Tales of Graces f Remastered

Genre: Action-RPG / JRPG

Players: 1

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Review:

Tales of Graces, the twelfth main installment in Namco’s Tales series, is an Action-RPG and JRPG originally released on Wii in Japan in 2009, finally making its way to Western regions in 2012 with the PlayStation 3 port which added the “f” to the title along with quality-of-life improvements and Lineage & Legacies epilogue content. It is this improved and expanded version of the game that has been used as the basis for this modern remaster, releasing in 2025 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

The presentation here is good, though this is a 15 year-old game and it wasn’t exactly pushing boundaries when it first released. The subtly cel-shaded 3D visuals are good, with some nice character designs, and both the voice acting and the anime-esque soundtrack is decent, but there’s little here that I would say is extraordinary.

The game mainly follows Asbel Lhant, a young heir to the lord of a small village, and his group of friends, who one day discover a mysterious girl seemingly suffering from amnesia near their village. This mystery is soon joined by political intrigue when the village is visited by a young prince and his retinue, and as the game progresses, the story gets to some pretty bonkers places, including demonic possessions and visitors from space. Overall, it’s a story that manages to keep things interesting, and while I found Asbel to be a somewhat annoying protagonist at first, one can chalk this up to him being a pretty dumb and headstrong kid, and he thankfully gets more tolerable as the story goes on.

Overall, I would think this is a pretty solid RPG, but then I have to talk about the battle system, and… look, I’ve honestly never been the biggest fan of the Tales series’ odd, clunky button-mashy real-time combat. I think what’s here is an improvement over Tales of Vesperia, offering a little more freedom of movement, but not quite on par with Tales of the Abyss and Tales of Vesperia, which both weren’t exactly great either.

Overall, I do think that players who can tolerate the clunky combat system here will find Tales of Graces to be a solid Action-RPG, but this definitely isn’t a shining example of the genre, and even within the series I think you have better choices on Nintendo Switch. However, if you’re a fan of the series I do think you’ll enjoy this game.

tl;dr – Tales of Graces f Remastered is a remastered port of a 2009 Wii Action-RPG and JRPG. This is mostly a solid but unspectacular entry in the genre with a decent story and characters, but the combat system leaves a lot to be desired. I do think you have numerous better options in the genre, but if you’re a Tales fan I think you’ll be satisfied.

Grade: C+

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