Tales of the Abyss/YMMV

"Mieu: Fire! Mieuuuu! Fire!"
 * Accidental Innuendo: In the English version. Luke learns Sonic Thrust from Guy. At night.
 * Alas, Poor Villain:
 * They tried to give one to
 * 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.
 * 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 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 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 . 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 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.
 * In the original game, Jade. Curtiss.
 * Evil Is Cool: . Also,
 * 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.
 * 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,.
 * 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 involves the entire party talking to Peony. It can be triggered, 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.
 * 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.
 * 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 . 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 and . However, it's difficult not to feel at least some pity for him when you realize that he.
 * 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:
 * Most Annoying Sound: Mieu's sounds for the Sorcerer's Ring, especially when you make multiple attempts to hit something.
 * Most Annoying Sound: Mieu's sounds for the Sorcerer's Ring, especially when you make multiple attempts to hit something.

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


 * Nightmare Fuel: 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.
 * Anise to some. One reason being the fact that she is
 * 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:
 * Later on,.
 * 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 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  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
 * 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,
 * To be fair, Luke's wangst gets toned down quite a lot (if not down right disappears) in the last fourth,
 * 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
 * It's also dawned on Luke that his life will never go back to the way it was before, which, in and of itself is quite sad. Had the game ended after , 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.
 * It's also dawned on Luke that his life will never go back to the way it was before, which, in and of itself is quite sad. Had the game ended after , 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.
 * World of Woobie: Pretty much every single character except for Mohs is a Woobie to some extent.