@OP What did you not like about Abyss? It seems you like the combat of Abyss more so I'm guessing you dislike the characters?
That's understandable I myself hated the Luke for a long time but that's also the point, you're not supposed to like him. To me Abyss has much more complex plots and extreme changes in character development (you could start from hating the main character to actually understanding him). At the same time Abyss to me has a very good overall form. This is probably because I play classical music, but Abyss should've been called Symphonia because I can see a classic Sonata form in it. Exposition introducing what's happening, in the middle of Abyss you will see the Development a huge change from the character when Luke is with Tear and realizes how much he's fucked it up. Than you hit the Recapitulation all things unresolved are now resolved the jig is up, everyone knows what everyone else is here fighting for this occurs when Luke goes home and a month occurs.
As for Tales of Vesperia I would recommend a rental, to me the combat has evolved and gotten much better. In previous Tales games the strategy is to spam sword rain alpha, or whatever gave you a lot of combos. ToV makes overlimits much more useful, before I rarely ever used them the game combat feels a lot more balanced. I haven't finished it so I can't say how the story is compared to other Tales and I don't know when I will finish it because I tend to finish my favorite games last so I can take the time to enjoy them.
