Platform: PlayStation 3

Developer: Namco Tales Studio LTD.

Publisher: Namco Bandai

# of Players: 1 – 4

ESRB Rating: T (Teen)

Official Site

Score: A

While heavy on the JRPG 101 clichés (even borrowing from previous games in the popular series), Tales of Graces f manages to be a stellar, addictive chunk of gaming goodness thanks to a lightning fast combat system, a fairly engaging cast of characters and a healthy dose of old school charm that keeps the hours flying by.  Right from the beginning, you can clearly see and feel Namco Tales Studios’ commitment to making this the best Tales game possible and for the most part, they’ve succeeded. As the game is an enhanced update of the Japan-only Wii game Tales of Graces (with even more content and a few notorious bugs fixed), it’s not shooting for the stars in terms of overly detailed HD visuals at all.  What you get is a very pretty looking game with a whole lot of things to do that doesn’t set any new genre standards, but manages to have enough variety to keep you dialed in until the wee hours.

The game kicks off with you playing as the main protagonists as children for a few hours, then jumps forward seven years to show them as teenagers or young adults coming of age (and coming to grips) with new responsibilities that have changed them drastically. Old friendships are tested as you find out just how time, experience and memory have molded the personalities of each character and like any set of friends torn apart by a major event, not everything sets itself back to normal upon a reunion. While a good chunk of the game is about these young adults trying to work out their place in the world and with each other, the game almost always has a joke ready at some point to lighten the mood. And when it doesn’t, it’s time to watch a cut scene and maybe break out a hanky if you’re so inclined.

For those first five or so hours, playing as Asbel Lhant, his brother Hubert, sickly Celia and the strange amnesiac girl they discover lying in a field of flowers they name Sophie is great fun as you discover bits and pieces of their lives at that stage in time. Asbel is a bit of a strong-willed brat jerk who sasses his parents and acts irresponsibly while Hubert is shy and panicky to a fault. Celia has some unnamed illness and despite her coughing fits and shortness of breath, is in deep puppy love with Asbel. But of course, he’s a bit too dense (in typical boy mode) to see her feelings. Sophie is the odd bird initially, as she’s hard to figure out (well, if you haven’t played a few other JRPGs where this type of mysterious character pops up and you spend part of the game finding out her identity), but it’s when the quartet meet up with young Prince Richard that the game gets intriguing.

As the characters evolve in the game, the combat also evolves. Initially, it’s pretty simple to grasp as pay attention or else tutorials pop up constantly, urging you onward to experiment and learn chain attacks, dodging, blocking and eventually, your first Artes moves. If you’re a button-jamming sort that skips these read-only sections, the game neatly logs everything in one of many journals you carry around. The basics get bumped up greatly as Titles are gained through all sorts of combat and non-combat events and changing your Titles becomes an important factor when dealing with certain enemies. There are also special moves that come into play that when activated, produce quick cut scenes of some great effects-heavy attack moves that cause major damage to enemies.

While having the ability to swap out Titles at any point outside of combat, cut scenes and skits, the sheer amount of them can be daunting, especially when you start earning two and three at a time after completing certain tasks. The cool thing about the Title system is how varied it is. Many of them vary the damage you dish out or receive, boost or heal health points and more, but it’s up to you to keep swapping out Titles in order to check out the effects. The game also gives you the tools for some great item creation in the form of a Mixer (which you carry with you) and “Dualizing”, a technique done in shops or by wacky-talking robed travelers. With a Mixer, you can toss in and recreate (or cook up) all sorts of items from healing supplies used automatically in or after battles to rare materials used for Dualizing up powerful gear.

In fact, Dualizing can be your best friend if you love insanely powerful weapons and armor. Some enemies drop different types of shards that can be used to beef up weapons and gear which in turn, can be equipped and honed even further in battle. These experienced items can then be combined to produce a wearable shard and then dualized again into even stronger gear. Rinse and repeat enough times and other than some of the more brutal bosses, many enemies in the game will be pushovers (at least on Normal mode). The wearable shards can be combined with others you gain from Dualizing gear to add assorted stat-boosting effects that can protect your heroes, add status effects to enemies and more. There’s so much to dive deeper into that it’s probably going to be daunting for first-time players, yet collection hounds will want to unlock everything they can because the rewards are so worth it.

As noted earlier, the characters are all likable for different reasons and each has flaws that add to their personalities. There are a ton of completely optional skits to activate that add small to large amounts of humor to the game, but you don’t need to locate all of them in order to enjoy the story.  I’ll say no more about the differences between the younger and older versions of the main characters other than the game will toss a few curve balls into your expectations zone a few times before it’s all over. New to the PS3 version are some fun costumes and an epilogue that clocks in at about a dozen hours that answers some of the burning questions left over from the original Wii game’s finale. No spoilers here, but expect to get in a few smiles and knowing nods as this additional tale unfolds and wraps things up.

From a presentation standpoint, the game looks great, but again, it’s an enhanced port of an Wii game released in Japan about three years ago. While there are some nicely colored assets and beautiful anime cinemas throughout, the game isn’t anywhere as pretty as Eternal Sonata (which still holds up as one of the more gorgeous anime-style JRPGs this generation). As for the environments, “functional” is a good word for the jaded types out there, but I found the visual style clean and consistent from beginning to end. Yes, there’s a lot of backtracking to do, some of the more linear areas are larger than they seem and you can’t control the game camera (Eternal Sonata had the latter two issues as well). But none of these effect the gameplay one bit. There are no random battles here – enemies can be avoided by running past them if you like, but not fighting means not leveling up and not enough levels means you’re eaten with toast by some boss that turns you into kibble in record time.

Sound, music and voices are decent to excellently reliable overall. You’re getting a game tailored to a certain type of player who expects a certain level of polish and both the dev and localization teams deliver the goods with only a handful of missteps. I especially loved most of the post battle quotes where Pascal, Sophie and/or Celia  are involved (the “Airhead” and “Royal Crablettes” quotes were fall off the couch funny the first time and always good for a grin afterwards). Musically, the game has less of an “epic” feel to it, but there are a few interesting tracks here and there that drift into new areas and fade away without drawing your attention away from whatever quest or side quest you’re on. The bouncy, J-poppy main theme will probably be the most memorable track for many players (as will the excellent animation that accompanies it).

Where the game does stumble a tiny bit is in some of those aforementioned side quests and the way multiplayer is handled. The bulk of side quests in the game are based on finding or crafting items for assorted NPCs based on reading requests off message boards in certain locations. Until you get that you should probably hang onto certain items you might dualize or sell, it’s possible to use or get rid of a side quest item a minute before finding out you needed it. Of course, if you’re smart enough (and were paying attention to the pop-up tutorials) to check the world map and read about what’s needed in each area, this won;t be a problem. Still, the map is slightly counter-intuitive to use and the zoom function is lousy if you still have an old analog TV. Granted, the game world isn’t anywhere as massive as it is in certain open-world RPGs, so it’s impossible to get lost. Still, a smarter mapping system would have been nicer.

As for the multiplayer, it’s absolutely great in terms of the drop-in, drop out part, but at times (and for story purposes), the game limits the number of party members, meaning if you intend to play the entire adventure with multiple friends, at some point, two players will have nothing to to but watch you and someone else play. You may want to have Player Two pass the controller around during these moments, but on the other hand, the story is enjoyable enough that sitting back and watching works just as well.Playing solo, you can even set the combat to Automatic and only worry about occasionally opening a menu to tweak a few settings or have the AI use an item or two.

There are a bunch of things I didn’t cover here, but that’s how densely packed the game is with content. If you’re looking for it, it’s there to discover and much of it adds to the overall experience. In the end, what works so well about Tales of Graces f is the solid sense of nostalgia it’s steeped so deeply in. Fans of this type of game will hang onto it like a good book and even after they’ve completed it, it’ll be played again just to relive some of those golden moments. While it’s too early to call this one a “Game of the Year” contender in the genre, it’s definitely one of the better JRPGs in recent memory for longtime as well as new players.