Tales of Graces f Remastered review — A great tale to retell

Tales of Graces was originally a 2009 Japanese only release for the Nintendo Wii, not reaching western shores until 2012 on PlayStation 3. (Official Tales Of translations were questionable at best.) We’d get one version, not the other. Some were released quickly, others years after. Not until Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition did a Tales Of game get a day one worldwide release.

Following two years later was Tales of Arise, which also launched globally. Since then we’ve seen Arise get DLC and two more remasters with Tales of Symphonia and now Tales of Graces f, an enhanced rerelease with extra story, abilities, options, and enhancements is back on all platforms. There’s no new story content in Tales of Graces f Remastered, but you’re getting enhanced visuals, all of the non-licensed DLC, and small quality of life additions. We got early code for the PC version, which had some minor framerate issues related to my monitor and no button prompts other than keyboard and Xbox. On a technical level this is the best Tales Of remaster Bandai Namco has put out with a smooth framerate and no crashes (so far).

Tales of Graces is an action RPG where battles take place in bespoke circular arenas, you travel across the planet with a colorful cast of characters to save the world. Tales Of games have never been particularly deep on narrative but the worlds are rich and the characters are fun. In Tales of Graces you start with a nearly five-hour introductory childhood section where we meet most of our main characters.

A majority of the childhood section is about easing the player into the combat itself which makes sense given the Wii audience of the original Japanese release, but given the length, I can’t help but feel like they could have streamlined this. The story doesn’t pick up until the final half hour of this section and it’s a very dramatic tone shift. The main thing that carries Tales Of games are the characters, their interactions, and the mechanics. The narrative is paced rather slowly and while the twists and turns aren’t particularly surprising, it’s all happening during an ongoing political war between nations which helps keep things rolling.

One thing Tales of Graces does well is that the world is one large, interconnected string of areas. There is fast travel unlocked later on but it makes the player actually learn the layout of areas and there’s no bespoke overworld like in previous Tales games. That actually leads into one of the bigger additions to this remaster: quest markers. You now get markers for both the main game and time sensitive side quests and they can be turned off at any time. It really helps with the time sensitive scenes in particular as you can get new items or rewards without missing out on some extra scenes.

It’s better to have it as an option, but something nice Tales of Graces does that I don’t think I noticed in my original playthrough is having Skits that detail where you need to go and your next objective. It feels mildly forced as a means to explain everything to the player, something that extends to the combat, but it’s nice to get more voice acting from the characters. Skits in general are more light-hearted this time around and it somewhat clashes with the rather serious tone some of the story scenes take. That being said, the lighter tone of these makes the playable cast of Graces one of the most endearing group of dorks.

Skits are where the Tales games shine since the characters are what sell the games. These are side conversations that can range from informational, silly, serious, and everything in-between. Some have to be found, some are given at Save Points, but all of them are worth watching. The remaster even includes some Skits that were DLC only. Going back to Tales of Graces sort of emphasizes one of the issues I’ve had with newer Tales Of games, where Skits used to be faster paced so you didn’t mind them popping up frequently and it makes traveling with the crew feel quick and satisfying.

To further speed up gameplay they’ve also added a run button, encounter toggle, and a cutscene skip that really helps with some of the minor difficulty spikes. There was a Slime Queen boss that gave us some trouble that I’ll get into but we needed to do some grinding and equipment management. The run button and encounter toggle made backtracking through the dungeon so smooth along with not having to rewatch the pre-boss fight cutscenes. Though adding those first two sort of breaks the game as there are already items for both enemy encounters and movement speed, but now both are just free in the menu. The balance isn’t broken because of the new options but it was definitely something to think about since you save money and an in-game currency called Eleth because of them.

That brings me to combat, as there’s a lot to the game’s mechanics and Eleth is just one of many things the game expects the player to keep track of. You get a tutorial on how to use just about every mechanic you encounter, but I don’t think the game emphasizes just how much you should be using them. I mentioned the mild grinding and equipment management we had to do for the Slime Queen and what really turned the tide was us utilizing the Dualize feature; essentially crafting and upgrading items and gear. Adding on poison resistance and the natural buff of getting upgraded gear.

With the grinding, however, that wasn’t for standard experience and levels. Tales of Graces has a Title system like most other Tales Of games, but the Titles here all come with five unlockable ranks that can range from new artes, passives, stat increases, and way more. You earn SP to rank up your Titles and you can even set an auto-equip to swap out once you reach Rank 5 for a Title. The game encourages you to pick whatever you think you would like because the Title system is how characters really grow. There are even costume related Titles included in the remaster which range from costumes referencing other Tales Of games, swimwear, and modern day school outfits that change the battle theme into an anime-like instrumental rock theme.

The biggest change for the remaster is the Grade Shop. Grade has been another defining trait of the Tales Of series, accumulated throughout the games and used for New Game+. You spend the Grade you earned on bonuses like an expanded inventory limit, automatically unlocking skills, costumes, speeding up experience gains, and way more. For the remaster they give you the Grade Shop at the start and while there are certainly a lot of great options, I really recommend sticking to the vanilla experience, but there are tons of options and if you feel like using the extra help, or if you’re a returning player you can immediately skip the childhood section.

To be somewhat nitpicky, I think the game overloads the player with a lot of mechanics. It’s simple to understand once you get familiar with the mechanics, but it’s a lot to learn and you have to do it kind of quickly. That being said, it’s an extremely satisfying gameplay loop, so when you add in the local four-player co-op you have a quick paced RPG with a lot of “big number go up” energy. Each playable character plays completely differently from one another with access to different gear, artes, and abilities. There’s a lot to manage and edit for computer controlled allies as well, so even as a solo experience you’re in for a good time.

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