I'm really too lazy to be fancy and put wiki links, but if you're interested enough you can always google it.
Tales of the Abyss: I'm kinda late playing this I guess (it's a PS2 game), but I just got introduced to the "Tales of" series recently. It started with me being impressed with the SNES version of Tales of Phantasia (Japan only release, fan-translations are available though). After that, I decided to pick up Tales of Symphonia for the GC, which led to me getting Tales of the Abyss for my PS2.
I'm not very far into the game, so I can't really say too much. The ability to freely roam around the battle area is nice, because I hated not being able to do that in Symphonia. The story is just a little confusing with all this "fon" stuff, but I think I get the general idea so far. I don't really have much to say about the characters considering I'm not very far and I know little about them. Luke is annoying, but I think it's justifiable considering his situation. Anise is just really annoying. Jade kinda reminds me of Balthier, which is a good thing because he's one of my most favorite characters. Not much to say about everyone else. The only things that really bug me right now are the long load times and laggy world map.
P.S. If you've never played the SNES version of Tales of Phantasia, you should at least check it out even if you've played other versions (there are PS1, GBA, and PSP remakes/ports). It's a pretty damn impressive SNES game IMO. The other versions are better of course, but it's interesting to see what they were able to do with the SNES version at least IMO.