Tales of Graces f, or how Tales came back, now and then
Developers: Namco Tales Studio - Team Destiny
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Producer: Hideo Baba
Scenario writer: Go Tanaka
Soundtrack: Motoi Sakuraba
Character designer: Mutsumi Inomata
Lead planner: Tatsuro Udo
Genre: Action JRPG
Story progression: Linear, with side-stories available both as permanent story expansions and timed events
Country: Japan
Platform: Wii (as Tales of Graces), PS3 (Tales of Graces f), PS4, PC, Switch (Tales of Graces f Remastered)
Release date: 13\3\2012 (US), 31\8\2012 (Europe)
Status: Completed the US version on 14\5\2012, then completed again (this time using a PAL copy) on 15\11\2015
For a long time, being a western fan of Tales, Namco’s action-JRPG franchise started back in 1995 with Tales of Phantasia, was a rollercoaster of sorts. The series’ first decade was indeed marred by an incredibly spotty localization record, with Namco skipping Phantasia’s Super Famicom and PS1 versions only to release a mediocre localization of its late GBA port, renaming Eternia as Tales of Destiny 2 and stripping it of most of its skits, the series’ trademark party chat feature (even if, back then, they were a new feature and I didn’t even know they had been removed until later) and then leaving the real Destiny 2, Rebirth and Destiny Remake in Japan, possibly also due to Sony Computer Entertainment America’s own early policies regarding 2D games on PS2. Europe wasn’t even a footnote in this history, given Namco didn’t have a publishing arm there until later and the Tales series ended up completely skipping the Old World until Tales of Symphonia came out on Game Cube, only to be left alone again when Tales of Legendia and Tales of the Abyss were published only in the North American markets.
Things seemed to drastically change for the better in late 2008, when Tales of Vesperia and Tales of Symphonia DotNW came out in the US on X360 and Wii, this time being also released in Europe a year later thanks to Namco’s recent acquisition of Atari Europe. Tales fans were excited on both sides of the Atlantic, the Americans because Tales localizations now seemed to be a given, and the European ones because Namco finally had the will, and the resources, to directly publish the series in their markets. The surprising translation of Radiant Mythology on PSP, just one year before, also made people hopeful not just regarding the translation of so-called mothership, or main, entries, but also of the various handheld spinoffs that were coming out in Japan at the time.
Unfortunately, those hopes ended up being dashed: while Japan received a veritable avalanche of new entries on Wii, PS3, PSP and DS, in the west the series suddenly went dormant again despite the outcry of its fans, desperately delving into NPD-leaked US sales data, Japanese developer interviews and Namco’s own emphasis on Western-developed titles, a common choice back in those years among Japanese publishers, to make sense of this sudden turn. Even if back then there were quite a number of JRPG series routinely left in Japan, Tales’ situation was perceived by most, however misguidedly, as a bait and switch of sorts, even more so considering the relative dearth of traditional JRPG experiences on home console back in those years, with Japan still facing the growing pains of HD developments, and I still remember how heated discussions could get inside the Tales fanbase when even the most baseless rumors made us revisit the topic, or when a new Japanese opening video came out and made us long for another game we likely won’t be able to experience.
Whatever the reasons for Namco’s choices, everything changed when, in January 2011, Namco made some cryptic comments that set the fanbase alit, soon after properly announcing the localization of Tales of Graces f, an upgraded PS3 port of the original Wii Tales of Graces, while citing the fanbase’s overwhelming pressure (apparently Namco received no less than 50k fan requests asking for more Tales translations), something I was able to directly confirm when I had a chance to interview the series’ new brand manager, Hideo Baba, a really nice, humble person who had actually worked on the series since the days of Destiny Remake, when he visited my country during an European Press Tour back in July 2012. This time, the series was here to stay: after Tales of Graces f came out, all home console Tales games ended up being localized both in North America and Europe, with Steam PC ports securing their long-term availability being introduced since Zestiria.
However, with Tales releases nowadays been way more sporadic due to Namco’s internal staff reshuffling and the increased time requirements for developing new entries, and many older Tales games only available on legacy platforms, Namco announced in late 2024 the intention to celebrate Tales’ 30th anniversary by making the series more available through updated ports. Since Tales of Graces f is leading the charge this time, too, with its remaster coming out later this month, I felt discussing it was the least I could do as someone who ended up appreciating it a lot not just for its role as forerunner, but also for its own merits.
Back then, Tales of Graces f had a number of records to its name: it was the first 3D Tales game developed by Team Destiny, previously known for their 2D efforts (and we will see how Tatsuro Udo, the man behind some of the series’ best combat systems, will use this opportunity), Rebirth and Destiny Remake, not to mention the first localized game by that team, the first translated PS3 Tales game and, last but not least, the first updated Tales port to be localized. Compared to its original, Japan-only Wii edition it had quite a lot of new features, like a whole extra scneario set after the ending, complete with a new set of dungeons, Richard being fully usable and a new mechanic, Accel Mode, not to mention bug fixes (for which Graces was tragically famous, to the point Namco was forced to recall and change part of its shipment) and various graphical improvements.
Tales of Graces f’s story, which ended up being fairly maligned, was penned by Go Tanaka, who worked by then as a freelancer for his company, Romancework, and had previously worked on the stories of Tales of Legendia and Tales of Innocence, two mothership Tales games developed outside of Namco Tales Studio by Namco’s Team Melfes and Alfa System, meaning this was the first time he had a chance to work on an entry developed by one of the series’ core teams.
Tanaka went for a very traditional, possibly bland but also unoffensive, unapologetic shounen story, albeit one so archetypical in its adherence to some key tropes like the power of friendship and the generous, naive hero, it ended up getting a lot of heat, especially since the overall climate in the videogame industry was fairly negative toward JRPG storytelling as a whole and, even inside the Tales series, people had just finished celebrating Tales of Vesperia’s Yuri Lowell for his its anti-heroic, quasi-vigilante traits, even to the point of exaggerating them, possibly because that game’s story did little to push back against him and his way of doing things (something that was actually reversed in Graces, where Asbel often ends up as the world’s punching bag not just because of his actions, but also because of situations far behind his control) and he was a protagonist whose character development had already happened before his game even started, rather than one dramatically changed by his adventures like, for instance, Tales of the Abyss’s Luke fon Fabre.
By contrast, Tales of Graces f’s protagonist, Asbel Lhant, was a completely different character, an idealist knight that had more in common with Phantasia’s Cless than with Vesperia’s resident blackguard or, for that matter, with more easygoing, whimsical shounen protagonist like Eternia’s Reid. Starting his adventure right during his childhood, young Asbel is the son of baron Lhant, living in a quiet corner of the kingdom of Windor alongside his timid little brother, Hubert, and his tomboysh friend, Cheria. Their meeting with the mysterious Sophie, and a visit from young Prince Richard, will change his life forever, however, beginning a chain of events that will not only abruptly end his childlike naiveté, but will also affect his adulthood.
Asbel's adventure, divided between a prologue set in his childhood, the main story and an extra chapter placed after the finale, Lineage & Legacies (absent in the first version of Graces on Wii and created ad hoc for the PS3 edition), surely is no Tales of the Abyss or Vesperia, but it doesn’t need to be, nor did it want to be so. Despite some naivete, some very real pacing issues and some rather unsurprising twists, the story is still a enjoyable romp thanks to its characters, whose chemistry does a lot to make everything more interesting and to add more details and context to the game’s story beats. Ephinea itself is a decent setting with quite a bit of political, social, cultural and geographical variety and, while it isn’t as unique as Abyss’s Auldrant, I still felt it was an improvement over Vesperia purely in terms of setting, as Terca Lumireis’ history and finer details often seemed rather vague, possibly because of that game’s focus on adventuring.
Rather than having a family-like structure like in Vesperia with its Guild, Graces f’s party is way more conflictual, albeit without reaching Abyss’ interpersonal cruelties, with plenty of misunderstandings, personal tensions and backstories related to each character and her past, which made the gradual development of their own friendship paradoxically feel more interesting and earned, including when the game actually went for the family angle later on. This was also an issue of sheer quantity: aside from the numerous party interactions linked to the story’s main events, in fact, Graces f offers hundreds of Skits, Tales’ signature optional conversations activated by pressing Select in certain contexts, capable of sketching in a funny, often self-deprecating way the everyday relationships between characters, instead of just focusing on rehashing already discussed plot points like the last Tales game, Arise, unfortunately ended up doing in a number of situations. As with other Team Destiny games, skits used large artworks in a visual novel-style, rather than smaller portrait boxes like with Team Symphonia’s games.
Tales of Graces f also sports a very generous amount of optional events and quests, often adding further narrative developments that do a lot to further improve the cast’s characterization and growth. Considering the maddeningly short time requirements many of Team Symphonia-developed Abyss and Vesperia’s side events had, it’s a relief Team Destiny in Graces f opted for a way more relaxed approach, having larger time windows for most of its side contents, which ended up becoming the standard for later entries, too.
Overall, while Graces f’s story did have its rather glaring set of issues, including one of the weaker soundtracks ever written by traditional Tales composer Motoi Sakuraba (even if the notorious Barona sewer track is far from being representative of the OST's overall quality), I always felt its character and their development ended up making it not just more bearable, but also quite enjoyable, with the Lineage and Legacies post-game story arc acting as a strong payoff for all the growth Asbel and his friends endured, both as individuals and as a group, during the main game.
Aside from Graces f’s narrative, the world of Ephinea, with its eleth lifeforce energy conveyed by the majestic Valkines Cryas crystals, around which the three major nations were established, was made even more immersive by the choice to skip the series’ traditional overworld map, opting instead for connective areas similar to those used in series such as Ys, Legend of Heroes or most Growlansers, intended to convey the transition from one region to another and the gradual changes in the surrounding landscape (later in the game, though, Asbel and friends unlock the usual fast travel options), including funny "discoveries" related to each area’s most unique memorable features, be they ancient ruins or a prized breed of cows.
While the overworld areas connecting towns and dungeons are mostly simple, linear affairs, Graces f’s cities turn out to be decently sized and diverse (except for the ports, foreshadowing Xillia’s embarassing copy-pasted harbors), while the dungeons offer a welcome amount of puzzles and unique gimmicks aimed at diversifying them and giving each one its own identity, as well as some optional areas unlocked only by returning later. While this sounds normal enough, it’s worthy to notice how field areas, cities and dungeons ended up taking a nosedive in some of Tales’ later entries, with Xillia and its sequel having samey connective areas and bland dungeons and Arise, despite its visual makeover, having fairly simplified cities and forgettable dungeons, too.
Another key difference with the series’ next console entries, which started implementing a free camera starting with Xillia, is Graces' f’s fixed camera, reminiscent of Symphonia and Abyss’, making most environments feel more unique, also thanks to the nice cel shaded art direction shared by both the characters and the world they explore, possibly due to the game’s Wii origins, regardless of the small makeover of its PS3 re-release.The most interesting features available in Tales of Graces f, however, are related to its awesome combat system, which mixes the series’ 3D transition as seen in Team Symphonia’s games with Team Destiny’s own peculiar design staples, both in terms of resource management (opting for the stamina-like CC points rather than for the MP-like Tech Points), positioning, move set and overall play style. It’s no wonder the game’s combat designer was Tatsuro Udo, which already gained visibility in the Tales fanbase due to his awesome work in Tales of Destiny’s PS2 remake.
The most interesting features available in Tales of Graces f, however, are related to its awesome combat system, which mixes the series’ 3D transition as seen in Team Symphonia’s games with Team Destiny’s own peculiar design staples, both in terms of resource management (opting for the stamina-like CC points rather than for the MP-like Tech Points), positioning, move set and overall play style. It’s no wonder the game’s combat designer was Tatsuro Udo, which already gained visibility in the Tales fanbase due to his awesome work in Tales of Destiny’s PS2 remake.
As per Tales’ tradition, Graces f’s action combat is based upon controlling a character in a party of four (you can instantly switch to another character), chaining attacks and special moves, called Artes, in the context of instanced battle arenas separate from explorable areas, with the transition happening after connecting with symbol enemies while exploring. In Graces f, each character is given two different fighting styles, the Assault Artes and the Burst Artes: Asbel, for example, will use the sword in and out of the scabbard, his brother Hubert will attack with a dual blade or with two pistols, Pascal with her rifle or with spells, and so on, giving each character a dynamic play style that made even spellcasters really fun to play. The Assault Artes are actually the evolution of the standard attacks seen in previous Tales, which have been removed from Graces, but they’ve been made more unique and satisfying while allowing to craft combos depending on the directions pressed during each attack chain, gradually ascending to more and more powerful strikes. Burst Artes, on the other hand, are basically the series’ traditional Artes, and can be linked with each other and with Alpha Artes depending on the situation.
All those moves and combos are executed by consuming a pool of CC (Chain Capacity) points, conceptually similar to the stamina system or Action Points featured in other kind of titles, which can be improved during the game by learning skills and obtaining new weapons. CCs are consumed by Assault Artes in an ascending order (the first attack consumes one CC point, the second two, and so on until the fourth) and by Burst Artes depending on the skill, as was the case with the TPs spent to perform Artes in Team Symphonia’s Tales games. Unlike TPs, however, CCs not only regenerate almost instantaneously by defending or finishing a combo, allowing the player to constantly use each character’s full moveset without having to save a limited resource pool for bosses while dealing with mobs with regular attacks, but they are also exploited for other central features of the combat system, such as 360-degree quick moves and dodges.
While Tales already transitioned to 3D positioning with Symphonia, which kept the traditional planar movement of the 2D entries (the series’ LMBS, which stands for Linear Motion Battle System) while allowing to change targets, and went even further when Abyss introduced Free Run, allowing free 3D movements, Graces f made movements both more varied and more balanced. Quick shifts and dodges actually provide the characters with exceptional mobility while allowing to immediately retaliate, making the combat flow way better compared to Abyss’ rather clunky Free Run. Free 3D movement is still available but, instead of being rather broken as it was in Abyss itself, whose core design concepts were reworked and improved in Vesperia, Graces f balances it potential by making it slower and having it consume CC points while offering a different perspective on 3D Tales combat.
The game also features a variety of other mechanics gradually introduced over the course of the game, like a rather developed elemental affinity system closely related to the attack chains and each move’s own unique property, other options related to the three kind of auras characters can gain while defending, not to mention the exilarating Accel Mode, introduced only in the post-game scenario, and the Eleth bar, a super mode which allows both characters and enemies to temporarily act without consuming CCs and to perform the series’ signature Mystic Artes, complete with their cut-in artworks and elaborate animations. Then you have other series staple, like local multiplayer battles, which gradually fell out of favor in later entries due to a number of design choices, not to mention a detailed setup for the AI-controlled party members.
Overall, Tales of Graces f's combat system still is one of the most varied, fun, and interesting experiences ever seen in the realm of action-JRPGs, as well as one the most advanced stages reached so far in the series in terms of fluidity and technicality, as much as I may regret the absence of aerial combos. As if that were not enough, Graces f includes numerous difficulty levels aimed at ensuring each player a challenge calibrated to his or her abilities, tied to incentives in terms of AP, experience and drop rate. While Tales was indeed able to offer a number of great combat systems after Graces f, for instance with Xillia 2’s fusion of Team Symphonia and Team Destiny staples, or with Tales of Hearts R’s unique twists on aerial combos and resource management, despite its age Asbel’s adventure still offers some of the best systems seen in the series and, indeed, in the whole action-JRPG subgenre.
Aside from its combat, Graces f also sports some very interesting customization options: if Vesperia followed the example of titles like Final Fantasy 9 or Vandal Hearts 2 by tying upgrades to skills learned from weapons and other equipments, Graces choose to link them to an old series staple, Titles that can be equipped by characters, here repurposed to be conceptually similar to classes and jobs as featured in some turn based and tactical JRPGs.
Levelling Titles by gaining APs after combat, characters will be able to learn a wide variety of new skills (each Title sports five, plus an additional upgrade on the Title’s own passive effect) and, considering how each character ends up having dozens upon dozens of different Titles, often tied to optional quests and combat performances, other than story progression, constantly maxing and switching Titles soon becomes an addicting part of Graces f’s game loop.
Last but not least, Tales of Graces f also features a rather deep item creation system, Dualize: while it won’t compete with Atelier’s alchemy anytime soon, it still offers quite a bit of depth, allowing the party to combine reagents to create a plethora of different items and to fuse weapons and armor with unique Shards, that can be recombined with each other to create gems in order to further upgrade the heroes’ equipments. Item creation also features a system of item qualities (similar to Atelier’s alchemic traits), which will affect the upgrades and other variables and prove vital for completing certain subquests, not to mention accessing the last floors of one of the optional dungeons. Graces f also made it easier to get rare ingredients due to the Eleth Mixer, an incredibly useful tool that, as time passes while exploring, automatically creates the items selected by the player.
While back in 2012 I thought Tales of Graces f was an awesome Tales game and one of the most mechanically sound action-JRPGs seen in a long while, after a decade I think it’s fair to say the game has actually aged quite well, perhaps even improving due to the contrast with the series' following entries: its fixed camera makes its rather unimpressive graphics a bit more timeless and less dated compared to some of the series’ admittedly technically superior newer entries, its combat system shows how Tales’ unique LMBS combat could have been pursued in the 3D space without surrendering to the idea of normalizing Free Run by making it the default in-battle option, as the series ended up doing, and even its story, as divisive as it was back then for a variety of reasons, if approached with the right set of expectations can still be an enjoyable romp due to a funny, dynamic cast that isn’t afraid to fully and unapologetically espouse its own archetypes.
Twelve years ago, Tales of Graces f marked the return of the series to western audiences after a long hyatus and, while the situation nowadays is obviously different due to the disappearance of Namco Tales Studio and its teams and the glacial pace of new Tales releases not just in the West but also in Japan itself, despite the series' overall success in the last decade due to its new multiplatform release strategy, I hope that, when its remastered version will finally hit in a few days, adding a number of QoL options on PC, Switch and PS4, it will give a new generation of JRPG players and Tales fans a chance to see another side of this franchise and to appreciate the richness of its long, diverse history.
Note: Back in 2012, I wrote another review for Tales of Graces f on my country’s PSM magazine.