Why?

To give a summary of Legretta's plot; she was born Giselle Oslo and had a brother Marcel. Prior to the events of the game, Marcel died in battle under the command of Van Grants. Giselle would investigate her brother's death in the Closed Score only to find that Van sent his troops into battle knowing they would all die. This would fuel a revenge plot with Giselle making an assassination attempt on Van, which would fail.

Van, learning of her rejection of the Score, would bring her into his fold, eventually promoting her to God General and even allowing her to train his own younger sister Tear. With this closer access to Van, Giselle would learn more of his past and motivations, eventually resulting in her abandoning her revenge against Van and even falling in love with him.

Does some of this sound familiar? Maybe if we touch on Legretta's personality. She's a cold and calculating soldier, operating with efficiency while concealing her emotions from those around her.

While all the God Generals are foils to the main cast to varying degrees, Legretta is Tear's foil in a near perfect sense, that is to say Legretta is the version of Tear who sides with Van.

On a superficial level, because Legretta trained Tear they have a lot of similarities in combat. Both are projectile users, Legretta with her fon-tech guns and Tear with her knives. They share many of the same Physical Artes, and they both specialize in Sixth Fonon (light) and Seventh Fonon (healing) Fonic Artes.

Legretta's personality is a perfect copy/paste of Tear at the beginning of the game, which Tear credits her training under Legretta as well. The game opens with Tear trying to kill Van and she fails, and both Tear and Legretta have complex emotions toward the man; Legretta feeling romantic love while knowing Van's role in her brother's death, and Tear feeling brotherly love while knowing Van is trying to destroy the world. Both women are also willing to sacrifice themselves to achieve their goals.

What makes Legretta interesting is her contrast to Tear. She provides a background to compare Tear against; every time we see Tear grow and develop Legretta is there to be a reference to highlight the changes. As one example, every time we see Tear be compassionate, or help civilians, it is in stark contrast to Legretta leading the massacre of Sheridan. And these comparisons are solidified the first two times you fight Legretta, where she attempts to convince Tear to switch sides in the conflict while Tear outright rejects her, Van, and their shared vision.

So the next time you think that Legretta is a bit of wasted story potential, or the most boring character in Abyss, remember that she's not only one of the most effective antagonists in the story nearly every time you run into her, but she makes one of the main cast party members better. Tear is a better character, and her growth more impactful, because Legretta is there to show what Tear could have been, would have been, if she had chosen to support her brother instead.

She's a great example of the quality and complexity of the writing and story, in that like much of her cast mates she has multiple storylines running in parallel. Be it her relationship to Luke, her relationship to her country, or her relationship to her father. And of course, these three interplay and cross with each other, but that further speaks to the quality of Abyss's story. I could write an entire essay on Natalia's relationship to Luke alone.

She's a wonderful example of storytelling through body language. The team handling models and graphics somehow managed to make me feel the depths of her despair and the wonders of hope with PS2 graphics, a damned miracle.

And of course they were aided by her voice actress doing a phenomenal job. Stephanie Sheh knocks it out of the park, just like the entire cast of English VAs. Hearing her give that speech to her father about being his daughter no matter what, despite being cheesy, still makes me tear up. And I can only explain Sheh's ability to fill calling out the single name "Asch" with so much hope and fragility, pleading and vulnerability, as magic. It has to be magic.

Natalia is also a superb example of worldbuilding through mechanics, though not as superb as my favorite example of this in Abyss (Jade). Natalia is a proficient Seventh Fonist, something shown very clearly with her healing artes. She's not as proficient as Tear though, and so while Tear can AOE heal, Natalie can only single target. That said, she's more proficient than all the other Seventh Fonists besides Tear in the cast which is shown through their lack of artes which heal anyone other than themselves.

She's also a leader, a princess accepted by her people for her devotion and love. As such, her other fonic artes are buffs and other non-healing support, raising the party's offenses or defenses as well as being the only source of Recover to cure status ailments without an item or FOF change.

The list goes on. Abyss is such a special game, with incredible themes that will forever be pertinent; the nature of personal growth, supporting others through growth, dealing with someone else's growth including celebrating or mourning the change, the value of self, there's honestly too many to list. It's a shame how undervalued it is, even among the Tales of fandom. For it can never be valued enough.

And like her game, Natalia too is often undervalued among the cast. But she's a shining example of why it's a special game. Why it excels at nearly everything it tries to do.

Here's hoping to a remaster in the next few years.