This has to be THE best battle system on the entire series IMO. People giving praises to other Tales games but none of those feel as good to play as this one.
My favorite game of the franchise. I will defend the story. While I agree the plot is generic, the narrative is done well. Graces narrative is essentially how a person’s actions have consequences on others. It shows how others create darkness in you and how only other people can heal that darkness. I know that many people thought this was cringe but I suspect that’s because they were young. When you are young you only have a small amount of experience with the darkness that hides in our hearts. It hasn’t settled for years and show how scary it is. When we are in our mid-20s, it’s like being level 30 in a rpg. You gained considerably amount of experience, seen most of the map, starting to gain some real strength, but you really haven’t seen the truth of the world yet. It’s the point right before the meat of the plot and the real craziness starts. The point where you start to think that after everything you learned, you really didn’t know anything at all.
I bought this game when it came out in France (with french translation and english dub) and it was 🔥 I was 16, beginning to dive more into rpgs and console games in general (with tight budget, so rpgs...good investment for my parents) I wanted a jrpg, this one looked fresh anime style and an active battle system and you could play co-op...so I used my birthday money to preorder it (wasn't big quantities) I played it a lot, my little sibling played with me, I went to a friend's house in high school to help her too... We were exchanging games, so she discovered the tales of saga and I discovered the hitman games thanks to her :) it was so cool... a co op jrpg, that's just the best thing :) And it was one of the few games I didn't sell to buy another later as a teen, I always have it, I should replay it one day x) The gameplay is so good, I played other tales of, and a bunch of rpgs later on but this game was really cool, not too reflex demanding, not too repetitive It was so fun to even grind in that game because the gameplay is evolving as you level up
This was the first game in the series I completed (had started Abyss prior but fell off quickly) I still think this is the height of the series when it comes to combat; they have tried iterating on this system and it has never been as good. Story is good, nothing spectacular, but still good. Cast is also amazing, each works well to balance each other out. This game deserves so much more love.
A lot of people tend to say that the later "Behind the back" Tales of games were improvements over this one but this is the only one of them that I find myself going back to. It mostly comes down to how fluid and responsive this games combat feels (sidesteps especially felt horrible to use in the games that came after this) and this game being the last one with dungeons I at least somewhat liked. Not to mention it's the last game I felt was "complete" (which I know is funny considering the Wii version) as you had lots of optional stuff to do that wasn't just simple fetch quests, some genuinely cool optional fights, a good amount of costumes to get even without DLC and a lot of interactables in the world with items to find that are actually cool. I've also grown a huge appreciation for this games UI, effects and color, especially how the game makes the transitions into your mystic artes and out of them.
I just need this game remastered to make up for Tales of Arise lol. And NOT that Tales of Arise is a bad game! I just haven't found myself getting very far into it (and I hope I never see "Cure Points" ever again lol). I don't think I've really enjoyed and beat a tales game as much as I have since Graces f and Xillia. Zesteria and Berseria were great, but I never got around to beating those either lol. Also thanks for explaining the critical gauge! I've put hundreds of hours into this game and just never bothered to look into what that gauge was lmfao
To me this is the last solid Tales of game. Xillia was good, but it was clear that game wasn't fully done. Beseria also has some rough edges. And I still have to complete Arise. But there's so much cool stuff about this game. The story is a bit rough near the end and I wish Lambda was characterized a bit better, but there's still a lot of good things about the game. My favorite part is still Hubert kicking Asbel out of the house.
Great retrospective, it really is a great game. I remember being disappointed at Graces f when it released in 2012, I had just come from playing Vesperia and didn't like the graphics of Graces f. But when I sat down and played it, the gameplay was really addicting and it's exactly as you said, although the overarching plot was just alright the characters and the interactions were done extremely well. The postgame was so much fun too and the extra skits in post-game were hilarious. Edit: Going towards the end of your video, you're really right, there's so many details to the gameplay I didn't know, I'm even learning new things from your video right now but the game should've had a better tutorial. I didn't realize semi-auto was a trap too.
Just saw this video on my home page, great review of one of my favorite entries in the series. IMO Graces has my 2nd favorite combat in the series, behind Xillia 2, and honestly I'm disappointed that the latest entries in the series have moved away from the linear motion battle systems of the older titles, especially Arise with how it handled boss fights. Wish Bandai would actually port most of their games to modern systems and PC like Graces and the Xillias which are still stuck on PS3.
This is my 3rd favorite in the series and it's nice to see the rare JRPG player who cares about the game aspect. Drakengard and the original Neir proved that some of y'all have no standards as long as the story is good.
I love all of the tales games, but graces F has a special place in my heart because i played it together with my nephews. I really hope Bandai finaly ports them all over to PC
Great review! Man, I enjoyed this game so much when it came out, I kinda want to revisit it now. I still think it has the most fun battle system and the world was really fun to explore.
Great review dude! I played a bit of tales of arise last year but never finished it. I found that arise had the same exact issue with the difficulty scaling, especially on the higher difficulties which became kinda off-putting at a certain point. I’d like to give the series another shot at some point for sure
It does. It even had a combat system that let you chain into every arte available for that character (at least for the melee fighters). Xillia did as well but that game had artes chaining into each other for some reason. Still waiting for the remaster announcement.
I like Vesperia better because party overdrive is just amazing, but there's a lot of fun things about this game. Cheria being the strongest physical dps character is forever hilarious. If I had to pick between playing Yuri/Rita/Judith and Hubert/Cheria, it's a really tough call. Abyss is also really good.
Okay since I played the game for over 500 hours: postives a lot 1. Game play : the battle system is the best the very best of tales games or at least one of the best even in JRPG terms 2. Characters: almost all of them are lovable especially pascal and Hubert (Cheria & Richard) meh 3. Leveling system : is top tier and very fun 3.equipments I have never seen people talk about this point but I love it when I see different artworks of weapons when you try a new weapon most JRPG games give you the same looking weapon Negatives : storyline is very bad almost one of the worst in tales series by that I mean it’s about friendship which is boring it would have been better if they used the extra ending as the main story . That’s it tales of graces is for those who loves battle systems they will not like it they will love it
Really hope this and tales of destiny director's cut and ToD 2 get ported to modern consoles. Asbel's fighting style is my favorite out of the tales games i've played
For me both gameplay and story equally matter in JRPG, and in Graces F's case both the story and gameplay are very engaging to me personally. If the story fell short like people might say then I would have not like it as much as I do now, I mean it's on my top 5 Tales games
Saying that you should be able to 100% a jrpg without a guide regardless of how many playthroughs done is ridiculous. No one is going to be able to remember every minute detail in a game that takes a week worth of time to complete. Even a game as simple as Pokémon needs a guide to find catch all them in the game.
Idk this is kind of a weird comment. Later games in the series mark side quest locations on the map and make it easier to keep track of them. A lot of the quest in graces are really obtuse without a guide but are tied to good rewards. Even in later Pokémon games during the post game a quest is usually tied to catching the legendary which gives you some sort of direction to go in. It’s just good quality of life to be able to do your game’s content without external resources. If they did a remake of graces I would hope they add a side quest log.
I havent play Tales of Arise yet, But in terms of battle system, Tales of Graces f is probably the Best 3d tales game. It just that the story is kinda bland.
If only they remastered it on a pc or ps5... Alongside Xilia 1-2 and japanese-only older titles like Rebirth. When i was younger, i actually played destiny remake and destiny 2 with a translation guide, but it was a pain. Overall great franchise, would buy any remaster or remake. Arise was a letdown in the second half, though, not gonna lie.
Graces f has without a doubt one of the worst stories in the tales series. But it's battle system and game play is God tier. If Bandai Namco could remake tales of Legendia with Graces f gameplay, it would be the perfect tales game.
Игры
This has to be THE best battle system on the entire series IMO. People giving praises to other Tales games but none of those feel as good to play as this one.
My favorite game of the franchise.
I will defend the story. While I agree the plot is generic, the narrative is done well. Graces narrative is essentially how a person’s actions have consequences on others. It shows how others create darkness in you and how only other people can heal that darkness.
I know that many people thought this was cringe but I suspect that’s because they were young. When you are young you only have a small amount of experience with the darkness that hides in our hearts. It hasn’t settled for years and show how scary it is. When we are in our mid-20s, it’s like being level 30 in a rpg. You gained considerably amount of experience, seen most of the map, starting to gain some real strength, but you really haven’t seen the truth of the world yet. It’s the point right before the meat of the plot and the real craziness starts. The point where you start to think that after everything you learned, you really didn’t know anything at all.
I bought this game when it came out in France (with french translation and english dub) and it was 🔥
I was 16, beginning to dive more into rpgs and console games in general (with tight budget, so rpgs...good investment for my parents)
I wanted a jrpg, this one looked fresh anime style and an active battle system and you could play co-op...so I used my birthday money to preorder it (wasn't big quantities)
I played it a lot, my little sibling played with me, I went to a friend's house in high school to help her too...
We were exchanging games, so she discovered the tales of saga and I discovered the hitman games thanks to her :)
it was so cool... a co op jrpg, that's just the best thing :)
And it was one of the few games I didn't sell to buy another later as a teen, I always have it, I should replay it one day x)
The gameplay is so good, I played other tales of, and a bunch of rpgs later on but this game was really cool, not too reflex demanding, not too repetitive
It was so fun to even grind in that game because the gameplay is evolving as you level up
This was the first game in the series I completed (had started Abyss prior but fell off quickly)
I still think this is the height of the series when it comes to combat; they have tried iterating on this system and it has never been as good. Story is good, nothing spectacular, but still good. Cast is also amazing, each works well to balance each other out. This game deserves so much more love.
A lot of people tend to say that the later "Behind the back" Tales of games were improvements over this one but this is the only one of them that I find myself going back to. It mostly comes down to how fluid and responsive this games combat feels (sidesteps especially felt horrible to use in the games that came after this) and this game being the last one with dungeons I at least somewhat liked. Not to mention it's the last game I felt was "complete" (which I know is funny considering the Wii version) as you had lots of optional stuff to do that wasn't just simple fetch quests, some genuinely cool optional fights, a good amount of costumes to get even without DLC and a lot of interactables in the world with items to find that are actually cool.
I've also grown a huge appreciation for this games UI, effects and color, especially how the game makes the transitions into your mystic artes and out of them.
I just need this game remastered to make up for Tales of Arise lol. And NOT that Tales of Arise is a bad game! I just haven't found myself getting very far into it (and I hope I never see "Cure Points" ever again lol).
I don't think I've really enjoyed and beat a tales game as much as I have since Graces f and Xillia. Zesteria and Berseria were great, but I never got around to beating those either lol.
Also thanks for explaining the critical gauge! I've put hundreds of hours into this game and just never bothered to look into what that gauge was lmfao
To me this is the last solid Tales of game. Xillia was good, but it was clear that game wasn't fully done. Beseria also has some rough edges. And I still have to complete Arise. But there's so much cool stuff about this game. The story is a bit rough near the end and I wish Lambda was characterized a bit better, but there's still a lot of good things about the game. My favorite part is still Hubert kicking Asbel out of the house.
Great retrospective, it really is a great game. I remember being disappointed at Graces f when it released in 2012, I had just come from playing Vesperia and didn't like the graphics of Graces f. But when I sat down and played it, the gameplay was really addicting and it's exactly as you said, although the overarching plot was just alright the characters and the interactions were done extremely well. The postgame was so much fun too and the extra skits in post-game were hilarious. Edit: Going towards the end of your video, you're really right, there's so many details to the gameplay I didn't know, I'm even learning new things from your video right now but the game should've had a better tutorial. I didn't realize semi-auto was a trap too.
Just saw this video on my home page, great review of one of my favorite entries in the series. IMO Graces has my 2nd favorite combat in the series, behind Xillia 2, and honestly I'm disappointed that the latest entries in the series have moved away from the linear motion battle systems of the older titles, especially Arise with how it handled boss fights. Wish Bandai would actually port most of their games to modern systems and PC like Graces and the Xillias which are still stuck on PS3.
This is my 3rd favorite in the series and it's nice to see the rare JRPG player who cares about the game aspect. Drakengard and the original Neir proved that some of y'all have no standards as long as the story is good.
I played this 2013, this was first Tales game i played. And as i play other tales game, no other game can compare to this one. Love cast so much
I love all of the tales games, but graces F has a special place in my heart because i played it together with my nephews.
I really hope Bandai finaly ports them all over to PC
Great review! Man, I enjoyed this game so much when it came out, I kinda want to revisit it now. I still think it has the most fun battle system and the world was really fun to explore.
Can you play Graces and Xillia with a PS4 controller?
You can on PC.
Great review dude! I played a bit of tales of arise last year but never finished it. I found that arise had the same exact issue with the difficulty scaling, especially on the higher difficulties which became kinda off-putting at a certain point. I’d like to give the series another shot at some point for sure
I played tales of grace and loved it. My only gripe was having to unlock manual mode.
Probably has the best combat in the series…..fight me!
I played all majority Tales series and this one legit has the best combat.
I'll fight with you if someone says otherwise.
It does. It even had a combat system that let you chain into every arte available for that character (at least for the melee fighters). Xillia did as well but that game had artes chaining into each other for some reason. Still waiting for the remaster announcement.
I like Vesperia better because party overdrive is just amazing, but there's a lot of fun things about this game. Cheria being the strongest physical dps character is forever hilarious. If I had to pick between playing Yuri/Rita/Judith and Hubert/Cheria, it's a really tough call. Abyss is also really good.
Really wish this game wasn’t stuck in PS3 purgatory. I’d even take it just being ported to PS4. I miss it. 😢
Okay since I played the game for over 500 hours: postives a lot
1. Game play : the battle system is the best the very best of tales games or at least one of the best even in JRPG terms
2. Characters: almost all of them are lovable especially pascal and Hubert (Cheria & Richard) meh
3. Leveling system : is top tier and very fun
3.equipments I have never seen people talk about this point but I love it when I see different artworks of weapons when you try a new weapon most JRPG games give you the same looking weapon
Negatives : storyline is very bad almost one of the worst in tales series by that I mean it’s about friendship which is boring it would have been better if they used the extra ending as the main story .
That’s it tales of graces is for those who loves battle systems they will not like it they will love it
This one has a solid cast with Sophie and Paschal being top tier, a meh villain and my favorite Tales battle system.
Really hope this and tales of destiny director's cut and ToD 2 get ported to modern consoles. Asbel's fighting style is my favorite out of the tales games i've played
Malik and i think Sophie has an extra mystic arte if my memory is correct i think it was the Malik beam
The combat on this game was so good. I am still comparing the combo system on this to the newer titles.
This game is in my top 3 because of the combat and game mechanics. This has my favorite combat system across all the tales games.
THIS GUY GETS IT
well the first thing you said is the reason you dont mind the game a lot fo us need to be invested to continue
For me both gameplay and story equally matter in JRPG, and in Graces F's case both the story and gameplay are very engaging to me personally. If the story fell short like people might say then I would have not like it as much as I do now, I mean it's on my top 5 Tales games
I really want this game to be remastered, because it looks better than arise.
Saying that you should be able to 100% a jrpg without a guide regardless of how many playthroughs done is ridiculous.
No one is going to be able to remember every minute detail in a game that takes a week worth of time to complete. Even a game as simple as Pokémon needs a guide to find catch all them in the game.
Idk this is kind of a weird comment. Later games in the series mark side quest locations on the map and make it easier to keep track of them. A lot of the quest in graces are really obtuse without a guide but are tied to good rewards. Even in later Pokémon games during the post game a quest is usually tied to catching the legendary which gives you some sort of direction to go in. It’s just good quality of life to be able to do your game’s content without external resources. If they did a remake of graces I would hope they add a side quest log.
I havent play Tales of Arise yet, But in terms of battle system, Tales of Graces f is probably the Best 3d tales game. It just that the story is kinda bland.
If only they remastered it on a pc or ps5... Alongside Xilia 1-2 and japanese-only older titles like Rebirth. When i was younger, i actually played destiny remake and destiny 2 with a translation guide, but it was a pain. Overall great franchise, would buy any remaster or remake. Arise was a letdown in the second half, though, not gonna lie.
Graces f has without a doubt one of the worst stories in the tales series. But it's battle system and game play is God tier. If Bandai Namco could remake tales of Legendia with Graces f gameplay, it would be the perfect tales game.