Thanks to Arise’s success, Bandai Namco is working on remasters for various older Tales games, with the first being Tales of Graces f. This Graces f remaster was announced just a few months ago, and it took many fans outside Japan by surprise.
If you ask many English-speaking Tales fans which game they want to see get remastered, chances are that most of them will say Xillia. After all, that game was arguably the biggest hit of the series internationally during the PS3 era. In Japan though, most series fans were clamoring for a Graces remaster, thus this game was instead the first to get worked on as part of the 30th Anniversary Remastered Project.
With the game’s launch set for January 2025, Bandai Namco gave us a chance to try out Tales of Graces f Remastered during a recent media preview event. There, I got to play the game for around an hour to experience its gameplay and some story scenarios.
A Similar Experience to the Original, Plus Enhancements
The original Tales of Graces was released for the Wii back in 2009, but only in Japan. International fans had to wait a while as the game was released on PS3 as Tales of Graces f outside Japan only in early 2012.
As the remaster’s title implies, this upcoming release is based on the Tales of Graces f version of the game, meaning it features the Accelerate Mode in combat along with Lineage & Legacies – essentially a 5-10 hour story addition that takes place months after the main game’s ending.
Along with preserving these “f” additions, the remaster also packs an array of quality-of-life features. These include Dash Toggle where players can change their character’s running speed to a faster Dash, as well as the Encounter Toggle function that allows layers to turn off enemy encounters.
Other QoL features I got to see in action are the nifty autosave mechanic, destination icons that point to the next Main Story destination, and the retry feature for Regular Batles that allows players to restart battles when they are defeated.
The enhancements aren’t only aimed at improving the gameplay experience as the remaster also comes with visual and performance upgrades. While the visual enhancements aren’t extreme, they are good enough to make the game look nicer on modern displays. Plus, performance shouldn’t be an issue as the game runs at a smooth 60 FPS at 4K on the PS5. These performance targets are of course different depending on the platform.
When taken on their own, each of the QoL, visual, and performance upgrades aren’t particularly big. But when you’re actually playing the game, they help a lot in making Tales of Graces f play more like a modern RPG. From navigating through the menus to making my way through the game’s world, I didn’t run into any issues during my hands-on. I also didn’t run into any performance issues while playing a PS5 build of the game. Hopefully, this means there won’t be any performance problems with the final version, especially considering various remasters do come with these nagging issues.
Even though the remaster comes with an array of enhancements, this is still a remaster at the end of the day. As such, the game still plays very much the same as the original.
Graces f has Aged Well, Mostly
Among the various Tales games released over the years, Tales of Graces stands out thanks to its combat system. Aside from being beloved among many long-time fans, Graces’ combat was also one of the key inspirations for the gameplay mechanics of Tales of Arise, specifically its focus on evading enemy attacks.
Because of this, players who enjoyed Tales of Arise should be able to jump right into Graces f smoothly. Ditto for long-time Tales fans, especially those who have played the original release version on the PS3.
But what about newer players? Well, Graces f Remastered might not be the best way to start a player’s Tales experience given that the combat system definitely has a noticeable learning curve. It also didn’t help that the demo we played took place well after the introduction. Of course, the final version may have an effective tutorial, but we’ll have to wait and see until its actual launch.
On the other hand, the fact that the game’s combat is unique in the RPG space makes it still feel fresh, especially for players who are used to more conventional action RPG mechanics. Hopefully though, the QoL enhancements can help make some of the duller parts (like the fairly repetitive enemy encounters) feel a bit less of an issue.
Combat isn’t the only thing to do in the game as Tales of Graces f also has skits which are now improved courtesy of the assigned button to skip through dialogue. There are also subtitle options now during battles, as well as during post-battle dialogue scenes.
Older reviews of Tales of Graces f were a bit harsh (at least in my opinion) on the game’s dialogue, with criticisms centered around the scenes being cheesy. For me though, I found the skits and post-battle scenes to be quite charming and cute. The subtitles are also a nice addition.
Tales of Graces f Remastered Initial Impressions
Again, I played the remaster for only one hour, but I had a good time with it overall. The enhancements did help a lot in making the game feel better to play as they helped the moment-to-moment gameplay faster and smoother. And while the visual enhancements aren’t that big, I did like how stable the performance was during my playthrough (something I sadly can’t say for other remasters).
At the end of the day though, this is still a remaster of a game that’s over a decade old which might limit its appeal to those who haven’t played any Tales title yet. On the flip side though, Tales of Graces f Remastered is shaping up to be a promising package for long-time series fans, as well as for those who have enjoyed Arise.
Tales of Graces f Remastered will be released on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam on January 17, 2025.