There’s a really specific sort of nostalgia that hits me like a truck whenever the Tales series is mentioned. I grew up hovering around this series of JRPGs, but never playing them. Other series like Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy caught my attention, but I would still spot Tales in the periphery. The series seemingly spawning a new mainline entry almost every year, combined with me hardly following news of the franchise, led to this sort of awe I would experience whenever I continuously discovered more and more Tales games that I had no idea even existed. As I’ve gotten older and started digging deeper into games and series I never gave a shot earlier in life, I’m finally getting around to playing a lot of these Tales games that only existed as ideas and myths to me. Tales of Graces f was one such myth – a Wii game I barely knew existed, which became a PS3 game I downloaded but never touched, and finally, it arrives in my life for the third time as a massively remastered and polished multi-platform re-release. And with this kind of care and quality, I’m hoping every entry in the series can eventually re-materialize in my life this way.
Narrative and character arcs are a huge focus of Tales of Graces f – although things seem deceptively lighthearted and simple in the opening hours of the game. You play as 11-year-old Asbel Lhant, spending lackadaisical days in his Lhant, which him and his younger brother Hubert are heirs to the throne of. Neither are concerned with that inheritance, though, because they’re far busier figuring out what to do when they encounter a girl with purple hair and amnesia in the middle of a flowery meadow outside of town. Asbel does his best to take care of her and help her remember who she is, with help from his sickly friend Cheria. As drama and disaster strike the trio, though, the game flings us seven years into the future where they’re caught in the middle of a disastrous clash between three powerful kingdoms.
Of the many quality-of-life upgrades made to Tales of Graces f Remastered, the new option to swap between the original English or Japanese voiceover is huge in helping the story and its characters properly pluck at your heartstrings. For some gamers, the dated and slightly stiff English dub of what was originally a 2011 Nintendo Wii game might be more cheesy than charming, so being able to play with the Japanese voiceover enabled is a boon. Especially when this new version of the game has added full subtitles for mid-combat and post-battle dialogue, ensuring you won’t miss any details no matter which language you set the audio to. The cheesiness of a dated JRPG English dub is well worth experiencing in my opinion, though, so I happily plugged along with that dub for most of my run through the game.
Another immediately noticeable and extremely welcome change in Tales of Graces f Remastered is the incredible job they’ve done upgrading and enhancing the visuals of the game. Don’t expect a Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth treatment or any kind of wildly different approach to the original aesthetic of the game – the designs, art-style, and vibe of the original version are perfectly preserved. With sharper textures, more defined lighting, and a resolution way higher than what was originally rendered on the Wii or even the PS3 re-release, this version of the game feels like the way it was intended to look from the beginning. A lot of modern remasters of old RPGs hit a weird uncanny valley where the ultra-high resolution and super sharp textures kill a lot of the charm of the original version’s aesthetic – but I felt no such thing here. This is the perfect window into a bygone era of JRPGs that celebrates the charm of it’s original aesthetic while also polishing it to a perfectly balanced degree for a modern, more future-proofed release.
Tales of Graces f Remastered packs in a lot of other welcome quality-of-life changes – for main quests, side quests, and timed cutscene events, you now have icon marks visible that show you where those objectives are and how far you are from them. You’ve also got the ability to use a new Dash function to move faster than before through the map, and even the ability to disable Encounters when you aren’t in the mood for random mob battles. Skits, the iconic “bonus conversations” of the Tales franchise that give you a sillier look into the banter between your party, now have new dialogue controls so you can speed up or skip through text during them. A collection of skits that were only available in the Japanese version of the game have also been included in this release with English translation for the first time. There’s a massive amount of other enhancements too – like new audio settings, the difficulty-modifying “Grade shop” available from the beginning, colourblind support for certain puzzles in the game, and so much more. Plus – every wacky piece of costume DLC from the original release is included for free.
Tales of Graces f Remastered is an incredible JRPG experience. Diving into the classic real-time arena combat and the endearingly goofy Skits that made this franchise so iconic is such a treat. To have so many ways to customize the experience on the fly and make it even easier to dig into my favourite parts of the game is a blast. Whether I’m trying to breeze through a dungeon to get to the next story beat or I want to dig into some Artes grinding and savor every battle, Tales of Graces f Remastered lets me do just that. It’s a beautiful remaster of a game I should’ve played long ago, and one that feels on par with even the latest entries in this long-running franchise.