If you’re an RPG fan, the Nintendo 3DS finally has a reason to be part of your gear. Well, a specific 3DS reason and not one of the many, many great JRPGs available for the DS. Tales of the Abyss is now on the 3DS, and even though it doesn’t add any content or make use of the 3D well, it’s still a must-have game for any genre fan.

If you haven’t played a Tales game, or only played Vesperia or Phantasia or… well, any of the other Tales games besides Abyss, you’re going to be in for a treat. Tales of the Abyss is as interesting, entertaining, and accessible as its PS2 version, and for this nearly ex-JRPG fan who’s been resigned to mostly obscure NISA and Atlus releases, it’s great to see the classic overworld-scouring, evil-fighting, world-saving action that used to be at the heart of JRPGs.

You play Luke, a noble who finds he has special powers everyone wants, is mysteriously transported somewhere because of them, is amnesiac and can’t remember his past, and is basically a walking checklist of JRPG cliches. Fortunately, while Luke’s a giant protagonist archetype, the other party members are so complimentary and Luke himself undergoes so much of a solid character arc that the story still holds up very well. without spoiling things, it takes the ideas of Final Fantasy 12, Final Fantasy 7, and Final Fantasy 9 and puts them in a blender.

The story is a surprisingly emotional epic that’s very dark for a tales game, and while the pacing feels a bit inconsistent at times, it generally flows very well. Most of the time you’ll hop from place to play, trying to save different people for different reasons while uncovering the truth about your party members. Sometimes that involves a strangely structure fetch quest or tells you to go some place without giving particularly good directions, but generally you’ll have just enough freedom to wander while still being guided to the next plot point. The railroading structure is typical for the genre, but it actually ties in thematically with the game’s overarching question of free will versus destiny (and it did it a generation before Final Fantasy 13 failed to do it).

Unfortunately, the signature Tales skits are in abundance, and they can be  irritating. They’re conversations between the party members you can access by pressing start when prompted. They’re not voiced, but you can’t just advance the texst as you read it. The text is timed as if the characters are talking, so you have to wait through each skit if you want to watch it. They’re optional, and the conversations in the game outside of the skits are controllable and often voiced, but if you want some really good interplay between characters, get ready to stare at blurbs of text waiting for your party to stop talking.

Like all Tales games, combat is in real-time and uses a single attack button and various directional Artes to produce combos of attacks and techniques. It’s a simple system, but thanks to the touchscreen on the 3DS you can set eight different Artes in combat; pushing the analog pad in a different direction makes the main character do a different Arte, and tapping the touchscreen lets you activate other party members’ Artes. Battles take place in open fields where you can maneuver on a flat surface, and party members are all AI-controlled with limited preferences when not given direct orders. With “Field Shift” effects that can turn your attacks into more powerful attacks using magic to create circles on the battlefield, the game feels active and tactical without being overly complicated.

There aren’t any extras that the original game didn’t have. There are plenty of subquests and a few optional dungeons and fights, and you can start a New Game+ when you beat the game. It’s basically the same game released for the PS2 a few years ago, in graphics, gameplay, story, and features.

This is a good JRPG, and there aren’t many of those on the 3DS yet. If you’re a genre fan and you have a 3DS, this’ll occupy you a few dozen hours. The story’s interesting, the gameplay is engaging enough to keep you fighting, and even on a small screen this is still a PS2-sized game. Pick it up for a much-needed RPG fix.