Video Game Review: ‘Tales of Graces f’ Excites with Fights, Stumbles with Story

Submitted by BrianTT on March 27, 2012 - 11:42am

CHICAGO – Finally coming state-side after over a year in Japan on the Nintendo Wii, Namco Bandai and Namco Tales Studio brings us “Tales of Graces f.” The game actually fits as the twelfth release in the ‘Tales’ series out of thirteen, fitting in-between “Tales of Hearts” and “Tales of Xillia,” but is the first release in North America since the ninth game, “Tales of Vesperia,” which was released in 2008.

Video Game Rating: 4.0/5.0

Packing in about 50 hours of gameplay, “Tales of Graces f” follows the story of Asbel Lhant, a young boy who aspires to be a great knight on the fictional planet of Ephinea. Along with Asbel is Sophie, a young girl without memories that Asbel names Sophie because of her love for the flower of the same name; Hubert, Asbel’s younger brother; and Richard, a prince who turns into an angry and demented king.

Lasting around 50 hours, the game has plenty of character development. From the early life of the characters in the first hours of the game, to the middle aged versions of themselves later on, the game develops the character arches in great detail. While the early hours are a little obnoxious when the characters are kids, and the path each character will take is pretty predictable, the game does take time to help you relate to who you are playing with, which is always a nice touch in an interactive medium. The dialogue and storyline is definitely never the best (which is a shame with all the time you spend talking), but the creators were sure to try and have players invest in this gang of characters. It may not always work, but it is better than passing it off without caring.

Tales of Grace f
Photo credit: Namco Bandai

The look of the game is fairly pretty. Not that I was surprised, as the images from the Japanese version of the game looked nice, but the game environments are wonderful. Brilliant colors and areas keep the game fresh every time you pick it up, and a player will be excited to move from place to place throughout the game. While there are annoying aspects like areas that are blocked that look like places you can access (accompanied by a dialog box that explains that you can’t go there yet) the world is pretty sound. I only wish they could have included actual obstacles that would have stopped you from going any further, instead of just adding invisible walls to the game. The other knock I had was the terrible lip-synching in the game and stale animation when you travel around. While the fighting sequences are brilliant and flow wonderfully, the travel moments and conversations with other people in the game are pretty silly looking. The world is gorgeous, but some of the animation is far less than flattering.

Tales of Grace f
Photo credit: Namco Bandai

The other frustrating part about the world you are playing in is the amount of times you have to back track in the game. You will find early and often that you will be going over the same path and areas you have already run through before for the main storyline, as well as side missions. It is completely understandable that the game is not going to give you every task in a certain area at once as there is a progression to any game, but it left me wanting a larger map where I could travel down new roads and reach different locations. And I’m not saying you repeat some of these areas once. There was one specific path that I had to travel up and down on at least five different times in the early portion of the game. It became rather tedious.

The fighting in “Tales of Graces f” is actually pretty fun. You only ever control one character during battle, but you can switch between characters during your fight or add an extra controller to add a multiplayer aspect to the game. The difficulty starts fairly low, but, eventually, you will be fighting bosses and enemies that are great competition. The fighting controls consist of a series of attack moves and magic moves which are separated as assault artes and burst artes. The assault artes are pre-determined by the game and involve a series of attacks that you progress through in battle, while burst artes can be manually set and used for long range battle. Learning to accomplish a strong fighting style is important as a player that can complete combo sequences will receive a bonus in stamina, which becomes a major factor in fighting. If you simply button mash, you will run out of stamina in big battles and will not be able to progress as fluidly.

There is plenty of action within the story and many of the achievements and rewards that you can receive come from buying and using items throughout the game. This does have some draw back as if you aren’t paying close attention, you may sell an item that you needed for a reward, and there is no way to buy back what you sold to merchants. If you are a gamer that likes to accomplish every part of a game, you will want to make sure to look over what items you will need to hold onto before you end up selling something you needed. The merchants do come in handy, however, as many items you may want in your game can only be found by buying them.

Tales of Grace f
Photo credit: Namco Bandai

Maybe one of the most frustrating things with “Tales of Graces f” is the side quests of the game, which are limited to almost always searching to find a lost item. This becomes extremely tedious and ordinary after a while and left me wanting so much more from these bonus hours of play time. It is extremely frustrating when you play a large game and wish to accomplish a great deal of achievements, but are forced to play through hours of boring side missions. This is no different with “Tales of Graces f.”

The game also incorporates a forging system that will lead to strategic weapon upgrades, armor crafting, and the ability to create gems, as well as new materials to help your character progress through the game. One of these systems is called Dualizing, in which you can combine almost any two items to create a better one, as well as enchanting your gear. Another system is the Eleth Mixer, which allows players to cook automatically during a battle and gives the ability to generate gels when simply walking around the map. The variety in these upgrades and manual creating of items is a nice way to keep the game unique to the individual player.

As I mentioned before, you can fight multi-player within the game. I only had the opportunity to play with one other person, but it was a lot of fun to incorporate someone else in the coolest part of the game: the battles. While the traveling, forging, and dialogue sequences are all controlled by the first player, up to four players can fight together as the four members of your group in battle. Strategizing attacks with friends can become important, considering the assault arte combos increasing stamina, and it allows for the story to be a multiplayer experience. While your friends will have to sit around and watch dialogue and travel without controlling anything, those moments aren’t that exciting anyway. They get to partake in the most enjoyable aspect of the game: the fighting.

“Tales of Graces f” is definitely not a perfect game. Though it is pretty to look at, it struggles with animation at times. While the fighting is exciting and thrilling in the heat of the moment, the long sequences of dialogue and traveling down a path you have already been on becomes rather tedious. But I will say this: there is enough variety and fun to be had within this game that it is worth the play. While it is not the strongest PS3 title by any means (it simply feels like a Wii game that was released onto PS3), it is still an enjoyable enough play to recommend to fans of role-playing games with a Japanese origin. It may not be for everyone, but those who enjoy the other games in the Tales series (or Japanese originated games in general) will not be let down.

“Tales of Graces f” was developed by Namco Tales Studio and published by Namco Bandai. The original Japanese version on Wii was released in December of 2010, but the new ‘f’ version was released in North America on March 13, 2012 on the PS3.