Tales Of Graces F Remastered Review – There Was Grace​

Tales Of Graces F Remastered Review - There Was Grace

The Tales franchise had been trucking along nicely over several decades, but, at least in the West, 2021’s Tales Of Arise was something of a potential unlocking moment. The game received significant critical acclaim and was adored by the player base with the game being the fastest in the franchise to hit 1 million sales. Spurred by its success, developer/publisher Bandai Namco launched into remaster mode, bringing many of the franchise’s favourites to the newest generation of consoles to capitalise on the franchise’s growth. That trend has continued as the previously Japan-only Wii title, Tales Of Graces, which was then later ported to the PS3 under the moniker, Tales Of Graces F. Now, nearly 13 years on from that PS3 release coming to the West, Tales Of Graces has returned with a new-gen remaster. Boasting fresh quality of life features atop the already updated, PS3 release, can Tales Of Graces F Remastered, give players sufficient reasons to reexperience this classic?

Tales Of Graces follows Asbel, a young man with Lordship in his future, but that all gets thrown into chaos when a mysterious girl appears who appears to be suffering from amnesia emerges. Without a name, Asbel and his brother Hubert help give her one, and Sophie becomes an integral part of the plot from then on. After a traumatic event prompts Asbel to abandon his impending lordship to strive to become a knight, the story resumes seven years later, with an older Asbel forced to return to his hometown amidst political conflict, death in the family, and brewing wars. As is typical for a Tales title, the narrative takes a turn from the fantastical to the science fiction-infused, and while parts of that transition can get a bit heavy-handed at times, the overall shift is relatively seamless due to some very well embedded threads that emerge in the game’s opening hours. Though Tales Of Graces’ plot leans heavily upon a range of narrative and franchise troupes, the team does a great job of making it feel unique, at least within the confines of the franchise. 

As a gameplay experience, Tales Of Graces F Remastered keeps it true to the original release and Tales games of the time. Tales Of Graces F is an action-RPG where the key to success, especially as the game progresses, relies upon the player’s ability to chain attacks and techniques together. The game allows you to construct some enormous combos, which result in immense damage output, and after blocking an evading several strings of attacks, to be able to then respond with a major counter-offensive string of blows, is incredibly satisfying. A significant change for the Remaster is the Grade system, that was nestled with the New Game Plus mode previously, but is now there from moment one. The Grade system allows players to tailor the game to their own preferences. There are gald multipliers, scalars to health and damage boosts (both dealt and received), and more, all to increase the challenge or expedite the experience. You can opt in or out, though some options, once applied, are permanent, but these are handy additions to help the player who simply wants to experience (or re-experience) the story in particular. 

This remaster also brings with it a range of quality of life improvements that may seem minor but will certainly help players in a variety of different ways. In particular, encounters, aside from key bosses, can be turned off if you so choose, the game adds a HUD icon to show where your current objective is, which I found particularly beneficial in towns as the exact path to follow can sometimes be unclear. All of the game’s previously released DLCs are bundled into the package straight away, and an hour-glass icon now appears to indicate limited-time-only events or side-quests to help the completionists to access every bit of content the game is concealing. As a remaster it doesn’t bring much beyond these additions, and some sharpened visuals.

Being a remaster of a HD port of a Wii game, there certainly opportunities that can be explored in terms of visual improvements, but limitations that come from the source hardware. Due to the extremely limited capacity of the Wii, environments are largely free of life, and there’s little room for exploration, so this remaster has precious little to work with. Despite this, the improvements are almost instantly apparent. Sharpened edges, and more vibrant lighting help the game pop and look more modern than. As far as the auditory experience, there isn’t much to report here as far as content that is new, however that is most certainly a good thing. The voice-over work isn’t jarring at all compared to many other anime-infused games out there, while the soundtrack is absolutely sensational. 

Tales Of Graces F Remastered is very much the 2010/2012 PS3 version with a 2025 gloss coated on it. If you’ve played either version of Tales Of Graces previously you might struggle to find reason to pick up this newest rendition, but if you’re new, or simply looking to dine on some nostalgia, Tales Of Graces F Remastered is a fantastic experience, that is well worth checking out in 2025.

Tales Of Graces F Remastered was reviewed on PS5 with a code kindly provided by Bandai Namco Australia.

Have you seen our Merch Store?

Get 5% off these great Arcade Machines and help support Player 2

Check out our Most Recent Video

Find us on Metacritic

Check out our Most Recent Posts