Tales of Graces f Remastered Review | A Smooth and Nostaglic Experience

As part of the 30th Anniversary Remastered Project of the Tales franchise, Tales of Graces f Remastered has finally arrived, bringing with it quality-of-life improvements that will surely enhance returning fans’ experience and make new fans curious about what it has to offer.

As someone who had played the PS3 f version of the game, I find that the remaster lives up to its name—graceful and smooth with its enhancements. And while this remaster is still faithful to the story (including the post-game content “Lineage and Legacies”), I can assure you that this game will give a similar playthrough experience as most Tales titles do. Playing Tales of Graces f Remastered more than a decade after its release provides a fun, nostalgic feeling, especially for a long-time Tales fan such as myself.

Smoother, faster gameplay

This remaster has been played on the PS4 and I immediately noticed the quality-of-life improvement starting with navigating using the controller. It is leagues better compared to its PS3 predecessor. The added improved running speed of the characters both during battles and world map explorations feel like I was gliding through the roads. If I were to describe it succinctly, it’s totally smooth like butter.

Back when playing with the PS3, my fingers tend to get numb from the repeated actions of navigating and doing artes combos for hours. Playing the remaster on modern consoles eased this exhaustion, especially when this game is built on grinding levels.

Speaking of grinding, I am pleased to share that the Digital Deluxe Edition comes with the Grade Shop the moment you begin the game which makes leveling up easier. This was not present in the original PS3 release.

Back then you could only have access to the Grade Shop after finishing the game once. The Grade Shop possesses advantages such as carrying over artes and skills, items, money, added damage and experience points, and more. Having the Game Shop at the beginning of my first playthrough made my experience faster and more efficient.

I decided to add increased damage and experience points in my gameplay because I know how time-consuming grinding for levels can be for this title. However, having these qualities checked lacks the finesse of making long combos because the battle finishes in mere seconds.

And since I have multiplied damage, it not only applies to my characters but also to the enemies. I can get defeated in a few swipes if I’m not careful, but the game is forgiving enough to give you multiple retries in each battle.

This experience is a far cry from my first gameplay on the PS3 because I was careful and nitpicky with my combos. I took time grinding and exploring because the enemies don’t always respawn quickly–so I had to explore multiple dungeons and highroads in the world map to grind.

With the remaster, I can be quick and efficient and explore other fun ways with my gameplay–even if it means that I have to retry every battle after getting a one-hit K.O.—with five-digit damage from a seemingly tolerable enemy level.

Dying can get easily irritating at times with this Grade Shop setup, especially during boss battles. I have exhausted a lot of items and repeated certain battles almost ten times, however, if you’re great at dodging, this arrangement will be a breeze. I find blocking or guarding practically useless here when the enemy has had 5x the damage. So be sure to ramp up your reflexes, especially when the battlefield can get a bit visually convoluted with special effects and movesets from your allies.

I think adding the Game Shop at the beginning is more advantageous for returning and veteran Tales players who want to enjoy the game with more challenges in mind. Nonetheless, if you choose to play the slow, grind-heavy pacing (like most Tales titles do) without using much of the Grade Shop, this game is for you.

Furthermore, with the new adjustable ‘enemy encounters’ option, you can avoid enemies even if you touch them. This can be a bit redundant in my opinion because you can instead choose to use Holy Bottles in-game (they have the same function). I find the game’s enemy respawn rate to be tolerable, but perhaps toggling ‘enemy encounters’ applies more for players who hoard items or dislike unnecessary battles when they have other game objectives in mind.

It is also good to note that the new Accel Mode in the post-game content “Lineage and Legacies” provides further enhanced gameplay experience due to its advantages per character that you can activate in battle. There is a gauge that fills up as time passes and once activated, they can provide support (like healing, increased skills, etc.)–giving more flair to your combos and fighting experience.

More quality-of-life gameplay improvements

Aside from navigating and grinding made easy, there are further improvements that have been added to the remaster–and these are the ‘autosave’, ‘destination icons’, and ‘skippable cutscenes’. The autosave feature is a great help especially when grinding (and dying multiple times). It’s an added assurance for players who get into battles and exploration so much that we forget to manually save every now and then.

Older Tales titles exercise a lot of firsthand exploring–and by exploring I totally mean an ‘I-can-get-lost-exploring’ experience. Unlike recent titles with more comprehensive maps that are unique to each dungeon or town you go to, this game has a generic world map overview–so you have to explore every nook and cranny if you missed out on any possible treasure or encounter. This is where the new feature of ‘destination icons’ comes into play.

It’s a common experience to get lost in this game–especially during the confusing puzzle areas in dungeons (A/N: Tales titles have a lot of puzzle areas that you have to solve). The destination icon guides you to where your end goal is supposed to be–with a decreasing/increasing distance indicator so you will know if you’re getting close or too far.

I have to say that this destination icons feature isn’t spoon-feeding the player, by the way. It is still merely a guide. In the puzzle areas in dungeons, it’s not outright pointing to where you have to be first to solve the puzzle. It just immediately points to your end goal, so you still have to explore on your own to solve the puzzles in-game.

The destination icon can get a little confusing–and it sometimes hovers behind the world map so I can’t easily see it on screen, but it is a huge relief to have it in-game. Furthermore, the remaster includes another type of destination icon that indicates a ‘missable’ sub-event within the playthrough. And while it doesn’t point out other sub-events that you can discover on your own, it is highly efficient that I can accomplish these missable events immediately because of these destination icons.

And since this is a classic Tales title, it comes with long animations and cutscenes or skits that can get pretty tiring to sit through. For returning players, the skippable cutscenes option is a great add-on. I find this pretty useful during the long ship rides, however I rarely skip the cutscenes because I want to relive the story. It has been a while since I last played this game and I tend to forget things.

Skits from the PS3 version cannot be skipped, but in the remaster, you can quickly press the dialogues to progress and I find that to be a very nifty option. After all, there are a lot of watchable fun skits in-game and more DLCs that came with the Digital Deluxe Edition.

Visual Improvements

The most prominent visual improvement that I noticed in the remaster is not just the higher-quality graphics, but the enhanced lighting. Back when I was playing this game on the PS3, I was so used to its high-exposure renders so much that playing the remaster caught me off-guard that it can actually get more visually comfortable. The remaster improved the lighting and made use of proper desaturated color grading to make it easy on the eyes.

The graphics are visibly smoother and have less grainy and gritty texture. I appreciate that these improvements have been applied in a way that still retained its visual quality from a previous console. Especially since I have more than 80 DLCs and new costumes to fiddle around with, the improved graphics maximized the experience. Very nostalgic and noticeably better.

PLOT wait, there’s more

The game plot tackles Asbel Lhant, the noble hero, who discovers Sophie, a mysterious girl with amnesia, in a flower garden near his town. Along with his brother, Hubert, and friends Cheria, Richard, Pascal, and Malik, Asbel is thrust into an adventure that challenges their bonds and the fate of their world, Ephinea.

It’s a Tales recurring quality to have extended story writing and surprise reveals. I forgot how intense the revelations are in this title–which only cements the fact that this game is worth getting if you want to spend a lot of hours playing.

I spent more than 26 hours in my first playthrough (this is already fast provided that I had a lot of advantages through the Grade Shop) and added another 6 hours for the post-game content “Lineage and Legacies”. Everything in my first playthrough arsenal has been carried over when I played this, so the experience did not differ much from the base game.

I recommend playing “Lineage and Legacies” because there are a lot of sub-events and skits that tie up some of the story events from the base game. Furthermore, if you are in the market for certain-characters-becoming-part-of-your-party-post-game like I am, “Lineage and Legacies” is a must-play. The grinding and new dungeons are still there, though, so spending time with this added chapter is totally worth it for value-added content.

Heads up, though, it can get cheesier here as compared to the base game, so if you’re unused to the stereotypical JRPG romantic skits, playing this might take a bit of getting used to. But hey there’s a reason why the skippable cutscene feature is here in this remaster. I do find them cute and cliche, but still wholesome nonetheless, so at least, give them a chance and perhaps you will grow to love the characters post-game like I do.

Final Verdict – 8/10

For a remaster, I am  satisfied with this game. It goes to show that there are more fun ways to improve a decades-old game. As a returning player, I enjoyed playing Tales of Graces f Remastered with all the added quality-of-life improvements and DLCs from the Digital Deluxe Edition. It is worth getting as a long-time Tales fan who wants to revisit the titles I have missed or haven’t played in a long while.

It does take a huge chunk of time, especially for the cutscenes, but it hit the bittersweet nostalgic button in me and made me realize that hey, there’s more to explore and to experience in this game–regardless of how old it is. The fact that this decades-old title deserved a remaster proves that it’s worth checking out, especially to new fans who want to explore what makes the Tales of franchise stand out from other JRPG titles.

[This review was made via a PlayStation game code provided by the publisher.]