Small World Aside, This is One of the Best "Tales of" Games Available.

User Rating: 8 | Tales of Graces f PS3

As if your average JRPG fan isn't already a raging berserker with his mouth agape and lungs full of hot air ready to burst at any moment, it's the fans of Namco's "Tales of" series that make that image look tame when compared to your regular role playing game devotee. Fully aware that they are fans of a niche game within an already increasingly niche genre, the average "Tales of" fan is a frothing pot of boiling oil that spills over on a daily basis setting on fire everything and everyone it touches. Forming translation communities that work to put their unreleased games into english speaker's hands, setting up forums that are full of more flames than an Iraqi oil field, and starting admittedly useless petitions to change Namco's minds about the "Tales of" games, these tireless indivuduals fight day and night to...well...

I suppose you have to be a Tales fan to truly understand the anger, hope and cockeyed optimism some people have when it comes to Namco's forgotten baby. I know this only because I have been a member of this series' online fanbase since 1999 and have long championed its cause both online and off. After all, who wouldn't want others to know how great the "Tales of" series has become? With its touching stories of war and betrayal, its loveable characters, and the supremely addictive real time combat, it has long stood as the greatest example of a JRPG that "works". Long after Final Fantasy betrayed its roots and Suikoden faded into the darkness, it was Namco's Tales series that was left by itself to blaze new trails within the slowly shrinking JRPG landscape.

As a fan, I like to think that I enjoyed every Tales game I've ever played. Whether it was with Japanese text and a translation guide downloaded from Gamefaqs or a localized game blessed to us by Namco themselves, I always enjoyed each entry.

Though truth be told, they haven't all been perfect. Many, such as Tales of Innocence and Tales of Legendia have left bitter aftertastes in my mouth and required a great deal of effort in order to force myself to finish them. While they are balanced out by greater entries in the series such as Symphonia and Eternia, they managed to leave scratches in the otherwise spotless armor Namco has been forging over the past two decades.

Unfortunately I never found any one Tales game that met every single one of my expectations. Though Symphonia came the closest I felt it was lacking a significant post game as well as a more formidable end boss. I wanted the story and characters of Vesperia, the combat of Abyss, the visual style of Symphonia and the post game content from Legendia. I wanted the perfect "Tales of" game and truly doubted I'd ever receive it.

Which, patient reader, leads us to my review of Graces F for the PS3.

The cornerstone of the "Tales" games have always been its combat, and Graces has managed to file it down to a deadly sharp point, making it easily the most enjoyable and surprisingly deep system I've seen in all of the series. So deep in fact that for the first time in my entire experience with the Tales games I actually took great care in frequently adjusting the AI of my partners during and between combat sessions.

In a nice change of pace there are now two sets of moves for your characters, a "B" style and an "A" style. Though it essentially breaks down to weaker melee attacks and stronger magic-fueled strikes it is still a very classy system that offers up a fair amount of strategy in what is usually a by-the-numbers genre. Throw in the requisite "Tales series" standards such as fast paced movement, tons of aerial moves and screen-shaking mystic artes and you can rest assured that your controller buttons will be worn down to nubs after the first fifty minutes.

Which brings me to another pleasurable feature of Graces, the sheer amount of content.

With the added post-end game epilogue and the extra challenge given to the player in the form of the Zhonecage "Fungeon", it would be hard to 100% this game without spending close to or beyond 100 hours. I only fully completed the Zhonecage and the optional stronger variant of the end boss at around the 90 hour mark and that was with a strategy guide helping me through half of it. Without such assistance you'll probably spend a bit more than that...which easily makes it the longest "Tales of" game by just about anyone's standard.

Even the visuals, which aren't generally a big draw within this series, are impressive. Everything is sharp, the characters are well drawn and the dungeon environments are varied and interesting. Nothing breaks the mold or rewrites "Tales of" law, but it's all done remarkably well and makes far better use of Namco's animators than others have.

The only real downside to Graces, and perhaps the only thing that keeps it from becoming my favorite Tales game, would be the very small overworld and its reliance on re-visiting old areas. Though not as blatant as some RPGs that pride themselves on recycling content and re-populating it with palette-swapped baddies, Graces does still have an awfully small selection of combat zones that have a tendency to repeat far too often.

Even with the world being small, the game still manages to give the player a tremendous amount of content and does its best to keep it fresh with its fast-moving, easy to follow storyline. While it's true the plot has been the subject of a lot of criticism online, and especially amongst series fans, I found it to be heartwarming and sincere. I know "Friendship conquers all" stories are a dime-a-dozen in JRPGs and people can be worn out from such tired cliches, but Graces manages to present it in such a way that really moved me. With Sophie being the center character in the story and the relationship between Asbel and Hubert stressing that to a high degree, it had a lot more depth than other "Friendship" plotlines and kept me entertained clear up to the ending credits.

Will Graces convert non-tales fans to the series? Probably not. Will it please Tales fans who are still bitter about the lack of a PS3 Vesperia and want a return to the more complex plotlines of Abyss and Rebirth? Doubtful. Will it give you the biggest challenge and longest play time of any Tales game in the series? Absolutely.

...and if you ask me, that's worth the 50 large you'll plunk down for it.

Let's hope this is a sign that the series is getting stronger.