Tales of Graces F Remastered Is the Perfect RPG Comfort Food
Inverse Score: 8/10
The first time I played Tales of Graces f was in 2012 on a 20-inch CRT television, where the watercolor art style looked all smudgy and I could barely read some of the text — but that didn’t matter. I was enthralled by one of the best battle systems to ever grace video games and a delightful cast of characters wrapped in an almost charmingly generic story.
Tales of Graces f Remastered is the quintessential comfort food RPG, a game that’s so abundantly full of charm and whimsy that its flaws often don’t matter. It feels like the video game equivalent of settling in with a good book on a cold winter’s eve. Tales of Graces didn’t revolutionize RPGs when it came out in 2009, and it still doesn’t now, but it’s a game that knows exactly what it wants to be and does it well. Despite some sluggish pacing and generic storytelling, there’s a lot of heart packed into Tales of Graces, and its phenomenal gameplay helps push it to greater heights.
Originally released on the Nintendo Wii in 2009 in Japan, Tales of Graces didn’t make its way west until 2012, with the expanded and enhanced PlayStation 3 port Tales of Graces f — which added a new epilogue story and a host of other changes. By comparison, this remastered version is a much smaller upgrade, but it does add a few key elements that help make Tales of Graces better than ever.
Graces has an extremely bright watercolor-esque art style that really pops in this remastered version.
Chief among those is a visual upgrade that really makes the game’s watercolor aesthetic pop. The character models feel a little stiff by modern standards, but Graces has a strong art style that almost makes everything feel doll-like — as if you’re seeing a world of highly animated action figures. There are some really nice quality-of-life features added too, like the ability to turn off enemy encounters, adding a waypoint to guide you the entire game, markers that show limited-time events in the story, an option to skip cutscenes, and more. They’re all small changes, but if you’ve played the original version of Graces, this experience is going to feel much more streamlined and easy to play, which is a good thing.
But all of those little changes are there in service to the core experience of Graces, which still holds up remarkably well.
A Friend Indeed
A major theme of Graces is friendship and a sense of camaraderie.
Tales of Graces f takes place in the world of Ephinea, divided into multiple countries. You follow the story of Asbel Lhant, a young boy who lives in Lhant, a village in the Kingdom of Windor. He’s also the firstborn son of the ruler of Lhant. The story starts with Asbel as a child, along with his brother Hubert and friend Cheria, as they discover a mysterious amnesiac girl named Sophie in a field one day. From there, they meet the prince of Windor, Richard, and all five of their lives become entangled for the rest of their lives. Tragedy befalls the group, and the story skips ahead seven years, with Asbel training to become a knight of Windor.
I mentioned before that Tales of Graces has a bit of a “generic” feel to its story, but in this specific case, that’s not entirely a bad thing. The narrative heavily focuses on the power of friendship and a feel-good message of how we can overcome anything by working together. It’s the kind of thing you’ve likely seen in a dozen other RPGs, but it feels almost comforting in a way — like watching that Netflix show that doesn’t really do anything special, but you can’t help but marathon-watch it anyway.
The story does have a few twists and turns, and while it doesn’t do anything mind-blowing, its real strength lies in charming characters. Like a lot of Tales games, Graces has an exceptionally strong ensemble cast, made up of a bunch of weirdos who get to be even weirder together. Asbel is a bit of a goofball protagonist who stumbles his way to success and has a great dynamic with his more straitlaced brother, Hubert. Then you have memorable party members like the ditzy but secretly brilliant mage Pascal, who’s obsessed with ancient ruins and secrets. Or the ruggedly handsome knight commander Malik, who’s also unfairly blessed with a razor-sharp wit.
The trademark skits of the Tales series help give extra bits of characterization through fun optional interactions.
Despite how trite that power of friendship theme can feel at times, Graces’ cast of party members really do end up feeling like a tight-knit group of friends, growing and changing alongside each other.
The big problem with Graces’ story is some sluggish pacing, particularly in the dreadfully slow childhood prologue, which drip-feeds the game’s best feature — its combat.
Back in Action
Graces’ combat seems simple at first, but holds incredible depth.
Tales of Graces has a superb combat system that grows in leaps and bounds across the entire game and never stops feeling satisfying — once you get through that prologue.
Without getting too deep into the explanation weeds, I’ll point out that each character essentially has an action gauge that constantly depletes and refills as you use attacks. You have two kinds of artes that deplete this gauge, combat artes and special artes. This system allows you to string together tons of different combos and attacks in fluid motions. Because of the recharging gauges, it means you also don’t have to worry about using a resource like MP and can instead just focus on combos and attacks. In a way, Graces’ combat system feels like a sort of fusion between an action RPG and a fighting game, and the game does a fantastic job of sequentially unlocking new artes and combat options as you progress.
A big part of this is because of Graces’ utterly brilliant character progression, using a “Titles” system to power up characters. As you play the game, you can unlock Titles through a variety of means: using moves in battle enough times, key story moments, side quests, discoveries, and more. Each title can be equipped and has its own skills you can learn, from new artes to stat boosts. This provides an incredible degree of freedom over how each of your party members develops. Even though it’s structurally not the same, the degree of freedom feels similar to something like Final Fantasy X’s Sphere Grid.
Between this progression and the battles, Graces is one of the best-playing RPGs you’ll ever play. The combat system absolutely sings and only continues to get better and better — with climactic boss battles that truly challenge your skills and party preparation.
There are, of course, plenty of other elements you’ll contend with in Graces, including a robust cooking and item fusion system, a handful of minigames, and lots of optional skits and side quests.
A Fresh Start
Despite slow plotting, the charming characters of Graces keep the story moving.
The Tales series has been quiet ever since the release of Tales of Arise in 2021, and Tales of Graces f Remastered proves there’s still a place for the franchise — particularly the older games that have faded into obscurity. Even if it’s not the pinnacle of the franchise, Tales of Graces f still holds up in nearly every regard. It’s a game that’ll warm your heart with a dose of nostalgia, and for anyone playing a Tales game for the first time, it’s a good indication of why the series has stood the test of time.
8/10
Tales of Graces f Remastered releases Jan. 17 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
INVERSE VIDEO GAME REVIEW ETHOS: Every Inverse video game review answers two questions: Is this game worth your time? Are you getting what you pay for? We have no tolerance for endless fetch quests, clunky mechanics, or bugs that dilute the experience. We care deeply about a game’s design, world-building, character arcs, and storytelling come together. Inverse will never punch down, but we aren’t afraid to punch up. We love magic and science-fiction in equal measure, and as much as we love experiencing rich stories and worlds through games, we won’t ignore the real-world context in which those games are made.
