I love JRPG games, for their story, their game play and their music. Tales of Graces f is an EXCELLENT game, and one of the best I have ever played. It's probably one of my favorite games. What made this game so fun to play? While the story wasn't the best, it was still enjoyable, but the battle system is a blast that doesn't get old or boring during the whole length of the game. The leveling up system is basic (I'm talking more about the stats and learning new moves here, which is governed by things called Titles) but allows a lot of options and choice. I really like how the story isn't you typical save the world from an evil monster type of affair. Yes, there is still one, but it isn't until late into the story that it truly appears, but the main focus of the story is upon friendship. It might sound lame, and at times, the cheesy dialogue makes you want to cringe, but it works really well overall. There's no melodrama and the threats are plausible and feels real enough to care. The voice acting could be better, as is the lip syncing. Most of the characters have stiff movements but that just adds to the charm, and feels like the classic games of old. I really like how they added in some 2D animation scenes, which provides a nice breath of fresh air (it also helps in giving the characters more emotions that the 3D character models could not).
With a game this long (the normal story mode will take around 40 to 50 hours, taking your time), the story can go astray at times and feels very boring. Thankfully, these moments aren't frequent and can be easily forgiven. The ending to the normal story mode wasn't that great. I mean, after those difficult boss battles, it seemed a bit... of a letdown. It was long but it didn't provide a full closure to the story. The game has a rare trait in that none of the characters are truly annoying. That doesn't mean they're likable either, but you won't be frustrated at the actions of one and want to hit another. Sure, Pascal was weird to me at first but she grew on me. Still, the story was well written and enjoyable to play through, it gave enough of an objective to get through the game. I've heard that many people thought the Childhood Arc wasn't good, and I disagree. I didn't think it was too bad and I enjoyed it. If you compare it to the rest of the game, sure, it might be one of the weaker sections but it was still very fun to play through. It isn't very long, taking you around 5 hours, if you just want to breeze through it, it'll be much shorter than that. It lets you get more used to the Battle System (which isn't easy to learn).
Now, talking about the game play, this would be a perfect game if not for a few flaws that ruins it at certain points. The first flaw would be that the game uses save points... It isn't a problem in the earlier parts of the game since the save points are very numerous, spacing around on average one every 10 mins. However, in the latter parts of the game, particularly in the last few dungeons, the save points are disgustingly and frustratingly far apart. You would spent over an hour in the dungeon... WITHOUT being able to save. What's worse is that sometimes they tantalizingly show a save point but you can't get to it until maybe another twenty mins later. This is stupid in that more than a few times I wanted to stop playing but I couldn't save, I had progressed pretty far into the dungeon, around twenty to forty minutes' worth of trekking, and I don't know when the next save point is going to pop up. They have got to change this and allow for saving anywhere so people can start and stop whenever they wish.
Speaking of dungeons, the latter dungeons are too long for no good reason other than to artificially extend the game time. By that time, because a lot of the environments are very similar, you want to get to the darn boss that you know is at the end already. This is especially true in the last dungeon, where it was much longer than I anticipated, if you take your time to explore and try to get everything, it'll take you around two hours, if you don't die that is (and forced to go back to your last save point). In the last few areas where there was nothing constructive, I just wanted to get to the end and the final boss so I can view the ending. What surprised me too in this game was the load screens between areas. At first, they seem like an annoying break but you eventually get used to it. I would have preferred if entering and exiting rooms didn't have this load screen as it's just plain annoying (I understand why towns and dungeons would require a loading screen). At various places in the game, it gets you to solve puzzles, they're pretty easy but the one in the final dungeon was annoying as it forces you to keep backtracking, it's sole purpose was to make you waste a lot of time... I like the minigames too, well, except the card game Magic Carta where the computer would just cheat on higher difficulties, my favorite has to be Shot Cube.
Onto the next thing, if you haven't played a Tales game before and don't know what to expect, then you're going to have to learn a lot in order to become competent with the battle system. There is an extremely high learning curve. This was my first Tales game, and the battle system was so complex I just kept learning and learning about it right until and past the final boss. It doesn't help that the game does an extremely poor job of explaining the other aspects of the game like dualizing (combining/merging items to create a new one) and how the Mixer works. The battles are a lot of fun to play though, as it doesn't get boring. I like the idea of different directions of the left stick corresponding to different attacks, but it works better in theory than in action. It can get confusing with all the action going on sometimes. The last flaw (more like an annoying aspect) is the difficult spikes. So, you're strolling along, defeating monsters left, right and center with ease and then a boss battle comes up. What happens? You're thrashed. This happens a lot. You either end up overcoming by intensely studying the patterns of the boss, dodging attacks like hell and dying a few times or you lower the difficulty.
It's very stupid when you can defeat the normal encounters so easily but struggle to defeat the boss on the same difficulty level. It wasn't as if I was not fighting too, I fought every single monster (and more) along the way, yet I would still die. I guess you could say the game forces you to play smart, but it's not fun when you are being forced to play a certain strategy just because the designers wanted you to do that, it's cheap. A lot of the bosses have annoying characteristics and attacks, kudos to the people who are so good at this game that they can defeat them so easily. For the other people, these boss battles are frustrating as hell, and there's no sense of achievement at the end if you end up lowering the difficulty. Even though the game doesn't punish you for changing it, it seems like you haven't overcome that barrier, but it's so frustratingly hard and cheap for the designers to do this, it ruins some of the fun. The higher difficulties (and the game overs a lot of difficulties, Easy, Normal, Moderate, Hard, Evil and Chaos, the last two has to be unlocked) such as Evil truly lives up to their names, Evil mode was evil and Chaos mode is just unbelievably difficult (and there are trophies assigned to finishing the game on each as well which sucks, and the trophies don't stack, this means that finishing on Chaos doesn't unlock everything below it, you gotta fight the final boss four times). That's all the negatives that I could think of for this game, it has been a positive experience.
The 'f' part in the game refers to the Epilogue that is exclusive to the PS3 version set six months after the normal story mode. Taking your time, it can be anywhere from 10 hours to 20 hours to finish this section, which was much longer than I had initially expected. However, the dungeons in this arc has no purpose other than to get you lost. If you go in blind, you'll be wandering around trying to find the right path. It's trial and error. With EVERY new dungeon like this, it gets old real quick and frankly, quite a bit frustrating and annoying. This artificially extended length has no real meaning and I found the story in this arc to be weak. It does provide a better ending though, and closes a few plot loopholes. This makes it seem like the original Wii version is incomplete as without this part, many various little plot points would still be questioning. The drop rates of monsters are also lower than you would want. If you wanted to get enough materials for certain items for everyone, prepare to grind for a few hours, even when you try to increase the drop rate as much as you can. Anyway, this is still a welcome addition as I'm glad to see the relationship between Asbel and Cheria settle down and find a conclusion.
I love the design of this bright colorful world, it suits the anime feel perfectly. Even though this was a Wii game at first, there were many moments where it was stunning. Due to the simpler design, the graphics are sufficient for this world. This is a massive game, it will keep you occupied for a while, even if you're not aiming for the platinum trophy (which will take around 100 hours). There are plenty of sidequests and extra areas to explore, which, in addition to the PS3 exclusive epilogue, gives you plenty of value for money. Lastly, I have to mention the soundtrack. I was surprised at it since I didn't expect it to take on the form that it did. The theme song grows on you and I love it now, while the rest of the music is quite good. There are a few pieces that you fall in love with instantly (Mad Dance is my favorite, insta-classic, too bad the boss itself is such a pain), most of the music does what it has to do, enhancing the scene in which it was played in. I loved this game overall, it's one of the funnest game I have ever played, except for a few bouts of frustration, I enjoyed every single moment.
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