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    Tales of Graces F

    Game » consists of 4 releases. Released Mar 13, 2012

    An enhanced PlayStation 3 port of Namco Bandai's Wii JRPG, Tales of Graces. It is the sole version of the game released in North America.

    sparky_buzzsaw's Tales of Graces f (PlayStation 3) review

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    Unrealized Potential

    For every Tales of Vesperia or Xillia, it seems there must be a Graces or an Abyss. They have something of an awkward feel to them, as though they're layovers for the Tales team while they prepare to fly towards some greater destination. On almost every level, these games are their brothers' shadows, built more to meet some sort of strange Tales quota than to actually push the series forward.

    It's not that Graces is a particularly odorous game. It does a decent enough job of hitting enough traditional JRPG check boxes to make it a worthy purchase for anyone looking for a game of substance. And there are a few neat tweaks to the combat and leveling mechanics, so it's not exactly without merit even in comparison with Vesperia and Xillia. There's a lot of potential here, and you can tell that at least one or two of the writers, at least in the early stages, wanted to make something great.

    But when Tales of Graces f does fall flat, it falls hard. And with two great alternatives on consoles for reasonable prices, it's really hard to recommend this to anyone who hasn't already played both of those. You certainly wouldn't be missing anything of particular note here, aside from a few neat mechanical tweaks.

    Highs:

    Graces starts with a promising idea - a group of youths comprised of nobles and commoners - overcome their stations and form some strong bonds of friendship that are quickly shattered by the realities of the world they live in and the obliviousness of the protagonist, Asbel. The characters are pulled apart for seven years, until they're reunited by politics and the potential for war.

    In general, that setup sounds better in theory than in execution, but the Tales team definitely deserves some major credit for creating what could have been a politically charged story about friendship and the harm someone can do by blindly placing their childish idealogies ahead of their loved ones. And as the childhood friends reunite awkwardly, there's some brilliant open hostility between the side characters and the protagonist for his perceived betrayal of their love in favor of pursuing his own dreams. There's even some potential for some Suikoden-esque political maneuvering and intrigue, but unfortunately, the game shits out most of its best story ideas by the fifth or sixth hour, and never goes anywhere with any of it.

    And in a way, that explains almost every single aspect of Graces' high points. The art style is interesting, but it never dares to be unique enough to look any different from the countless other Tales games out there. The voice actors never really grated on me, but they're never given decent enough material to make me care one fig about whether they were decent or not. The characters are the standard Tales tropes - the plucky hero, the super-powerful angel girl, the healer love interest who never actually becomes a love interest because it's fucking Japan, the super soldier, and the older grizzled-but-loving veteran. Yup, it's a Tales game. All of the characters are mostly okay, with the highlight definitely being Pascal, the happy-go-lucky genius of the group.

    That negativity aside, I did particularly love two aspects of the game. The first is the combat, which is a bit more technical and involving than the typical Tales game. Thanks to a combo system that rewards you for memorizing sequences of attacks and patterns as opposed to the button mashing of Vesperia and Xillia, I usually greatly enjoyed the combat. True, by the end of my time with the game, I had become weary of it, but mind you, I did a lot of unnecessary exploring and wasted a lot of time.

    The second great addition, and something I wish would become a Tales staple, is the way the titles worked. In other Tales games, your title would, at most, change a few dialogue options or net you a small bonus of some sort. In Graces, each title can be leveled up six times, netting you new skills, passive bonuses, or boosting your abilities each time. With dozens of titles for each character unlocked through story events or by meeting certain conditions, there's a feverish, gleeful intensity to carefully monitoring each character's leveling progression. And unlike just about every RPG with a swappable party, it meant I actually used each character plentifully.

    Some credit too should be given to the game's epilogue, which takes pains to address a great many situations in the main game that ultimately went absolutely nowhere. Most of these plot points still end with a whimper rather than a bang, but at least they tried to nullify some of the damage.

    Lows:

    The biggest problem with Graces is laziness in its execution. This is evident from the moment the game switches from the childhood timeframe to the protagonists as adults. In seven years' time, apparently absolutely no one in the game's universe moved a single fucking inch. Nothing changed. No one put out some new signs, no one put a fresh coat of paint on their store, no one bother changing clothes, nothing.

    It's a jarring problem, particularly since the game up until that point had been so promising. And unfortunately, from that point forward, the rest of the game follows suit. Countless plot points are introduced in the game's first ten hours or so, and in a 30 or so hour game, you'd think there would be time to flesh these out, go somewhere with them, and do something - anything - with any of the game's innumerable NPCs and side characters.

    Nope. Not a fucking thing sees proper resolution until the Lineage and Legacies epilogue, and by that point, all the developers could do was to tack on a few side skits and ho-hum quests. It's almost a joke how poorly everything in this game is developed. Everything - and I mean everything - after the initial first eight hours or so is just a miserable, halfhearted mess.

    There are some miscellany problems too. Battle skits never evolve, meaning you'll still be seeing the same dumb victory speeches and skits forty hours in that you were seeing at hour five. The game touts changes to the skits, but really, all they've done is add some still art to the occasional skits. The music is utterly, completely lifeless, and while there are some halfhearted attempts at creating some atmospheric sounds at first, by the end of the first few hours, the world is eerily devoid of any sound save music and the occasional skit. It makes Xillia's "mutton" problem seem pretty tame in comparison.

    Bang for Your Buck:

    While there's a hell of a lot of game here for the value (it's about $30 on Amazon right now), if you haven't played Vesperia or Xillia, go play one of those instead. Both are streets ahead of this game, and they should be as cheap, if not cheaper (Vesperia's going for $20 on Amazon, Xillia for $28, and both are frequently on sale on PS3 for much cheaper). If you've played both of those and your other, better JRPG options on the PS3, then by all means, give Graces a look. It's not a total trainwreck, and that addictive title leveling is sweet. But I just can't see recommending this one to any but the most die-hard of JRPG fans, particularly with Ni no Kuni, Xillia, and Disgaea D2 out there.

    The Final Word:

    It's not the worst game I've played this year, and had the game stuck with the strength of the script from its initial first few hours rather than crapping out, it would've been a fantastic entry in the Tales series. As it is, it's a bland, tasteless offering with a few juicy bits and pieces. You can do better than this.

    Other reviews for Tales of Graces f (PlayStation 3)

      Tales of Graces F makes a return to form for the genre on PS3 0

      It can be hard being a Japanese RPG fan and living in the UK. There have been times when I wanted to play a new JRPG, but region locking or lack of translation often stopped me or delayed my chance to play the game for months, even years. Releases have become better during this generation, but there are still improvements to be made. Take the Tales series for example. The last release that was not a port was the wonderful Tales of Vesperia on the Xbox 360, which came out in 2008. It’s now 2012, ...

      2 out of 2 found this review helpful.

      My Thoughts on Tales of Graces f 0

      It’s been far too long for a proper Tales game to come out here in North America. The last big one was Tales of Vesperia back in 2008 and after sinking almost 200 hours into that one I was looking forward to Graces very much. Long story short: it was worth the wait.GameplayThere is so much to say about the gameplay in this Tales game so I guess I’ll just start off with the combat system. You have your A Artes and your B Artes. A artes have a combo tree that you can work your way up with each mov...

      1 out of 1 found this review helpful.

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