerker: Sweet Jesus, way too often.
• That One Boss: Sync and Van usually give most players trouble.
  • And don't forget Legretta they don't call her "the Quick" for nothing. To elaborate, her normal attacks are not only ranged and incredibly fast but they also deal A LOT of damage thus leaving you very little room to attack her. But It Gets Worse since her artes are not only incredibly powerful but your teammates will never try to avoid it even if they aren't casting fonic artes so unless you have both Natalia and Tear on the field the rest of your team will start dropping like flies.
• Values Dissonance: Luke (Well, Asch... It Makes Sense in Context) and Natalia's betrothal, as first cousins. Due to their status as nobles, no one even so much as bats an eye. This is because Auldrant seems to use a world-wide medieval-like setting. In Medieval times as well as other periods, nobles were anything but unknown for marrying within the close family.
  • Thinking about a 7 and a 13 year old together...six year gap. It's a bit strange in Western civilization but in Japan, something like that wouldn't be seen as too unusual; they look down on it a little less even though times have changed.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Ion. Seriously, did he have a sex change at some point?
  • Jade deserves an honorable mention: Gender Blender Name, feminine pose, long hair. . . and if you can believe it, some of his concept art made him feel even more like a woman, even with short hair!
• 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.
  • To be fair, Luke's wangst gets toned down quite a lot (if not down right disappears) in the last fourth, when he acknowledges he's a total different and separate person from Asch. Although he gets to do that after accepting his own freaking death!
  • Luke's wangst gets considerably toned down in the anime, too.
• 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...
    • It's also dawned on Luke that his life will never go back to the way it was before he found out he was a replica, which, in and of itself is quite sad. Had the game ended after the first fight with Van, one has to wonder where Luke's life would have led.
• 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. And Van in a literal sense.
• World of Woobie: Pretty much every single character except for Mohs is a Woobie to some extent.

1. ↑ He arrived afterwards.
2. ↑ Although lessened if you consider that he calls Van "sensei" in the Japanese version