Personally I loved the story. It doesn't always have to be super deep, but the whole concept of friendship and connections really hit me home personally. It's a story I will defend to the end.
My short thoughts on the game: *Positives:* The cast is very likeable, the combat system is arguably the best in the series, the visuals are charming, and the comedy is easily some of the funniest in the franchise. *Negatives:* The story is a mess and one of the weaker in the series overall, the soundtrack is overall pretty forgettable, and the villains' of the game feel pretty lacking and out of focus. *Overall:* Despite some hiccups I love his game, to the point that it's might even squeeze into my top 5 of the franchise. It's definitely not the deepest game in the franchise, but what it lacks in depth it makes up for in pure charm.
Can someone please tell me what platform is tales of graces F is available cuz its so fucking annoying how even when i search it in google the first things shows tales of graces like im confused asf
I really don't agree with you on the childhood arc, it's actually one of my favorite parts of the game. I think you were being overly dismissive, simply because you can summarize something quickly, does not say *anything* about the quality. If you really want to, you can boil down even the greatest stories ever told into a short summary that makes it seem less than what it is. I'll grant that there wasn't a ton of plot progression, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Personally I enjoyed the childhood arc because the characters genuinely felt like kids. You derided them because you were able to boil them down their archetypes..... but they're kids, of course there's not going to be a lot to them yet. I am just really boggled by this criticism because if they were more complex, they probably wouldn't feel like children anymore which wouldn't work. That's not to say you can't write a child with nuance and complexity, but I am not really sure what you were expecting so it felt like your criticism rang hollow. I think you should've thought more about the contents of your arguments here because I don't think they're very convincing. That said, my issue with the childhood arc is moreso the gameplay as the combat boils down to mashing X the entire time which isn't fun. Oof, really did not like your diatribe about cliches as you do yourself zero favors falling back on such a bad form of criticism. You can't just say "it's bad because it's cliche" because believe it or not, despite the negative connotation, a cliche is not itself a bad thing. You HAVE to provide examples as to WHY the cliche is bad, simply bringing up that something is cliche means you're relying on the word itself to make your argument for you which is a huge foe paw. Maybe I need to replay it, but I don't recall the tonal dissonance being as bad as you make it out to be. I thought the game was both goofy and serious when it needed to be and I don't think the silliness detracted from the moments it was playing it straight. I don't think the entire game is meant to be a complete joke, it clearly does have moments where it wants to be taken seriously, but I do think the game was targeted at a younger audience since it was a Wii title originally. I don't think Dawn of the New World having darker elements contradicts this because that game was a direct sequel and was attempting to be thematically consistent with its predecessor as opposed to Graces which is its own title. I definitely agree though that the main theme of "friendship" is utterly obnoxious easily the worst aspect of the game. It's shoved in awkwardly during dialogue and there's nothing interesting done with the concept throughout the game. I also agree that Asbel was a missed opportunity and one of the weaker Tales of protags. PASCAL IS A QUEEN THO HOW FUCKING DARE YOU and Malek is awesome, don't know why you're hating of them. It might seem like I love the story, but honestly I don't. As far as Tales games go, I think it's only okay. There are worse stories in the series *cough*Zestiria*cough* but I'd say most games in the series are much better written. I do think I like the characters more than you did though and I think that's why I look back on the writing a bit more fondly. As far as your complaints for the gameplay, most of it sounded fair. I haven't played the game in awhile to be fair and when I did I played most of it on either normal, moderate or hard so the issues you had weren't nearly as bad and explains why I wasn't bothered by them, but I think it's fair to point out the lack of a magic guard being an issue on the higher difficulties. I think a counterpoint to that though is that you could probably dodge those attacks if you're good enough, but at the same time there's no need to remove magic guard or making recovery a fucking skill you need to learn, it's just unnecessary. I don't think the game *needs* a jump though, but it would've been cool to have as it would've added another layer to the combat. I don't agree though that "too much is left up to chance and not skill" I mean, you can look up any Donguri combo video you want, never getting hit during boss fights and beating them with a single character which disproves this point. I also don't agree that titles are "too much" when the game literally lets you automate it and completely ignore if you really want to. I personally never found it overwhelming, the title system is my favorite progression system out of any Tales game and I desperately want them to bring it back in some form in Arise. Well, I am glad you at least changed your mind arte trees since you dismissed them as shallow before. I wouldn't go as far as to call the entire game a mess, but I can at least agree that it is messy, as pedantic as that sounds. I feel like every time you release a Tales video I have to leave a fucking essay for you and I apologize for that. As a hardcore fan of the series though, I can't help it, I am very passionate about it so I feel the need to express myself and respond to most of what you have to say (if only I could turn this productivity into more scripts for my own videos >_>). Anyways, I hope this didn't come off as overly negative and to be clear, I don't think this is a bad video, in fact I think you're getting better and better as you make them. Practice makes perfect as they say, keep honing your skills and improving your writing, it's literally a never ending struggle as you can never learn too much about being a better writer.
Ah, I was waiting for this comment. So first I wanna say you don't have to apologize for your essay comments haha. You and I are very passionate Tales fans, and with videos as long as these there are a lot of discussion points to talk about, so I'm glad you're one of the people who watch the whole way through and absorb everything I say. Sometimes when I look at the analytics and it shows me how few people watch the whole way through it's pretty discouraging. What's the point of putting in as much work as I do if people are just gonna skip around the whole time? So thank you for actually dissecting what I produce to the extent that you'd have this much to say on my critiques, it means a lot. Now, for my critiques, it wasn't that I was quickly summarizing the characters as children, I was saying all there was to them. Asbel doesn't have anything else to him as a child other than being the brave, stubborn, and rebellious child that he is, and he doesn't develop from what he's established as. That's my main gripe - they're very stagnant, which in all fairness, it's a 3 hour prologue, but it doesn't grab my interest from the start if I know what they amount to as kids doesn't make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. It just feels like 3 hours of set-up, which is excessive. It doesn't help that the game gives you the option to just skip over this segment in subsequent playthroughs, so it's like they know that it was unnecessary. Being a child character doesn't mean you get a free pass from developing or being interesting. Give them backstory on how they grew into the personality they're at now, show me their aspirations and dreams, let me see them react to a multitude of different situations; give me SOMETHING. Calling the story cliché in this case isn't what I'd call bad criticism. I said in my video a cliché story doesn't usually bother me, but it does here because the best Tales stories always take cliché concepts and twist them. Tales of Symphonia, for example, starts as a beta JRPG tale; travel to x, y, and z to do the thing, but when you do that and it's revealed what was really going on, that was great! That's what Tales' stories do - they challenge the easy way out. That's why I like them, and the fact that this is one of the very few Tales games to do this is my whole issue. I said it in the video, so I wouldn't call this a bad criticism at all. For tonal dissonance, agree to disagree I guess. Being on the Wii shouldn't be an excuse to have a lighter tone. There are plenty of Wii games aimed for older audiences, and if it were made for a younger crowd than why is the game rated T for Teens? The Tales series in general is for an older audience, the console shouldn't mean a thing, especially as a series that already established its target age range. So my issue with Pascal is she amounts to "LOL INSERT RANDOM JOKE HERE XDDDD" and it's like, "Okay, but why?" She's the most comic relief comic relief character, if you catch my drift. Clearly there just for the necessary joke to lighten up the mood. I kinda got a vibe that she's trying to cheer everyone up but knows deep down how messed up some things are, which was touched on in like one scene near the end of the F arc, but it was just that one scene. I don't think enough of her character was explored minus her relationship with her sister. Malik is just kinda there for 90% of the game. He gets his character arc and all, but after that he doesn't have much of any story relevance. Neither he nor Pascal even get the light thingy connected to Sophie, so it feels like they were there to secure party member slots more than anything. They, like most of Graces' cast, have cool personalities and are likable. I just expect to see my Tales casts grow and develop over the course of the game so they feel real, and I wasn't forming any sort of connection for Pascal and Malik in particular. I don't hate them, I just don't particularly care for them is all. And like you said, if you're into the characters, then odds are you're into the story. I wasn't, so there you go. As far as combat goes, I don't think seeing pro players comboing and all proves that skill is the best. If anything, it just shows all you can do when you grind all these skills. So many combo videos amount to having ridiculous amounts of CC, which you get from grinding out all those titles. Over the game, how do I combo? It's not like in Vesperia and such where you chain different tiers of artes together, but rather using whatever artes you want back to back to back and hoping that the game gives you +10 CC or some crap. And with dodging boss attacks, I just don't think there's enough warning or a big enough cue to know for suhe re what attack's coming up. Some of the bigger bosses follow this rule, which is great, but many times it felt like bosses whipped out attacks way too fast for any human to be able to react. How am I supposed to perfect dodge if I don't know what the enemy's doing? Could this make the game too easy? Only if you take the time to learn attacks, which is kinda what the game should've done if it's rewarding you so much for dodging at the right time. In regards to titles being too much, this isn't that big a deal to me and was more just a smaller, personal issue. I just found it overwhelming, and it's literally too much to keep up with for me lol. It's why I went my first playthrough without recovery, because it was in some random ass title hidden in the literal ocean of them and I didn't bother checking because every other battle I got a new title. It was just a lot, and I know you can automate it and all, but my incredible need of control took over on that front. So yeah! Those are more of my points and whatnot. I'm glad you can disagree with a lot and still enjoy the video. It feels like someone's opinions dictate the quality of the video, and that's sad. Disagreeing with people on the internet, talking about them, and seeing where the other person's coming from is one of the best parts of platforms like this. But uh, yeah. Essay for an essay.
@@ZaffreRevolution Sure I can agree that 3 hours is a bit much, but then that's what you should've focused on. I think this part of the video would've worked better if you pointed this out and then offered solutions on how the game could've cut the fat and get to the point. I also agree that they could've done more to foreshadow what kind of people they were going to grow up being, In fairness the game does do some of that towards the very end, but you're right they could've done a better job. Again, this is the sort of thing you should've focused on more in the video. The way it comes across, you just say it's boring and the characters are archetypes which lead me feeling unconvinced. Reading this I get where you're coming from a lot better, don't be afraid to speak your mind more in your videos so people know exactly what your problems are. Echoing what I just said, I agree with this, part of the problem with the story of Graces is that it doesn't present any sort of twist to the narrative in the way Tales games usually do. To be fair you did touch on this somewhat in the video, but you should've gone into more details, hell even providing the Symphonia example would've helped your case a lot more here. The main point I was trying to get across is not that using the term cliche is a bad thing, but that you need to do extra legwork than simply using the word in order to get your argument across because simply relying on the word to do it for your doesn't work. As for the WIi thing, the only point I was making is that the team could've tried to target a different audience because of the console's younger user base. Obviously that's an assumption, but I don't think it's outside of the realm of possibility, it would also explain why the PS3 content added later feels more in-line with what we expect from Tales. It's not meant to be an excuse as to why the writing is more simplistic, just a way of explaining why the game is the way it is. I agree that Pascal and Malik don't have much plot relevance, but since I like them and their personalities so I personally don't mind. Would they have been better had they been integrated more seamlessly in the plot? Of course, but I'd rather the characters be enjoyable more than anything else.I actually found Pascal really funny, so we'll just have to disagree there. As for expecting characters to grow and develop, I think you should see a video by craftsdwarf called "Character Development is Overrated" I think it will you give you an interesting look on the topic. Character development is great, but it's not the end all be-all of writing, nor should it be in every story. I think boiling down what pro players do to just "this is what you can do when you grind out" dismisses the genuine skill these people exhibit when playing the game. It's not about hoping the game might give you +10 CC, the game has mechanics in place that reward high level play, wherein dodging and blocking at the right time rewards you with more CC. You might have a point about the game's enemies not having good enough tells for their attacks, I think that comes down to the game having too many enemies in general given that it's a 60 hour RPG, therefore not all the enemies are going to be meticulously designed in the same way Devil May Cry or Bayonetta is given that those games are significantly shorter and thus have far less enemies to design around. Again this isn't to excuse the game, it's still a problem, but it's an understandable one. Still the point of contention I had is that you said luck overrides skill and I think that's wrong and I pointed out the pro players because they prove that you absolutely can get good enough at the game based on skill and that the mechanics are geared more towards that, not luck. I've always maintained that the title system is the best character progression system out of any Tales game and unless Arise does something awesome, I don't think that's gonna change for me. There are videos I've hated that I totally agreed with and vice versa, me agreeing/disagreeing has nothing to do with the quality of the video. We may not totally see eye to eye on Graces, but I think you presented yourself well enough where I got where you were coming from which is the important part.
@@DanielSantosAnalysis I know I’m over a year late on this, but I love reading your comments here. I agree with you wholeheartedly about every point you have made, almost frighteningly so. I have to point out what you said about the battle system a little. I love how you say that it takes skill and isn’t just about luck. I have played the ever loving shit out of graces over the past decade since I got it. I have multiple walkthroughs and yet I feel like I still have things I’m learning about in terms of combat. There’s so much more to the game possible than I ever could have thought previous. The rules for dualizing has blown me away comparing it to other tales games and even persona (my personal favorite game series). I find dualizing is about as complex or even more so than persona’s min-max person fusion system. There’s just so much you can dualize. Anyways, back to the combat, there’s so many different ways to go about gaining cc. Even staggering, if you guard until red you can break the enemy’s guard and stun them for a short period of time (something like that), you can hold down the arte button to auto chain them together. That alone blew my mind my like 4th run through of the game. I personally think the story is decent at best but there’s just a charm to it that makes me like it more that I probably should. Sorry for making this long ass comment, I just felt passionate reading your comments and wanted to share a little. Thank you for the read!
a little note on pascal's annoying habit of spellcasting up close: shes supposed to. its her gimmick. her physical attacks are ranged and her spells are up close.
So for me, this game's combat is the best in the franchise. The story however.. it was predictable and a bit childish. Still, i loved it and Sophie will always have a special place in my heart
I found that funny since when I cleared the hardest mode in that game, I was on the last turn and I just somehow felt it was going to be Emile so I hovered over it and sure enough I heard "Courage i--" before snatching up the card. XD
One thing about the gameplay is that attacks have impact. Asbel's phantasm flash feels like an electric chair whereas Sorey's is a taser. Not a good analogy but you get the point.
It sounds like you don't like this game. That sucks... It is the only Tales of game I've played, even though I've bought a few others. Regardless, it is one of my favorite games of all time, only behind FFT and FFX. It's too bad you chose to do a negative video about ANYTHING instead of just keeping it to yourself.
This is the game that nails in my head that, while a story can have a good pacing and everything, the end is when you'll realise that its either good, shit, or good shit. F arc overall is great and the ending made me love the game.
I will never understand the Cheria hate. Also, Graces F has the best combat in the series by far. ToGF is top 3 Tales of game for me and top 10 Jrpg for me as well thanks to amazing comedy and phenomenal combat. I am old, like, real old. The childhood arc is fine, people cry about it way too much. I think it is just trendy to hate on the childhood arc because God forbid a Jrpg has backstory that is not a text blurb or a cutscene with an exposition dump. ... the combat though 😚
Finally someone with a Fucking brain, I swear when zaffre tells everyone a game Is crap everyone fucking agrees, this guy is the reason I don't play the tales games anymore.
@@user-nk8kb7ps5p You have great taste Z =) that or I am falling into the confirmation bias bliss that Fakebook and Twat-er users feel =P Graces F > Arise
Discovered tales of series back in the day thanks to this game, and finally played through it on RPCS3 since ps2 and ps4 are the only sony consoles i ever had.With undub, ofcourse, because Takahiro Sakurai(Asbel's JP voice actor) and Kana Hanazawa(Sophie's jp voice actor) are just that good.About to start F arc though so i'm not really finished here.I love the combat system, i really do, same with titles system and eleth mixer,hell, i kind of love the eleth burst system as well.What i hate is some dungeon layouts and the damn puzzles(long color puzzle in main arc's last dungeon, looking at you) the amount of backtracking i had to do...damn.Oh, and yeah, the whole screen nuking boss mystic artes which you can't even evade/guard are bullshit, but they look cool so i can forgive that.
I think it's a nice Tales of game. The kids ark was necessary for some character development and a super cute battle theme remix😍 My favorite thing is let the AI do the awesome combat whenever is necessary.
The way you describe the story and characters of Graces is kinda how I feel about Vesperia :P Tho Graces isn't really high on my list of Tales games, but Vesperia is probably below it whhen it comes to story^^
Graces f was the second Tales game I played, and coming off of Symphonia (my first and favorite) I was blown away by art style and especially that combat. Asbel has one of my favorite designs in all of Tales, the combat is up their on my favorites list along with Vesperia and Berseria, and I just really enjoyed how much ambition was put into this game. Also, the English Opening for Graces f White Wishes is still my favorite opening out of all the Tales games. Of course, it's not perfect. Not by a long shot. But I can still respect the game for what it tried to accomplish. And I was glad when Aston died. Worst father in Tales EVER. Great review Zaffre! Looking forward to your next one!
@@ZaffreRevolution You know there's these books that cut your HP and half but give you more EXP? I forgot I set those up. So I play the main story with my HP cut twice and half and finally noticed that right in front of the final boss. That was more of a self-inflicted difficulty but it was still hellish
Oh, God, *THIS* One... Not *THIS* On- Wait, Y Is The Hot Water Not Working? Edit: 8:43 *HAH!!!* U Thought This Was Going To Be FE3H... But It Was *I!!! GENEALOGY OF THE HOLY WAR!!!* Ps: When FE4 Localized/Remake?
graces was my intro into the tales series and oh boy i remember me n my mom had to start the game over because we didnt play properly and couldn't beat kurt
I'm probably gonna get shot for this, but the combat was one of my least favorite things about this game. Gone was the fast paced action everyone was used to, and instead was replaced with this confusing, clunky mess of a battle system. Unless you master the combat, your experience with this is just block, attack, block, attack, wash, rinse, repeat. Also, the gauge takes way too long to refill, making it more frustrating to fight. Even the A artes I found incredibly confusing and stupid, so I didn't even bother unlocking them. Personally, Xillia was the one that got it right with the combat, as it took Graces and made it SO much better. I can see why they scraped this combat system after one game and went back to the original way.
Totally agree on the cascading combat. I remember that too, despite playing decades ago. Once you start getting smacked, you're toast. Period. But bosses got to escape stun locking. *Sigh*
Abyss, Graces and Vesperia are probably my favourite three in the series but I recognise that this really comes down to me playing the game couch co op with my cousin. I had a blast co op with the battle system of these games, although Abyss is imo, WAY stronger story wise. Phantasia and Symphonia got me into this series and they will always remain in extremely important to me because of that. I honestly am still waiting for Abyss and the Xillia games to get the remaster treatment. Abyss could benefit a lot with it, and both Xillias could really do with the performance boost since the battles do suffer from significant slowdown sometimes. All in all, I don’t really hate any Tales of game in the series (not even Symphonia 2), and I was one of the few people that liked both team Destiny and team Symphonia, they had different styles but I think I prefer it to the amalgamated mess the series seems to be nowadays (I should say that I don’t hate any of the newer games either, I just don’t think they’re as good, the last great one for me was Xillia 2). Anyway good video. ^_^
Tales of the abyss and berseria are my favorite tales games. I’m currently playing through vesperia definitive edition rn and loving it so far! The tales games are my favorite rpg series aside from Persona.
This was A great game to play and combat my faveorite. So much so zesteria hadto use graces to hype itself up. Color characters story was all so great snd seeing a real ending where the couple get together and everyone was so cool aside Malik in gameplay.
Are you complaining about the first arc being slow but dont mention that Kingdom Hearts 2 and Persona 4 takes around the same time to finish and P4 is the worst since you will only do is press A/B/X/whatever just to finally be free to battle in the dungeons.... while KH2 takes too long only being able to basic combo and rarelly do the gimmick and control.the main protagonist. This game at least let you grind or having fun with the controls of the gameplay.
I like the story. It is very Fire Emblem 7 to be honest. The first half is very political oriented plot and then the magical plot happens and than when they uncovers the past of this world the plot gone back into a political driven story to protect the world from people that long gone wants to rule over... actually is almost the same plot as Eternia. With Inferia and Celestia. I dont know why you keep telling this is a bad story told.
After playing arise I’ve become obsessed with this series… still in the thick of arise but man I cannot wait to play the others in this series, I wish arise sold better than average so Bandai might consider doing more with the older games… hopefully they do anyway but guess only time will tell. Thanks to arise, vesperia, and berseria going on deep sales, I have been watching through your review series… and have become a fan of your content, can’t wait to see which game you do next!
I am just terrible at action games, so I have had a difficult time getting into the Tales series. But I was addicted for weeks with Tales of Graces f because at the lower difficulty levels I could just button mash and new techniques and bonuses and titles would constantly generate. The "every plot point foreshadowed hours before reveal" got annoying.
Alright so i wanted to come back here since i recently (earlier this year) finished the main story of the game and i just beat the Future arc. For the longest time i kind of hated playing this game because i kept getting my butt kicked around but at some point i decided to grind a bit my titles bc why not they gave cool effects for moves and more stats and uhh i realized playing on harder difficulties was more rewarding so one thing led to another and i found myself unlocking the very hard and evil difficulty and i don't know if that's because I'm the type that loves to grind for semi useful stuff but the game became super fun to play *on Evil* heck i found myself beating bosses on Evil *ON FREAKING EVIL* BOSSES THAT I USED TO FEEL AWFUL BEING SHIT AT I JUST CASUALLY STROLLED OVER THEM ON EVIL okay that's a lie they were a good challenge and I've seen that game over screen a lot but it didn't feel like awful ? But i still kicked their asses on evil hell i beat the final boss on hard with *a damage halver* that i forgot i had put on lmao i was deadass like how the heck is this dude this strong. But to go back to my personal feelings i never thought I'd be enjoying this game so much gameplay wise and that's genuinely because i started putting more time into acquiring and mastering more titles i feel like the game greatly undermines titles as they really give the player an edge in combat. I'd like to also mention the damned synthesis system which i finally figured doesn't consume your items but just makes them refine-able which was confusing to understand for me. Overall I'd say grinding titles really made for a better experience for me (although grinding for Arte usages to unlock the titles really is exhausting but it's rewarding). Now I'm lowkey prepping for a Ng+ so i won't spend as much time meeting the requirements for unlocking titles and boy there's quite a lot of them with very obnoxious requirements like: -Doing x amount of crit hits or -using x amount of eleth mixer And i could talk about artes titles and how magic users have it easy since they *don't have to touch their target to raise the count by one* but I'd be here all day so there !
Zestiria devs be like: You know that BS iron stance at Graces' bosses and selected enemies? Let's copy that and give it to ALL ENEMIES IN THE GAME, then we also add resist elements. Let's not stop there. Spells that already deal BS damage gets cast faster when the player use wrong type of attack. We're not done yet. Let's give enemy spell casters the ability to teleport ANYWHERE in the field.
Ah! I agree that Aston is such an unbearably unlikable character and dad. Hubert didn't deserve it. :( Anyways, I can ignore the flaws because the combat system is just that fun. Everyone plays differently yet interestingly, even the magic casters. I need to finish it 😅
@@kain7513 Admittedly Xillia 1 is subpar as far as story goes. But Xillia 2 improves on it astronomically because its simple and to the point while still being interesting and emotional. The gameplay is really fun because you have access to so many different skills at the flick of the analog and the normal buttons. That, combined with all the new "Linked Artes (Basically "Super moves") you can do , Xillia 2 is phenomenal.
@@kain7513 Different game, different mechanics. Youre essentially saying " Final Fantasy 15 has warp strike so why doesnt FF7 remake have it?? A herp derp derp"
Tales of graces f is my first tales game in the series that I have played and bought without watching any reviews. I have yet to beat this game or any other tales games yet because I forgot how to play it
The story is similar to a book(& a half) I read before(I don't remember the name of it at all),the story was pretty good,the way the world was written fit the story and the characters matched it also,Graces issue seems the story(Kid and Main arc) is meant for a different cast and world and this may be because of the French the game has which is trying but not doing very well fusing with the Japanese child half of the game,The F arc is like a novella,which is much easier to organize stuff. This probably don't make sense. I would still enjoy the game 100% like any Tales of game. And some French Je t'aime ma sorcière Magilou. (Might have miss spelled)
Been replaying all the modern Tales games recently. So far I have to rank Graces, Zest/Bers over Vesperia, Symphonia and definitely over Hearts R. Not above Abyss, which is still my fav. Gonna have to replay Xillia 1/2 when I'm done and might revisit Legendia too because the music is just so good. Definitely an unpopular opinion. I've also gotta say, I've never had problems with higher difficulty combat and AI in this game. It's all been dependent on actually setting character strategies, enabling/disabling arts and proper management of titles and skills. Rarely has the combat ever felt like any degree of luck after really deep diving into the prep.
As my first game in the series, it was soooooo hard to get into the other games, I love this game but I blame it as to why I can’t start and finish the other tales games I’ve played, except for xillia 2, which is another people don’t like that much
After some time thinking.... YEAH! THIS IS STILL MY FAVORITE TALES OF GAME! The story is still great, not amazing but great still, I actually played as if it was an anime (as the way it looks and all) and worked so nicelly.
I'd say it's the top 3 for me, of all I played (zesteria, berseria, xillia, graces f, symphonia, and vesperia) I'd say my fave is berseria, followed by either graces or vesp, then xillia, symph, then zest This game was great, the problems I had was the easy mode trap where playing easy mode could make you so weak it destroys you if you go on a higher difficulty, random rare drops for stuff(the dolls....), and the fusion, while I remember it well could be very convoluted and could completely remove a bonus if you don't know what your doing
@deathblade32 Berseria is great that a revenge medieval quest allows you to gather all sorts of party members, very archetype-al but effective. Zestiria is the same but the opposite... except for THAT DECISION! Which I don't mind having an assassin class oriented into japanese style instead of a royalty British* Knight class... they didn't want to stale to let both humans be the focus and let the cast overall shine (vesperia made this and it was bad to me). Good in papel, lack in execution. Vesperia never played
Grace has graced us with it's presence. Also I have watched a playthrough and I think I might be mixed on this game. Also Asbel had a horrible father. Also side note two. Also Aston isn't the worst video games dad. Heihachi Mishima,Ghethis Harmonia and Relius Clover are far worse. Aston.. is below them...which isn't good.
i really disagree with the notion of the protagonist having to be the strongest or being able to protect others. in fact i actually really like asbel. and i think you were pretty close, sophie isnt the protagonsit in name, but she is the actual protagonist. wich i think is pretty cool. while we often get a male and female protagonsit in most tales games (lloyd/colette, yuri/estelle, ludger/elle and so on) i think its nice dat the "not main female protagonist" gets time to shine. obviously i might be biased as a girl who wants more female protagonists. but its nice to have the roles kinda reversed for once. its all a point of view and i think you just are stuck in viewing it from 1 perspective wich youre used to from other games.
i'm not "stuck in one perspective" my problem isn't that asbel is weak, idc about that. i care that he's constantly talking about wanting to get stronger, and the game making it abundantly clear that his yearning for strength. i care that he's always whining about a specific flaw and the game never makes an effort for him to either get over it or just get better. it's tiring and as a result he feels incredibly static which in and of itself isn't an issue. but he's stuck in a state i didn't find enjoyable, and only got better at the last second when he finally did something noteworthy which was after the final boss, and during the epilogue
Great review you pretty much summed my feelings of the game, I like the comedy, the future arc was great, with every character having a deeper goal, except cheria who keeps her goal of trying to marry asbel, let me tell you she is patient, but Hubert tries to find love in pascal and has the struggle of choosing between her and the president's daughter, asbel has the struggle of finding a proper partner, we all know it's cheria but still, plus keeping tabs on lambda and making sure he's behaving I love how they found a way to make the characters all have some struggle or goal The combat was fun and frustrating, as you said. I think the middle of the game is the best, because you just don't have many enemies that are overleveled compared to you, but towards the end of the game, even with new game+ perks I had to tone down the difficulty, because it was getting ridiculous, regular enemies 3-5 shoting me and multiple bosses (more than one boss on screen) becoming more and more common, it was just getting ridiculous, so I bit the bullet and just toned down the difficulty from evil to normal, because even hard was getting impossible In the end I still like graces, the skits are some of the best, comedy wise, in the series, they just have that silly humor that makes me giggle every time, and the combat can be fun, while it still isn't even closer to some of my favorite combat styles, I can see why people like it, which was one of my objectives when replaying graces, see why people liked the combat, I guess I now know why So graces is good in my eyes, not great, not bad, but good By the by will the graces streams continue or will you finish vesperia first I've been out of the streams because school, but when do you plan to resume them, or will they be whenever you fill like it I'm sorry if this is a bit annoying but your streams are some of my favorites because it's actually possible to talk to the streamer since the chat isn't being flooded by messages
vesperia was just a one-off chill thing. graces will continue when i get the time! we gotta finish what we started ya know? enjoyed reading your thoughts
My first tales game was tales of the abyss on the 3ds. After that I played hearts r, zestiria, berseria, and vesperia definitive edition. I love these games! I really want to get a ps3 just to play this and tales of xillia 1 and 2
I'm so grateful that someone put into words how this game made me feel. Your point that Sophie should have been the central protagonist makes SO much sense! I can't believe I hadn't thought of that before, but it would've been more of a compelling story. And honestly, Cheria having a crush on side-character!Asbel wouldn't have been as bad imo. There was so much potential in this game, but it just felt like it fell flat and was phoned in at almost every opportunity. Such a shame. Even still, you're right - the battle system was a blast! Thank you for always taking the time to make these retrospectives. I get so excited every time I see them uploaded, and you make such compelling points. Keep up the wonderful work, my friend!
I've always wanted to play graces F. I never owned a PS3 or 4 I have a switch and will soon be playing Symphonia, and I have Vesperia which is an awesome game. Graces and Xilia are the two tales games I want to play most.
Every nail was hit on its head. I never finished this game and o don’t think I ever will. Even if the future arc is the real good part of the game. Why would I play a game that only gets good in its last 10 hours of play.
The voices in the English Graces were terrible. I love Laura Bailey as Marta in Symphonia but I'm pretty eh on her as Cheria, and I'm pretty sure the only reason I'm okay with Hubert is because I'm already bias toward Steve Staley's voicing for Jay in Legendia. Graces is one of the only Tales games I prefer in Japanese because the JP voice acting is beyond /stellar/, whereas the acting is, considering the names of the voice actors gathered for Graces in English, pretty awful. The characters absolutely have the emotion in their voice to carry scenes in JP... but in English I end up laughing at it more often than not, and considering Graces is one of my favorite Tales games... /oof/. I agree it's unusual for the English acting in Tales to be the way it is in Graces, because usually it's amazing and that goes as far back as Symphonia's original English release as the very first overseas Tales game. All in all I love Graces' characters. Personally I can tell what they were doing with the plot, but the way it was presented does make me understand why people were confused about it. They knew what they wanted to do from what I can tell, but the pacing made it seem otherwise. The plot itself I would say is great, but the pacing tripped it up a bit imo. While I disagree about Asbel regarding your detailing, I feel like that's a long comment for... not right now. :P And it's 2021 now. Ngl Team Destiny was by far my preferred development team, so I find it no surprise that I love Graces and find myself more eh on Team Symphonia's titles. I mean hell, I'd even argue anything Symphonia /attempted/ to do, Rebirth did way better and had actual results to show for it plot-wise. Symphonia suffers from both /knowing/ everything the cast does will amount to nothing at all (because ToP is its future and they have /all/ the same problems Symphoania's cast had, meaning everything ToS' cast aimed to accomplished went absolutely /nowhere/ and they should've realized that from the get go since ToP was the first title to the franchise), and imo a very boring cast where I could only get attached to two of the characters sufficiently... and one of those characters canonically died while the other /can/ die depending on your chosen path. But let's be real, Team Melfes was the best team of them all. 😌😌😌 -coughs in bias-
I get it! The Dad is a duch but the world setting as medieval european style is perfect. Reminds me a lot A LOT of Fire Emblem world building, more especially, FE Genealogy of the Holy War, but less depressing(?), I guess. And the cast is most Lords its amazing! I get that this was a Wii game first and ToS2 was more matured, but the story was about kids not "adults". Thr friendship element was made great. And Asbel struggles too many times but I get it and he has abilities and have moments that he is a badass. Cheria is a b* but her growth was the better in my opinion. Also, the difficulty mode can be changed in the go! So satisfying! Also, also.... the decision to make a Wii game was made for some thoughts, like the possibility to play with co-op!!! I think that in the Wii you could play with 4 wii motes, dont know about the PS3, only saw 2 players co op but not 4. Could you clarify this issue?
29:31 Wow, part of me wanted real bad to forget all of that. Now it all came back. Reminds me of one reason why I never played more than half new game +.
This honestly feels like the shortest Tales game for me. It feels like it goes by so fast and not really in a good sort of way? Don't get me wrong, I think this game is ok and I enjoyed my time playing it, but it's also kinda dull in terms of the story (at least compared to other tales games) so it feels like I blink and suddenly I'm already at the end of the Main arc. Idk the specific time it took me to beat it bc, unfortunately, my ps3 died so I can't really check. Side note: I'm glad I've found someone who doesn't like Cheria as much as I do XD
I love the combat in this one, but yeah the story is so bleh and it shows its cracks in harder difficulties mainly cause of the AI, but a sad thing about tales games is if you play coop with even one other person it trivalizes even tougher optional bosses, that being said I've never gotten anyone interested in playing a tales game for more than an hour, and that's a shame since its always been a thing you could do. I mean even if there were a way to play online with someone, who want to watch you walk through the story? Maybe there could just be a bossrush mode you could team up for to push some combat limits but eh. Other than that I got tired of smashing items into my gear and I under utilized your mixing bottle cooking side upgrades most of the game and that's a shame cause that speeds up progression and titles and such, and whoa damn, beat the main arc and just have soooo many titles left -_- tip for anyone playing make sure you go for titles that get your party progressing on the bench if you don't want anyone left behind. I've been trying to get into another tales game but this is the last one that gripped me for gameplay, walked away from xilla, and the demo of Beseria made me feel too limited in what I could do, and I know that is prolly unfair, you gotta play hours of graces F to get your action limit up to do cool combos or skills to just keep everything moving. Anyone who liked this one got a feeling of which game I should tackle after it? Also Pascal is only here to be a troll, and if you don't like her trolling I guess you won't like her, but there are some good pascal montages on youtube to tell if you will XD
I agree with a lot with what you said. I disagree with Asbel being the worst MC, in fact I’ll admit he grew on me but he’s not on the same level as other MC’s. The future arc definitely saved Graces cause if Graces didn’t have the future arc I would have returned the game.
60 your first time through??????? i finished the main arc (not the future arc yet) in 30 hours. maybe i just missed something, but i felt the game was short in compairison to other titles.
i think the main party (excluding the future arc) focus too much on being likeable, relatable, sympathetic etc instead of being all that compelling or interesting in any way besides their actions like Richard for example. He does bad stuff because spoilers! Some thing on another planet told him to “ah i feel so bad for him” and such sorry if i am not expressing my point well i just want to say what i think one of the reasons why the main cast is one of the worst in the series.
well after i got the platinum trophy after iirc 3 maybe 4 playthroughs without a guide no less, i felt very satisfied especially defeating those dragons and the rockogong...
I never played a Tales game but is it bad that after watching this I kinda wanna play this you. I'm sorry the things you said about the cast sounded enjoyable to me
I kind of love Cheria. I guess I'd agree she doesn't have much of an arc, but I just really like her personality. She's probably my favorite female character in the series just because of her personality
I remember thinking this game was super long and just kept going and going at the end... Guess now that you say its the longest of all tales game makes sense now 😆
My first takes game was Phantasia on the Gameboy, but this was the one I jumped back into after years. It was cool, but I was blown out of the water by Xillia which was the one I bought after.
Ahhhh I miss seing your review so much. Eather way, Tales of Grace F. This a game that intruduce to me the series as well shows the 1st mec of future Tales games . For what I seing off, it pretty good. Though one thing for sure this game needs a remake to fix some the mistakes like: Making storytelling much easier to engage in (oh and be too long). Fix the UI Ajust the difficulty (expecely the boss) and Make a easy to get the items. Hopelly someday we get a remake of this just Vesperia did.😉 If have to pick the game to start the tales series would be this although I need to wait for a remake(I don't a Ps3 and plan to buy) . Overall a great review. Looking forward to the next one. Oh and this one tops 10 games to love and hate. 😉
Another great review! While it's not a top tales game for me, like you, I was very conflicted about it as a whole. You did a great job expressing that. Great work as usual!
Oh Graces. You are a game. An enjoyable one. And a frustrating one. Worst A.I though? Yeah imma have to hard disagree. While the strategy menu is pretty limiting, if you set them right, you should never have an issue. Hell I never did. That doesn’t mean it’s good but there is a way to fix em. Meanwhile Zesteria’s is 10 times worse. I’ll go more into that when we get to the retrospective of that game, but the way you describe the AI here applies to Zesteria with even worse strategy options and dumber AI. Oh and don’t even get me started on Symphonia or Legendia in terms of AI. I’d be here all day. Aside from that, this was a pretty good retrospective. Sure there are some things I disagree with here but that’s not really an issue or anything. I enjoyed finally seeing you talk about this graceful mess of a game.
oh god i forgot about zestiria's ai. great. i honestly didn't mind symphonia's ai tho, i thought they were pretty good. not nearly as frustrating as this game, but we'll see when i play it again. legendia i honestly don't remember but the combat system was so barebones that i dunno if it affected things to a great enough extent, take that as you will haha
It is difficult for me to enjoy a long game with a main protagonist I don't like. I don't have Graces f anymore and remember only playing a small portion (maybe 10 or 20 hours) when it originally came out plus seeing your livestreams but I remember not liking Asbel a whole lot.
Well I’m glad you understand how the game works because I sure don’t. I always feel like I’m playing Tales games wrong somehow and that’s definitely true in this case. XD (What the F? - That’s exactly the intro I would’ve used. Would make a great title for the first episode of a Let’s Play. :D ) Oh wow you mentioned the title screen. Yeah I agree. Despite the fact that I’m not anywhere near as fond of the gameplay as most people, I actually think Graces has the best title screen in the series. And I also genuinely enjoyed walking around in the Graces world because of how the world looked. I found a lot of places visually interesting. Love the towns. The soundtrack I also agree is underrated but in the way that a lot of people notice a few not-so-great themes and universally write off the rest. :/ It doesn’t have as many of my favorites as some games but there are a few that I just LOVE and that don’t deserve to be written off. (I guess it’s worth noting that one of my favorites accompanies one of the few bosses in the game I actually liked, and I’m pretty sure most other players hate that fight. XD ) The theme I personally found most interesting that I wish the game had done more with was how Asbel sort of… loses his role as MC almost for a while. I actually would kind of like to see a whole game around what happens when the cast DOESN’T just gather around the main character because they’re ‘amazing’. I still like the characters outside of the narrative, but I feel like that would’ve been a more unexpected way to play off a classic, cheesy theme which is something I’d definitely expect from a Tales game. That also would’ve been interesting playing the whole thing from Sophie’s point of view. Hearing that I think immediately they should have done that. Then Asbel wouldn’t have to take on the job of being Mr. Protagonist. He could’ve done more of his own thing. Wow I’m really glad you like the ending to the future arc too. I was SO glad when I finished the main arc that there was another section coming because that main arc ending was just…. what? That’s it? Also Lambda is actually fun when he’s getting to chat with the main cast. XD Was NOT expecting you to take that turn on combat though. I agree 100% on the BS part. The way the characters play is great, but how the combat actually WORKS in depth is… ??? I feel like Tales struggles with this a lot and I think the main issue is a lack of ‘clarity’. I’ve played a lot of really good action games and a big difference I notice is that animations are a lot more clear on what state an enemy is in and how they’re reacting to your attacks and stuff. And the more clear a game is on that, the better it tends to work because you can really see what’s going on and even glean what an enemy is doing without even needing to look directly at them during their attack. A lot of the time in Tales I feel like I have to stare at the target constantly to tell what they’re doing and even then a lot of the animations end up being more for show than informative and the sound effects lack the punch to rise above the chaos of battle, which could help a lot with being able to time things accurately. Visuals aren’t enough. You need audio cues too. With the combat footage here, watching the enemies I see a lot of janky blinks between animations and stuff. I never feel like I can tell whether an attack I throw out is going to land properly or not and when it doesn’t I don’t feel like there’s anything I can do about it. That’s why I’m so excited about Arise because the attack animations they’ve shown so far, especially from that one golem are WAY more clear and have so much more impact. I hate it in action RPGS when an attack from an enemy is so harmless or such a nonevent that I don’t even register it as an attack mentally. I want attacks to trigger my inner “GET THE F OUT OF THE WAY!” reflex when I see them coming. Graces’ title screen always makes me want to jump in and play it, but it doesn’t feel quite as fun as it looks. I prefer playing as my Hubert character in PSO2. XD I feel the same way overall. It’s most fun when played for a good time. :)
we see eye to eye on pretty much everything! i'm really relieved people are actually finding my arguments on this sound, with some even agreeing with me. that's a good outlook on tales' combat. there is a lot of depth and whatnot, but when it comes to warning the player about attacks (especially in a game mostly about dodging) the series doesn't really understand how to do that. that being said, other games do what they're aiming for a lot better than here, but because the series has kinda been sticking with the graces combat system, the devs need to get the hang of that visual and audible warnings. i agree that arise is looking like a huge step in the right direction in that regard and is one of the reasons i'm looking forward to it!
Man everytime i try to play this game i just shift back to how i felt when i gave up on it ultra late in the game because i couldn't handle a boss like for real ? I've never had this awful feeling of sucking so much at a game than in Graces F and on top of that i had a hard time getting a grip on the combat system Well hoping one day I'll get back to it (considering i have every Team Destiny games left to do it'll be nice to at least understand how to play Graces as a basis ^^;) cool trivia: I'm in a Tales discord where people there are pretty serious on it, i know Cheria is busted…how ? Idk but i know they've said she is
This game has one of the best story, second best I've played of all tales. Asbel seems like a weak character if in animation series, but strong asf in combat.
"Sidenote #4: I know there's a sidequest that explains their dad's reasoning for doing this, but it's so stupid and doesn't justify his actions as much as the writers want it to. Screw Aston."
Maybe the real Tales of graces were the friends we made along the way
Rurouni That makes perfect sense
The f is for friends
Personally I loved the story. It doesn't always have to be super deep, but the whole concept of friendship and connections really hit me home personally. It's a story I will defend to the end.
My short thoughts on the game:
*Positives:* The cast is very likeable, the combat system is arguably the best in the series, the visuals are charming, and the comedy is easily some of the funniest in the franchise.
*Negatives:* The story is a mess and one of the weaker in the series overall, the soundtrack is overall pretty forgettable, and the villains' of the game feel pretty lacking and out of focus.
*Overall:* Despite some hiccups I love his game, to the point that it's might even squeeze into my top 5 of the franchise. It's definitely not the deepest game in the franchise, but what it lacks in depth it makes up for in pure charm.
The mini review
Can someone please tell me what platform is tales of graces F is available cuz its so fucking annoying how even when i search it in google the first things shows tales of graces like im confused asf
@@zora4187 It's PS3 only mate.
@@dobadobadooo yeah i just realize earlier wasnt expecting you to reply this fast tho Xd
I think lambda is the best villain
Games like Graces F show how important good voice direction really is and how bad voice direction can really drag down the final product.
Also Aston's a piece of shit but worst dad in gaming history is a massive stretch, he would probably fit in as an average dad in Three Houses lol
three houses dads are something else
ZaffreRevolution and the most recent update reveals that Mercedes' dad may actually be the worst of them all, but that's all I'll say
I really don't agree with you on the childhood arc, it's actually one of my favorite parts of the game. I think you were being overly dismissive, simply because you can summarize something quickly, does not say *anything* about the quality. If you really want to, you can boil down even the greatest stories ever told into a short summary that makes it seem less than what it is. I'll grant that there wasn't a ton of plot progression, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Personally I enjoyed the childhood arc because the characters genuinely felt like kids. You derided them because you were able to boil them down their archetypes..... but they're kids, of course there's not going to be a lot to them yet. I am just really boggled by this criticism because if they were more complex, they probably wouldn't feel like children anymore which wouldn't work. That's not to say you can't write a child with nuance and complexity, but I am not really sure what you were expecting so it felt like your criticism rang hollow. I think you should've thought more about the contents of your arguments here because I don't think they're very convincing. That said, my issue with the childhood arc is moreso the gameplay as the combat boils down to mashing X the entire time which isn't fun.
Oof, really did not like your diatribe about cliches as you do yourself zero favors falling back on such a bad form of criticism. You can't just say "it's bad because it's cliche" because believe it or not, despite the negative connotation, a cliche is not itself a bad thing. You HAVE to provide examples as to WHY the cliche is bad, simply bringing up that something is cliche means you're relying on the word itself to make your argument for you which is a huge foe paw.
Maybe I need to replay it, but I don't recall the tonal dissonance being as bad as you make it out to be. I thought the game was both goofy and serious when it needed to be and I don't think the silliness detracted from the moments it was playing it straight. I don't think the entire game is meant to be a complete joke, it clearly does have moments where it wants to be taken seriously, but I do think the game was targeted at a younger audience since it was a Wii title originally. I don't think Dawn of the New World having darker elements contradicts this because that game was a direct sequel and was attempting to be thematically consistent with its predecessor as opposed to Graces which is its own title.
I definitely agree though that the main theme of "friendship" is utterly obnoxious easily the worst aspect of the game. It's shoved in awkwardly during dialogue and there's nothing interesting done with the concept throughout the game. I also agree that Asbel was a missed opportunity and one of the weaker Tales of protags. PASCAL IS A QUEEN THO HOW FUCKING DARE YOU and Malek is awesome, don't know why you're hating of them.
It might seem like I love the story, but honestly I don't. As far as Tales games go, I think it's only okay. There are worse stories in the series *cough*Zestiria*cough* but I'd say most games in the series are much better written. I do think I like the characters more than you did though and I think that's why I look back on the writing a bit more fondly.
As far as your complaints for the gameplay, most of it sounded fair. I haven't played the game in awhile to be fair and when I did I played most of it on either normal, moderate or hard so the issues you had weren't nearly as bad and explains why I wasn't bothered by them, but I think it's fair to point out the lack of a magic guard being an issue on the higher difficulties. I think a counterpoint to that though is that you could probably dodge those attacks if you're good enough, but at the same time there's no need to remove magic guard or making recovery a fucking skill you need to learn, it's just unnecessary. I don't think the game *needs* a jump though, but it would've been cool to have as it would've added another layer to the combat. I don't agree though that "too much is left up to chance and not skill" I mean, you can look up any Donguri combo video you want, never getting hit during boss fights and beating them with a single character which disproves this point. I also don't agree that titles are "too much" when the game literally lets you automate it and completely ignore if you really want to. I personally never found it overwhelming, the title system is my favorite progression system out of any Tales game and I desperately want them to bring it back in some form in Arise. Well, I am glad you at least changed your mind arte trees since you dismissed them as shallow before.
I wouldn't go as far as to call the entire game a mess, but I can at least agree that it is messy, as pedantic as that sounds. I feel like every time you release a Tales video I have to leave a fucking essay for you and I apologize for that. As a hardcore fan of the series though, I can't help it, I am very passionate about it so I feel the need to express myself and respond to most of what you have to say (if only I could turn this productivity into more scripts for my own videos >_>). Anyways, I hope this didn't come off as overly negative and to be clear, I don't think this is a bad video, in fact I think you're getting better and better as you make them. Practice makes perfect as they say, keep honing your skills and improving your writing, it's literally a never ending struggle as you can never learn too much about being a better writer.
Ah, I was waiting for this comment. So first I wanna say you don't have to apologize for your essay comments haha. You and I are very passionate Tales fans, and with videos as long as these there are a lot of discussion points to talk about, so I'm glad you're one of the people who watch the whole way through and absorb everything I say. Sometimes when I look at the analytics and it shows me how few people watch the whole way through it's pretty discouraging. What's the point of putting in as much work as I do if people are just gonna skip around the whole time? So thank you for actually dissecting what I produce to the extent that you'd have this much to say on my critiques, it means a lot.
Now, for my critiques, it wasn't that I was quickly summarizing the characters as children, I was saying all there was to them. Asbel doesn't have anything else to him as a child other than being the brave, stubborn, and rebellious child that he is, and he doesn't develop from what he's established as. That's my main gripe - they're very stagnant, which in all fairness, it's a 3 hour prologue, but it doesn't grab my interest from the start if I know what they amount to as kids doesn't make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. It just feels like 3 hours of set-up, which is excessive. It doesn't help that the game gives you the option to just skip over this segment in subsequent playthroughs, so it's like they know that it was unnecessary. Being a child character doesn't mean you get a free pass from developing or being interesting. Give them backstory on how they grew into the personality they're at now, show me their aspirations and dreams, let me see them react to a multitude of different situations; give me SOMETHING.
Calling the story cliché in this case isn't what I'd call bad criticism. I said in my video a cliché story doesn't usually bother me, but it does here because the best Tales stories always take cliché concepts and twist them. Tales of Symphonia, for example, starts as a beta JRPG tale; travel to x, y, and z to do the thing, but when you do that and it's revealed what was really going on, that was great! That's what Tales' stories do - they challenge the easy way out. That's why I like them, and the fact that this is one of the very few Tales games to do this is my whole issue. I said it in the video, so I wouldn't call this a bad criticism at all. For tonal dissonance, agree to disagree I guess. Being on the Wii shouldn't be an excuse to have a lighter tone. There are plenty of Wii games aimed for older audiences, and if it were made for a younger crowd than why is the game rated T for Teens? The Tales series in general is for an older audience, the console shouldn't mean a thing, especially as a series that already established its target age range.
So my issue with Pascal is she amounts to "LOL INSERT RANDOM JOKE HERE XDDDD" and it's like, "Okay, but why?" She's the most comic relief comic relief character, if you catch my drift. Clearly there just for the necessary joke to lighten up the mood. I kinda got a vibe that she's trying to cheer everyone up but knows deep down how messed up some things are, which was touched on in like one scene near the end of the F arc, but it was just that one scene. I don't think enough of her character was explored minus her relationship with her sister. Malik is just kinda there for 90% of the game. He gets his character arc and all, but after that he doesn't have much of any story relevance. Neither he nor Pascal even get the light thingy connected to Sophie, so it feels like they were there to secure party member slots more than anything. They, like most of Graces' cast, have cool personalities and are likable. I just expect to see my Tales casts grow and develop over the course of the game so they feel real, and I wasn't forming any sort of connection for Pascal and Malik in particular. I don't hate them, I just don't particularly care for them is all. And like you said, if you're into the characters, then odds are you're into the story. I wasn't, so there you go.
As far as combat goes, I don't think seeing pro players comboing and all proves that skill is the best. If anything, it just shows all you can do when you grind all these skills. So many combo videos amount to having ridiculous amounts of CC, which you get from grinding out all those titles. Over the game, how do I combo? It's not like in Vesperia and such where you chain different tiers of artes together, but rather using whatever artes you want back to back to back and hoping that the game gives you +10 CC or some crap. And with dodging boss attacks, I just don't think there's enough warning or a big enough cue to know for suhe re what attack's coming up. Some of the bigger bosses follow this rule, which is great, but many times it felt like bosses whipped out attacks way too fast for any human to be able to react. How am I supposed to perfect dodge if I don't know what the enemy's doing? Could this make the game too easy? Only if you take the time to learn attacks, which is kinda what the game should've done if it's rewarding you so much for dodging at the right time.
In regards to titles being too much, this isn't that big a deal to me and was more just a smaller, personal issue. I just found it overwhelming, and it's literally too much to keep up with for me lol. It's why I went my first playthrough without recovery, because it was in some random ass title hidden in the literal ocean of them and I didn't bother checking because every other battle I got a new title. It was just a lot, and I know you can automate it and all, but my incredible need of control took over on that front.
So yeah! Those are more of my points and whatnot. I'm glad you can disagree with a lot and still enjoy the video. It feels like someone's opinions dictate the quality of the video, and that's sad. Disagreeing with people on the internet, talking about them, and seeing where the other person's coming from is one of the best parts of platforms like this. But uh, yeah. Essay for an essay.
@@ZaffreRevolution
Sure I can agree that 3 hours is a bit much, but then that's what you should've focused on. I think this part of the video would've worked better if you pointed this out and then offered solutions on how the game could've cut the fat and get to the point. I also agree that they could've done more to foreshadow what kind of people they were going to grow up being, In fairness the game does do some of that towards the very end, but you're right they could've done a better job. Again, this is the sort of thing you should've focused on more in the video. The way it comes across, you just say it's boring and the characters are archetypes which lead me feeling unconvinced. Reading this I get where you're coming from a lot better, don't be afraid to speak your mind more in your videos so people know exactly what your problems are.
Echoing what I just said, I agree with this, part of the problem with the story of Graces is that it doesn't present any sort of twist to the narrative in the way Tales games usually do. To be fair you did touch on this somewhat in the video, but you should've gone into more details, hell even providing the Symphonia example would've helped your case a lot more here. The main point I was trying to get across is not that using the term cliche is a bad thing, but that you need to do extra legwork than simply using the word in order to get your argument across because simply relying on the word to do it for your doesn't work.
As for the WIi thing, the only point I was making is that the team could've tried to target a different audience because of the console's younger user base. Obviously that's an assumption, but I don't think it's outside of the realm of possibility, it would also explain why the PS3 content added later feels more in-line with what we expect from Tales. It's not meant to be an excuse as to why the writing is more simplistic, just a way of explaining why the game is the way it is.
I agree that Pascal and Malik don't have much plot relevance, but since I like them and their personalities so I personally don't mind. Would they have been better had they been integrated more seamlessly in the plot? Of course, but I'd rather the characters be enjoyable more than anything else.I actually found Pascal really funny, so we'll just have to disagree there.
As for expecting characters to grow and develop, I think you should see a video by craftsdwarf called "Character Development is Overrated" I think it will you give you an interesting look on the topic. Character development is great, but it's not the end all be-all of writing, nor should it be in every story.
I think boiling down what pro players do to just "this is what you can do when you grind out" dismisses the genuine skill these people exhibit when playing the game. It's not about hoping the game might give you +10 CC, the game has mechanics in place that reward high level play, wherein dodging and blocking at the right time rewards you with more CC. You might have a point about the game's enemies not having good enough tells for their attacks, I think that comes down to the game having too many enemies in general given that it's a 60 hour RPG, therefore not all the enemies are going to be meticulously designed in the same way Devil May Cry or Bayonetta is given that those games are significantly shorter and thus have far less enemies to design around. Again this isn't to excuse the game, it's still a problem, but it's an understandable one. Still the point of contention I had is that you said luck overrides skill and I think that's wrong and I pointed out the pro players because they prove that you absolutely can get good enough at the game based on skill and that the mechanics are geared more towards that, not luck.
I've always maintained that the title system is the best character progression system out of any Tales game and unless Arise does something awesome, I don't think that's gonna change for me.
There are videos I've hated that I totally agreed with and vice versa, me agreeing/disagreeing has nothing to do with the quality of the video. We may not totally see eye to eye on Graces, but I think you presented yourself well enough where I got where you were coming from which is the important part.
@@DanielSantosAnalysis I know I’m over a year late on this, but I love reading your comments here. I agree with you wholeheartedly about every point you have made, almost frighteningly so. I have to point out what you said about the battle system a little. I love how you say that it takes skill and isn’t just about luck. I have played the ever loving shit out of graces over the past decade since I got it. I have multiple walkthroughs and yet I feel like I still have things I’m learning about in terms of combat. There’s so much more to the game possible than I ever could have thought previous. The rules for dualizing has blown me away comparing it to other tales games and even persona (my personal favorite game series). I find dualizing is about as complex or even more so than persona’s min-max person fusion system. There’s just so much you can dualize. Anyways, back to the combat, there’s so many different ways to go about gaining cc. Even staggering, if you guard until red you can break the enemy’s guard and stun them for a short period of time (something like that), you can hold down the arte button to auto chain them together. That alone blew my mind my like 4th run through of the game. I personally think the story is decent at best but there’s just a charm to it that makes me like it more that I probably should. Sorry for making this long ass comment, I just felt passionate reading your comments and wanted to share a little. Thank you for the read!
a little note on pascal's annoying habit of spellcasting up close: shes supposed to. its her gimmick. her physical attacks are ranged and her spells are up close.
So for me, this game's combat is the best in the franchise. The story however.. it was predictable and a bit childish. Still, i loved it and Sophie will always have a special place in my heart
Of course you'd put the "Courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality" card when explaining the card minigame
;)
I found that funny since when I cleared the hardest mode in that game, I was on the last turn and I just somehow felt it was going to be Emile so I hovered over it and sure enough I heard "Courage i--" before snatching up the card. XD
One thing about the gameplay is that attacks have impact. Asbel's phantasm flash feels like an electric chair whereas Sorey's is a taser. Not a good analogy but you get the point.
It sounds like you don't like this game. That sucks... It is the only Tales of game I've played, even though I've bought a few others. Regardless, it is one of my favorite games of all time, only behind FFT and FFX. It's too bad you chose to do a negative video about ANYTHING instead of just keeping it to yourself.
I 100% agree with what was said in this video. Awesome review.
This is the game that nails in my head that, while a story can have a good pacing and everything, the end is when you'll realise that its either good, shit, or good shit. F arc overall is great and the ending made me love the game.
Cheria is broken AF and she's my favorite character too
I will never understand the Cheria hate. Also, Graces F has the best combat in the series by far. ToGF is top 3 Tales of game for me and top 10 Jrpg for me as well thanks to amazing comedy and phenomenal combat. I am old, like, real old. The childhood arc is fine, people cry about it way too much. I think it is just trendy to hate on the childhood arc because God forbid a Jrpg has backstory that is not a text blurb or a cutscene with an exposition dump. ... the combat though 😚
Finally someone with a Fucking brain, I swear when zaffre tells everyone a game Is crap everyone fucking agrees, this guy is the reason I don't play the tales games anymore.
God I swear everyone in the comments section are hivebrainded individuals or redditors that hadn't touched some grass..
@@user-nk8kb7ps5p You have great taste Z =) that or I am falling into the confirmation bias bliss that Fakebook and Twat-er users feel =P Graces F > Arise
After playing arise I played graces f because people kept on gasing up the combat and holy shit is It fun
Discovered tales of series back in the day thanks to this game, and finally played through it on RPCS3 since ps2 and ps4 are the only sony consoles i ever had.With undub, ofcourse, because Takahiro Sakurai(Asbel's JP voice actor) and Kana Hanazawa(Sophie's jp voice actor) are just that good.About to start F arc though so i'm not really finished here.I love the combat system, i really do, same with titles system and eleth mixer,hell, i kind of love the eleth burst system as well.What i hate is some dungeon layouts and the damn puzzles(long color puzzle in main arc's last dungeon, looking at you) the amount of backtracking i had to do...damn.Oh, and yeah, the whole screen nuking boss mystic artes which you can't even evade/guard are bullshit, but they look cool so i can forgive that.
No deaths
only game crashes
All the deaths
I think it's a nice Tales of game. The kids ark was necessary for some character development and a super cute battle theme remix😍
My favorite thing is let the AI do the awesome combat whenever is necessary.
If time allows it, please do a review of Legend of heroes. Thank youuu!!
All your complaints sound entitled and scream I'm lazy and don't know story writing or build up
no i just have a different opinion than you, no need to try and antagonize me
The way you describe the story and characters of Graces is kinda how I feel about Vesperia :P Tho Graces isn't really high on my list of Tales games, but Vesperia is probably below it whhen it comes to story^^
I prefer Graces over Pokemon Sword&Shield any given day
Graces f was the second Tales game I played, and coming off of Symphonia (my first and favorite) I was blown away by art style and especially that combat. Asbel has one of my favorite designs in all of Tales, the combat is up their on my favorites list along with Vesperia and Berseria, and I just really enjoyed how much ambition was put into this game. Also, the English Opening for Graces f White Wishes is still my favorite opening out of all the Tales games. Of course, it's not perfect. Not by a long shot. But I can still respect the game for what it tried to accomplish. And I was glad when Aston died. Worst father in Tales EVER. Great review Zaffre! Looking forward to your next one!
This is one of my favorite tales game. Even if it's choking you with the power of friendship. It's not as bad as Tales of Hearts R
see this game's a beautiful mess, but hearts r is boring as hell. at least this game has a personality
@@ZaffreRevolution
You know there's these books that cut your HP and half but give you more EXP? I forgot I set those up. So I play the main story with my HP cut twice and half and finally noticed that right in front of the final boss. That was more of a self-inflicted difficulty but it was still hellish
Minako Hiashi i personally prefer Hearts R’s combat system, it’s a shame the translation had to suck so much
Oh, God, *THIS* One... Not *THIS* On- Wait, Y Is The Hot Water Not Working?
Edit: 8:43 *HAH!!!* U Thought This Was Going To Be FE3H... But It Was *I!!! GENEALOGY OF THE HOLY WAR!!!*
Ps: When FE4 Localized/Remake?
Bardock SkyWalker hopefully soon, hopefully soon
graces was my intro into the tales series and oh boy i remember me n my mom had to start the game over because we didnt play properly and couldn't beat kurt
I'm probably gonna get shot for this, but the combat was one of my least favorite things about this game. Gone was the fast paced action everyone was used to, and instead was replaced with this confusing, clunky mess of a battle system. Unless you master the combat, your experience with this is just block, attack, block, attack, wash, rinse, repeat. Also, the gauge takes way too long to refill, making it more frustrating to fight. Even the A artes I found incredibly confusing and stupid, so I didn't even bother unlocking them. Personally, Xillia was the one that got it right with the combat, as it took Graces and made it SO much better. I can see why they scraped this combat system after one game and went back to the original way.
FINALLY! Someone who agrees with me!
Terrible take
Totally agree on the cascading combat. I remember that too, despite playing decades ago. Once you start getting smacked, you're toast. Period. But bosses got to escape stun locking. *Sigh*
Abyss, Graces and Vesperia are probably my favourite three in the series but I recognise that this really comes down to me playing the game couch co op with my cousin. I had a blast co op with the battle system of these games, although Abyss is imo, WAY stronger story wise.
Phantasia and Symphonia got me into this series and they will always remain in extremely important to me because of that. I honestly am still waiting for Abyss and the Xillia games to get the remaster treatment. Abyss could benefit a lot with it, and both Xillias could really do with the performance boost since the battles do suffer from significant slowdown sometimes.
All in all, I don’t really hate any Tales of game in the series (not even Symphonia 2), and I was one of the few people that liked both team Destiny and team Symphonia, they had different styles but I think I prefer it to the amalgamated mess the series seems to be nowadays (I should say that I don’t hate any of the newer games either, I just don’t think they’re as good, the last great one for me was Xillia 2).
Anyway good video. ^_^
My personal favorite in the series. Great video!
Tales of the abyss and berseria are my favorite tales games. I’m currently playing through vesperia definitive edition rn and loving it so far! The tales games are my favorite rpg series aside from Persona.
This was A great game to play and combat my faveorite. So much so zesteria hadto use graces to hype itself up.
Color characters story was all so great snd seeing a real ending where the couple get together and everyone was so cool aside Malik in gameplay.
Are you complaining about the first arc being slow but dont mention that Kingdom Hearts 2 and Persona 4 takes around the same time to finish and P4 is the worst since you will only do is press A/B/X/whatever just to finally be free to battle in the dungeons.... while KH2 takes too long only being able to basic combo and rarelly do the gimmick and control.the main protagonist.
This game at least let you grind or having fun with the controls of the gameplay.
Played this one not long ago, but actually loved it. It did grow on me
Edit: I gotta play the f arc then
I like the story.
It is very Fire Emblem 7 to be honest.
The first half is very political oriented plot and then the magical plot happens and than when they uncovers the past of this world the plot gone back into a political driven story to protect the world from people that long gone wants to rule over... actually is almost the same plot as Eternia. With Inferia and Celestia. I dont know why you keep telling this is a bad story told.
After playing arise I’ve become obsessed with this series… still in the thick of arise but man I cannot wait to play the others in this series, I wish arise sold better than average so Bandai might consider doing more with the older games… hopefully they do anyway but guess only time will tell. Thanks to arise, vesperia, and berseria going on deep sales, I have been watching through your review series… and have become a fan of your content, can’t wait to see which game you do next!
I am just terrible at action games, so I have had a difficult time getting into the Tales series. But I was addicted for weeks with Tales of Graces f because at the lower difficulty levels I could just button mash and new techniques and bonuses and titles would constantly generate. The "every plot point foreshadowed hours before reveal" got annoying.
Alright so i wanted to come back here since i recently (earlier this year) finished the main story of the game and i just beat the Future arc.
For the longest time i kind of hated playing this game because i kept getting my butt kicked around but at some point i decided to grind a bit my titles bc why not they gave cool effects for moves and more stats and uhh i realized playing on harder difficulties was more rewarding so one thing led to another and i found myself unlocking the very hard and evil difficulty and i don't know if that's because I'm the type that loves to grind for semi useful stuff but the game became super fun to play *on Evil* heck i found myself beating bosses on Evil *ON FREAKING EVIL* BOSSES THAT I USED TO FEEL AWFUL BEING SHIT AT I JUST CASUALLY STROLLED OVER THEM ON EVIL okay that's a lie they were a good challenge and I've seen that game over screen a lot but it didn't feel like awful ? But i still kicked their asses on evil hell i beat the final boss on hard with *a damage halver* that i forgot i had put on lmao i was deadass like how the heck is this dude this strong.
But to go back to my personal feelings i never thought I'd be enjoying this game so much gameplay wise and that's genuinely because i started putting more time into acquiring and mastering more titles i feel like the game greatly undermines titles as they really give the player an edge in combat.
I'd like to also mention the damned synthesis system which i finally figured doesn't consume your items but just makes them refine-able which was confusing to understand for me.
Overall I'd say grinding titles really made for a better experience for me (although grinding for Arte usages to unlock the titles really is exhausting but it's rewarding).
Now I'm lowkey prepping for a Ng+ so i won't spend as much time meeting the requirements for unlocking titles and boy there's quite a lot of them with very obnoxious requirements like:
-Doing x amount of crit hits or
-using x amount of eleth mixer
And i could talk about artes titles and how magic users have it easy since they *don't have to touch their target to raise the count by one* but I'd be here all day so there !
Zestiria devs be like:
You know that BS iron stance at Graces' bosses and selected enemies? Let's copy that and give it to ALL ENEMIES IN THE GAME, then we also add resist elements. Let's not stop there. Spells that already deal BS damage gets cast faster when the player use wrong type of attack. We're not done yet. Let's give enemy spell casters the ability to teleport ANYWHERE in the field.
Ah! I agree that Aston is such an unbearably unlikable character and dad. Hubert didn't deserve it. :(
Anyways, I can ignore the flaws because the combat system is just that fun. Everyone plays differently yet interestingly, even the magic casters. I need to finish it 😅
Graces F is my second favorite, right behind Xillia 2
@@kain7513 Admittedly Xillia 1 is subpar as far as story goes. But Xillia 2 improves on it astronomically because its simple and to the point while still being interesting and emotional. The gameplay is really fun because you have access to so many different skills at the flick of the analog and the normal buttons. That, combined with all the new "Linked Artes (Basically "Super moves") you can do , Xillia 2 is phenomenal.
@@kain7513 Far as i know, theres side stepping in Xillia 1 and 2
@@kain7513 Different game, different mechanics. Youre essentially saying " Final Fantasy 15 has warp strike so why doesnt FF7 remake have it?? A herp derp derp"
You can Magic Block by guard and pushing another button.
Tales of graces f is my first tales game in the series that I have played and bought without watching any reviews. I have yet to beat this game or any other tales games yet because I forgot how to play it
The story is similar to a book(& a half) I read before(I don't remember the name of it at all),the story was pretty good,the way the world was written fit the story and the characters matched it also,Graces issue seems the story(Kid and Main arc) is meant for a different cast and world and this may be because of the French the game has which is trying but not doing very well fusing with the Japanese child half of the game,The F arc is like a novella,which is much easier to organize stuff.
This probably don't make sense.
I would still enjoy the game 100% like any Tales of game.
And some French
Je t'aime ma sorcière Magilou.
(Might have miss spelled)
Been replaying all the modern Tales games recently. So far I have to rank Graces, Zest/Bers over Vesperia, Symphonia and definitely over Hearts R. Not above Abyss, which is still my fav. Gonna have to replay Xillia 1/2 when I'm done and might revisit Legendia too because the music is just so good. Definitely an unpopular opinion.
I've also gotta say, I've never had problems with higher difficulty combat and AI in this game. It's all been dependent on actually setting character strategies, enabling/disabling arts and proper management of titles and skills. Rarely has the combat ever felt like any degree of luck after really deep diving into the prep.
As my first game in the series, it was soooooo hard to get into the other games, I love this game but I blame it as to why I can’t start and finish the other tales games I’ve played, except for xillia 2, which is another people don’t like that much
i loved this game, dont judge it, its amazing
Thanks for your review! Very thorough and with a decent amount of humour. Love it :)
After some time thinking....
YEAH! THIS IS STILL MY FAVORITE TALES OF GAME!
The story is still great, not amazing but great still, I actually played as if it was an anime (as the way it looks and all) and worked so nicelly.
I'd say it's the top 3 for me, of all I played (zesteria, berseria, xillia, graces f, symphonia, and vesperia) I'd say my fave is berseria, followed by either graces or vesp, then xillia, symph, then zest
This game was great, the problems I had was the easy mode trap where playing easy mode could make you so weak it destroys you if you go on a higher difficulty, random rare drops for stuff(the dolls....), and the fusion, while I remember it well could be very convoluted and could completely remove a bonus if you don't know what your doing
@deathblade32
Berseria is great that a revenge medieval quest allows you to gather all sorts of party members, very archetype-al but effective.
Zestiria is the same but the opposite... except for THAT DECISION! Which I don't mind having an assassin class oriented into japanese style instead of a royalty British* Knight class... they didn't want to stale to let both humans be the focus and let the cast overall shine (vesperia made this and it was bad to me). Good in papel, lack in execution.
Vesperia never played
Grace has graced us with it's presence.
Also I have watched a playthrough and I think I might be mixed on this game.
Also Asbel had a horrible father.
Also side note two.
Also Aston isn't the worst video games dad.
Heihachi Mishima,Ghethis Harmonia and Relius Clover are far worse. Aston.. is below them...which isn't good.
horrible is an understatement :P
I’m seeing some big improvement in your editing/timing dude, keep up the great work!
i really disagree with the notion of the protagonist having to be the strongest or being able to protect others. in fact i actually really like asbel. and i think you were pretty close, sophie isnt the protagonsit in name, but she is the actual protagonist. wich i think is pretty cool. while we often get a male and female protagonsit in most tales games (lloyd/colette, yuri/estelle, ludger/elle and so on) i think its nice dat the "not main female protagonist" gets time to shine. obviously i might be biased as a girl who wants more female protagonists. but its nice to have the roles kinda reversed for once.
its all a point of view and i think you just are stuck in viewing it from 1 perspective wich youre used to from other games.
i'm not "stuck in one perspective" my problem isn't that asbel is weak, idc about that. i care that he's constantly talking about wanting to get stronger, and the game making it abundantly clear that his yearning for strength. i care that he's always whining about a specific flaw and the game never makes an effort for him to either get over it or just get better. it's tiring and as a result he feels incredibly static which in and of itself isn't an issue. but he's stuck in a state i didn't find enjoyable, and only got better at the last second when he finally did something noteworthy which was after the final boss, and during the epilogue
Great review you pretty much summed my feelings of the game, I like the comedy, the future arc was great, with every character having a deeper goal, except cheria who keeps her goal of trying to marry asbel, let me tell you she is patient, but Hubert tries to find love in pascal and has the struggle of choosing between her and the president's daughter, asbel has the struggle of finding a proper partner, we all know it's cheria but still, plus keeping tabs on lambda and making sure he's behaving
I love how they found a way to make the characters all have some struggle or goal
The combat was fun and frustrating, as you said. I think the middle of the game is the best, because you just don't have many enemies that are overleveled compared to you, but towards the end of the game, even with new game+ perks I had to tone down the difficulty, because it was getting ridiculous, regular enemies 3-5 shoting me and multiple bosses (more than one boss on screen) becoming more and more common, it was just getting ridiculous, so I bit the bullet and just toned down the difficulty from evil to normal, because even hard was getting impossible
In the end I still like graces, the skits are some of the best, comedy wise, in the series, they just have that silly humor that makes me giggle every time, and the combat can be fun, while it still isn't even closer to some of my favorite combat styles, I can see why people like it, which was one of my objectives when replaying graces, see why people liked the combat, I guess I now know why
So graces is good in my eyes, not great, not bad, but good
By the by will the graces streams continue or will you finish vesperia first
I've been out of the streams because school, but when do you plan to resume them, or will they be whenever you fill like it
I'm sorry if this is a bit annoying but your streams are some of my favorites because it's actually possible to talk to the streamer since the chat isn't being flooded by messages
vesperia was just a one-off chill thing. graces will continue when i get the time! we gotta finish what we started ya know? enjoyed reading your thoughts
Please put this game on ps4
This was my first tales game and its what made me fall in love with the series
My first tales game was tales of the abyss on the 3ds. After that I played hearts r, zestiria, berseria, and vesperia definitive edition. I love these games! I really want to get a ps3 just to play this and tales of xillia 1 and 2
The enemy AI is the biggest reason why I LOATHE the Little Queen fight in the Future Arc
I'm so grateful that someone put into words how this game made me feel. Your point that Sophie should have been the central protagonist makes SO much sense! I can't believe I hadn't thought of that before, but it would've been more of a compelling story. And honestly, Cheria having a crush on side-character!Asbel wouldn't have been as bad imo. There was so much potential in this game, but it just felt like it fell flat and was phoned in at almost every opportunity. Such a shame. Even still, you're right - the battle system was a blast! Thank you for always taking the time to make these retrospectives. I get so excited every time I see them uploaded, and you make such compelling points. Keep up the wonderful work, my friend!
I've always wanted to play graces F. I never owned a PS3 or 4 I have a switch and will soon be playing Symphonia, and I have Vesperia which is an awesome game. Graces and Xilia are the two tales games I want to play most.
Every nail was hit on its head.
I never finished this game and o don’t think I ever will. Even if the future arc is the real good part of the game.
Why would I play a game that only gets good in its last 10 hours of play.
The voices in the English Graces were terrible. I love Laura Bailey as Marta in Symphonia but I'm pretty eh on her as Cheria, and I'm pretty sure the only reason I'm okay with Hubert is because I'm already bias toward Steve Staley's voicing for Jay in Legendia. Graces is one of the only Tales games I prefer in Japanese because the JP voice acting is beyond /stellar/, whereas the acting is, considering the names of the voice actors gathered for Graces in English, pretty awful. The characters absolutely have the emotion in their voice to carry scenes in JP... but in English I end up laughing at it more often than not, and considering Graces is one of my favorite Tales games... /oof/. I agree it's unusual for the English acting in Tales to be the way it is in Graces, because usually it's amazing and that goes as far back as Symphonia's original English release as the very first overseas Tales game.
All in all I love Graces' characters. Personally I can tell what they were doing with the plot, but the way it was presented does make me understand why people were confused about it. They knew what they wanted to do from what I can tell, but the pacing made it seem otherwise. The plot itself I would say is great, but the pacing tripped it up a bit imo.
While I disagree about Asbel regarding your detailing, I feel like that's a long comment for... not right now. :P And it's 2021 now.
Ngl Team Destiny was by far my preferred development team, so I find it no surprise that I love Graces and find myself more eh on Team Symphonia's titles. I mean hell, I'd even argue anything Symphonia /attempted/ to do, Rebirth did way better and had actual results to show for it plot-wise. Symphonia suffers from both /knowing/ everything the cast does will amount to nothing at all (because ToP is its future and they have /all/ the same problems Symphoania's cast had, meaning everything ToS' cast aimed to accomplished went absolutely /nowhere/ and they should've realized that from the get go since ToP was the first title to the franchise), and imo a very boring cast where I could only get attached to two of the characters sufficiently... and one of those characters canonically died while the other /can/ die depending on your chosen path.
But let's be real, Team Melfes was the best team of them all. 😌😌😌 -coughs in bias-
I get it! The Dad is a duch but the world setting as medieval european style is perfect. Reminds me a lot A LOT of Fire Emblem world building, more especially, FE Genealogy of the Holy War, but less depressing(?), I guess. And the cast is most Lords its amazing!
I get that this was a Wii game first and ToS2 was more matured, but the story was about kids not "adults". Thr friendship element was made great. And Asbel struggles too many times but I get it and he has abilities and have moments that he is a badass.
Cheria is a b* but her growth was the better in my opinion.
Also, the difficulty mode can be changed in the go! So satisfying!
Also, also.... the decision to make a Wii game was made for some thoughts, like the possibility to play with co-op!!!
I think that in the Wii you could play with 4 wii motes, dont know about the PS3, only saw 2 players co op but not 4.
Could you clarify this issue?
29:31 Wow, part of me wanted real bad to forget all of that. Now it all came back. Reminds me of one reason why I never played more than half new game +.
This honestly feels like the shortest Tales game for me. It feels like it goes by so fast and not really in a good sort of way? Don't get me wrong, I think this game is ok and I enjoyed my time playing it, but it's also kinda dull in terms of the story (at least compared to other tales games) so it feels like I blink and suddenly I'm already at the end of the Main arc. Idk the specific time it took me to beat it bc, unfortunately, my ps3 died so I can't really check.
Side note: I'm glad I've found someone who doesn't like Cheria as much as I do XD
I love the combat in this one, but yeah the story is so bleh and it shows its cracks in harder difficulties mainly cause of the AI, but a sad thing about tales games is if you play coop with even one other person it trivalizes even tougher optional bosses, that being said I've never gotten anyone interested in playing a tales game for more than an hour, and that's a shame since its always been a thing you could do. I mean even if there were a way to play online with someone, who want to watch you walk through the story? Maybe there could just be a bossrush mode you could team up for to push some combat limits but eh. Other than that I got tired of smashing items into my gear and I under utilized your mixing bottle cooking side upgrades most of the game and that's a shame cause that speeds up progression and titles and such, and whoa damn, beat the main arc and just have soooo many titles left -_- tip for anyone playing make sure you go for titles that get your party progressing on the bench if you don't want anyone left behind. I've been trying to get into another tales game but this is the last one that gripped me for gameplay, walked away from xilla, and the demo of Beseria made me feel too limited in what I could do, and I know that is prolly unfair, you gotta play hours of graces F to get your action limit up to do cool combos or skills to just keep everything moving. Anyone who liked this one got a feeling of which game I should tackle after it?
Also Pascal is only here to be a troll, and if you don't like her trolling I guess you won't like her, but there are some good pascal montages on youtube to tell if you will XD
I agree with a lot with what you said.
I disagree with Asbel being the worst MC, in fact I’ll admit he grew on me but he’s not on the same level as other MC’s.
The future arc definitely saved Graces cause if Graces didn’t have the future arc I would have returned the game.
60 your first time through??????? i finished the main arc (not the future arc yet) in 30 hours. maybe i just missed something, but i felt the game was short in compairison to other titles.
i think the main party (excluding the future arc) focus too much on being likeable, relatable, sympathetic etc instead of being all that compelling or interesting in any way besides their actions like Richard for example.
He does bad stuff because spoilers!
Some thing on another planet told him to “ah i feel so bad for him” and such sorry if i am not expressing my point well i just want to say what i think one of the reasons why the main cast is one of the worst in the series.
Err... Fire Emblem 4 did a time skip in 1996.
I didn't hate Cheria, but I wished we would've left her in the Rockagong for her to meet a shitty end if ya know what I mean XD
well after i got the platinum trophy after iirc 3 maybe 4 playthroughs without a guide no less, i felt very satisfied especially defeating those dragons and the rockogong...
I never played a Tales game but is it bad that after watching this I kinda wanna play this you. I'm sorry the things you said about the cast sounded enjoyable to me
I kind of love Cheria. I guess I'd agree she doesn't have much of an arc, but I just really like her personality. She's probably my favorite female character in the series just because of her personality
I remember thinking this game was super long and just kept going and going at the end...
Guess now that you say its the longest of all tales game makes sense now 😆
My first takes game was Phantasia on the Gameboy, but this was the one I jumped back into after years. It was cool, but I was blown out of the water by Xillia which was the one I bought after.
You know I always thought the theme of the game was, “my friends are my support” or maybe “we can all use a shoulder to lean on, from time to time”
I actually getting almost finished this game. Then. Suddenly I drop it because I hate story going
Tales of Graces f is my favorite Tales game and in my top 10 favorite games of all time and I really love your retrospective series.
Found this video and I totally agree with story lol, but this is in my top 5 tales game for combat and side quest 😁
Ahhhh I miss seing your review so much.
Eather way, Tales of Grace F. This a game that intruduce to me the series as well shows the 1st mec of future Tales games . For what I seing off, it pretty good. Though one thing for sure this game needs a remake to fix some the mistakes like:
Making storytelling much easier to engage in (oh and be too long).
Fix the UI
Ajust the difficulty (expecely the boss) and
Make a easy to get the items.
Hopelly someday we get a remake of this just Vesperia did.😉
If have to pick the game to start the tales series would be this although I need to wait for a remake(I don't a Ps3 and plan to buy) .
Overall a great review. Looking forward to the next one. Oh and this one tops 10 games to love and hate. 😉
look up tales of graces in 60 seconds i just saved you 59 hours and 59 minutes
I loved the combat but god the story is cringe even by tales standards.
What are the other Tales games that Team Destiny made? I'm now very curious.
Uggh am i the only one that remembers fondra queen i hate that boss so much
Am I the only one that love Cheria and she is my favorite character in the entire tales of series
Another great review! While it's not a top tales game for me, like you, I was very conflicted about it as a whole. You did a great job expressing that. Great work as usual!
Listening to this as I level grind in South Velanik.
Ah yes, one of the many games in my backlog...
Want to play the ones I have in release order, so Symphonia comes first
I really want this game on ps4 it needs to be port over
Oh Graces. You are a game. An enjoyable one. And a frustrating one.
Worst A.I though? Yeah imma have to hard disagree. While the strategy menu is pretty limiting, if you set them right, you should never have an issue. Hell I never did. That doesn’t mean it’s good but there is a way to fix em. Meanwhile Zesteria’s is 10 times worse. I’ll go more into that when we get to the retrospective of that game, but the way you describe the AI here applies to Zesteria with even worse strategy options and dumber AI. Oh and don’t even get me started on Symphonia or Legendia in terms of AI. I’d be here all day.
Aside from that, this was a pretty good retrospective. Sure there are some things I disagree with here but that’s not really an issue or anything. I enjoyed finally seeing you talk about this graceful mess of a game.
oh god i forgot about zestiria's ai. great. i honestly didn't mind symphonia's ai tho, i thought they were pretty good. not nearly as frustrating as this game, but we'll see when i play it again. legendia i honestly don't remember but the combat system was so barebones that i dunno if it affected things to a great enough extent, take that as you will haha
It is difficult for me to enjoy a long game with a main protagonist I don't like. I don't have Graces f anymore and remember only playing a small portion (maybe 10 or 20 hours) when it originally came out plus seeing your livestreams but I remember not liking Asbel a whole lot.
yeah asbel was pretty rough lol. can't say he gets much better until the epilogue but uh...yeah haha. game's something else
some people may like the combat... but i don't.
Well I’m glad you understand how the game works because I sure don’t. I always feel like I’m playing Tales games wrong somehow and that’s definitely true in this case. XD (What the F? - That’s exactly the intro I would’ve used. Would make a great title for the first episode of a Let’s Play. :D )
Oh wow you mentioned the title screen. Yeah I agree. Despite the fact that I’m not anywhere near as fond of the gameplay as most people, I actually think Graces has the best title screen in the series. And I also genuinely enjoyed walking around in the Graces world because of how the world looked. I found a lot of places visually interesting. Love the towns. The soundtrack I also agree is underrated but in the way that a lot of people notice a few not-so-great themes and universally write off the rest. :/ It doesn’t have as many of my favorites as some games but there are a few that I just LOVE and that don’t deserve to be written off. (I guess it’s worth noting that one of my favorites accompanies one of the few bosses in the game I actually liked, and I’m pretty sure most other players hate that fight. XD )
The theme I personally found most interesting that I wish the game had done more with was how Asbel sort of… loses his role as MC almost for a while. I actually would kind of like to see a whole game around what happens when the cast DOESN’T just gather around the main character because they’re ‘amazing’. I still like the characters outside of the narrative, but I feel like that would’ve been a more unexpected way to play off a classic, cheesy theme which is something I’d definitely expect from a Tales game. That also would’ve been interesting playing the whole thing from Sophie’s point of view. Hearing that I think immediately they should have done that. Then Asbel wouldn’t have to take on the job of being Mr. Protagonist. He could’ve done more of his own thing.
Wow I’m really glad you like the ending to the future arc too. I was SO glad when I finished the main arc that there was another section coming because that main arc ending was just…. what? That’s it? Also Lambda is actually fun when he’s getting to chat with the main cast. XD
Was NOT expecting you to take that turn on combat though. I agree 100% on the BS part. The way the characters play is great, but how the combat actually WORKS in depth is… ??? I feel like Tales struggles with this a lot and I think the main issue is a lack of ‘clarity’. I’ve played a lot of really good action games and a big difference I notice is that animations are a lot more clear on what state an enemy is in and how they’re reacting to your attacks and stuff. And the more clear a game is on that, the better it tends to work because you can really see what’s going on and even glean what an enemy is doing without even needing to look directly at them during their attack. A lot of the time in Tales I feel like I have to stare at the target constantly to tell what they’re doing and even then a lot of the animations end up being more for show than informative and the sound effects lack the punch to rise above the chaos of battle, which could help a lot with being able to time things accurately. Visuals aren’t enough. You need audio cues too. With the combat footage here, watching the enemies I see a lot of janky blinks between animations and stuff. I never feel like I can tell whether an attack I throw out is going to land properly or not and when it doesn’t I don’t feel like there’s anything I can do about it.
That’s why I’m so excited about Arise because the attack animations they’ve shown so far, especially from that one golem are WAY more clear and have so much more impact. I hate it in action RPGS when an attack from an enemy is so harmless or such a nonevent that I don’t even register it as an attack mentally. I want attacks to trigger my inner “GET THE F OUT OF THE WAY!” reflex when I see them coming. Graces’ title screen always makes me want to jump in and play it, but it doesn’t feel quite as fun as it looks. I prefer playing as my Hubert character in PSO2. XD I feel the same way overall. It’s most fun when played for a good time. :)
we see eye to eye on pretty much everything! i'm really relieved people are actually finding my arguments on this sound, with some even agreeing with me. that's a good outlook on tales' combat. there is a lot of depth and whatnot, but when it comes to warning the player about attacks (especially in a game mostly about dodging) the series doesn't really understand how to do that. that being said, other games do what they're aiming for a lot better than here, but because the series has kinda been sticking with the graces combat system, the devs need to get the hang of that visual and audible warnings. i agree that arise is looking like a huge step in the right direction in that regard and is one of the reasons i'm looking forward to it!
Man everytime i try to play this game i just shift back to how i felt when i gave up on it ultra late in the game because i couldn't handle a boss like for real ? I've never had this awful feeling of sucking so much at a game than in Graces F and on top of that i had a hard time getting a grip on the combat system Well hoping one day I'll get back to it (considering i have every Team Destiny games left to do it'll be nice to at least understand how to play Graces as a basis ^^;)
cool trivia: I'm in a Tales discord where people there are pretty serious on it, i know Cheria is busted…how ? Idk but i know they've said she is
I didn't play vesperia for 2 months because of gattsuo lmao
I don't know why but i hated the bathus citadel
This game has one of the best story, second best I've played of all tales. Asbel seems like a weak character if in animation series, but strong asf in combat.
???
Asbel a weak character?
This should have been a TV series instead
But Yuri is like Batman except he actually kills...which is good
Then he isn't batman then😒
I have spent a half hour failing to pause so I can read your text at 7:10
Can someone please parrot it in the comments
"Sidenote #4: I know there's a sidequest that explains their dad's reasoning for doing this, but it's so stupid and doesn't justify his actions as much as the writers want it to. Screw Aston."
one of my favorite games of all time.