Customer Reviews

Tales of Graces f (PS3)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After completing my first Tales game, 'Tales of Vesperia', I wanted to play the others and when I saw Tales of Graces available for pre-order, I didn't waste a second!

The special one-day edition includes extras, which would otherwise be unavailable elsewhere. These extras include a soundtrack, an 100 page artbook, a DLC card for three costumes, and a behind-the-scenes DVD, all included with the game and presented in a neat box. I was most interested in the artbook, and it did not disappoint. The artbook includes character sketches, as well as coloured pictures, coloured banners (which appear in-game) and concept art. The art itself was printed on normal paper and not the thick glossy stuff you find in larger artbooks, but that didn't affect its quality much. The soundtrack I haven't listened to yet, but the music in-game was very similar to Vesperia's, and was very pleasant to listen to. Some may even be good for relaxation! I have not yet watched the behind-the-scenes either as I am less interested in interviews and the like, but I have watched similar videos online and they were quite interesting.

The story involves Asbel, a young Lord of a manor in Lhant and his childhood friends, Sophie, Richard and Cheria, as well as his brother Hubert and other characters who they will meet a the story progresses. I don't want to give any spoilers, so basically, Asbel and Hubert find a girl called Sophie at the top of Lhant hill (which they weren't supposed to climb), who has amnesia and they try to help her regain her memories. They meet Richard sometime after and save him. Richard then leaves Lhant and Asbel gets scolded and he runs away to find Richard at the capital. He meets up with Cheria and Hubert at the capital and is able to see Richard. That night something happens to Richard and Sophie, which makes Asbel run away (again) to become a knight. After that, it's about wars and the story revolving around the other characters.

As for the game, the graphics is similar to those in Vesperia, but as sharper and is closer to Xillia's kind of graphics if I'm honest. The landscape and backgrounds are done beautifully with a more realistic feel (as vesperia's was more vector-like). Towns are larger than in previous Tales games and there are more things to do in towns. The art is good, with anime-like scenes throughout the game. These are always a treat to watch and in addition, skits are shown when you reach specific areas of the game. These skits are short conversations between the characters and are always enjoyable to watch. This time, they fill the entire screen with at least four characters, making them more easily seen, and small banners appear occasionally to mark a funny scene.

Now onto gameplay, I think everyone is interested in the battle system, otherwise known as Style Shift Linear Motion Battle System. This is similar to the battle system for Tales of the Abyss and Tales of Vesperia, where the controlled character can move around in the field and by pressing specific buttons can perform artes, or normal attacks. However, instead of usig TP to perform artes, Namco have decided to use what is called 'chain capacity' or CC. Each character has a specific number of CC which they can use to perform artes and attacks and these deplete according to how many moves you make. It is more complicated than the battle systems of the previous games and I have to admit that I haven't fully grasp it yet. The strategy menu, however, is much more fluent and enables you to command other characters easily without having to control them. So there is no more 'save tp', or 'moderate' and instead each individual characters can be set their own commands (kind of like the gambit system of Final Fantasy XII). You can also easily character characters during battle by using the dialogue stick, although, it can be annoying when you change to the wrong character.

Skills in this game are learned by equipping titles. Each title is unlocked when you complete a specific task and the SP are used to learn the skills equipped with the title. I had a problem with my equipped title always changing, so I could never master it without having to switch back to it after every battle.

The sound, as with all the newer Tales of games, are top notch and are relevant to the scene they play on. You have a mixture of battle, tranquil, sad and happy music, and as I have mentioned, is very similar to the music from Vesperia. I enjoyed the music, especially the battle music, which does stick in your mind after a while.

The characters were probably what made me want to buy Graces in the first place. The designs are excellent and the character development so far is good. As the story progresses, you do start to wonder about some of the characters motives and what would happen to them. Some are more predictable than others. Each character has their own story, which is what makes the Tales games good, but I havent completed the game yet so I can't really explain them all.

Overall, this game is enjoyable. Personally, I wouldn't put it on the same level as Vesperia, but it has some points to it which I think are a major improvement. The only aspect of this game I didn't like was the battle system involving the CC. It is more complicated than it needs to be and I personally like my battles short and snappy. It slows the flow of the battle and not everything is explained in detail in the in-gameuser manual. So, I rate this game a 4 out of 5.

I bought an import copy of this game as i simply could not wait for it to be released over here to play this gem.. And yes it may not be up there with the all time greats of the genre but this really is a brilliant game that i have put a silly amount of time into and enjoyed every second of it. (and you should too)
There are an umpteen number of things to do. Even when you think you have finally finished, you find something else to sink your teeth into, whether it be the bonus chapter 'lineage and legacies' the bonus dungeons, side quests, numerous optional bosses to defeat or if you just have a competitive streak: 'the trials of graces' where you complete battles for points to score ever higher on the leaderboard. The game doesn't force you into any of these things, so if your just after a story to get engrossed into and thats all then this caters for you also, speaking of which, there a number of difficulty options available so again caters for all gamers whether hardcore or you just want to dip in. (easy, normal, moderate, hard, evil and chaos. The harder difficulties you need to unlock by completing a certain amount of battles on the previous difficulties) Chaos difficulty really does have you on your toes so to speak;)

The game really comes into its own by chapter 2. The first chapter you play as children which i wasn't overly keen on i have to admit. The game is colourful, which i adore. The characters are likeable, Hubert imparticular. Even the stereotypical Zany female character that you see in pretty much every jrpg grew on me by the end. The storyline (no spoilers) can be a little cheesy at times, but then arnt most rpgs of this type? The game doesn't try and do anything new, but thats not a bad thing. Why change something that isn't broke afterall.
The fighting is in real time rather than turn based, although i would recommend picking up the book to unlock manual battles which can be found early on in the first town, which makes the fighting feel abit more natural rather than having the battles on semi/auto. It feels like you have abit more freedom. There is plenty of skills to learn, i infact did not learn all of them and they each differ from character to character. You have the usual suspects (swordsman, gunner, healer, mage etc) and so every base is covered depending on how you like to play and ultimately want to control.

As you can see there is alot of things to talk about and i will not bore you by going through everything. Hopefully you have got a small glimpse of what a truly great game this is to play and you can discover the rest for yourself.

One tip i will give tho is to feed all the cats that you see, it will come in handy.

Enjoy!

As a long-time Tales fan, I was excited at the prospect of finally being able to play Graces, as I only recently acquired a PS3.
I was not disappointed.

GAMEPLAY: 8/10
To be honest, this would have been a 10 were it not for the battle system. Replacing the TP point system with the new "CC" one was, in my view, a mistake. The amount of actions you can take at one time are limited by the amount of CC you have, with each action eating a certain number. While this sounds simple, it is actually very nuanced and difficult to master - it took me until mid-game to get used to the system, and I still don't like it now. Having to take breaks out every few seconds to restore your CC just breaks up the flow of battles.
The fact that free-running was nerfed massively (it takes CC to do, and you go painfully slow if you don't have any) is also a big negative.

That said, the rest of the gameplay is, as always, brilliant. Plenty of sidequests, the updated title system is great, as it allows you to earn skills as early or late as you like. The puzzles in dungeons were a bit simple, but in a way that could be considered a plus point as you don't spend ages stuck in the same room trying to figure it out!
The added "F Arc/Lineage&Legacies" section is fun, though a bit grindy as the story itself is quite short while at the same time packing in a lot of extra things to do. Also, the skits in this section in particular were amazing - kudos to the writers, they did a really good job!

Graphics: 9/10
I love the cel-shaded/anime style of Tales games. Graces manages to mix it up a little, showing the contrast between areas by making prosperous Windor bright and colourful, and downtrodden Fendel bleak and drained of colour.
There was the odd problem with clipping, particularly if a character was wearing a costume (and Sophie's hair) but they were few and far between.

Sound: 9/10
The music was a little reminiscent of Vesperia here and there, but rather than detract, it made me feel more comfortable. I even found myself humming along a few times, particularly in towns.
The voice acting, as it always is with JRPGs, was so-so. Sophie started to grate after a little while, but everyone else managed to keep their voice in tone with their character.

Story: 9/10
Tales games have always been known for following tropes and cliches, and while it tries to mix it up a little, Graces is exactly the same. But that's not a bad thing - to an extent, the "save the world!" story itself is secondary to character interactions and relationships, which was actually quite refreshing.
Speaking of which, the characters themselves are pretty cookie-cutter; the mad scientist (well, engineer), the mysterious older man, the healer who mothers everyone etc. However within those tropes, the creators have found ways to wriggle around and look at them in a new light, particularly in the ways they interact with each other.

Overall, I would reccommend this game to anyone. As long as you can see past the slightly cliche story, you'll find a game that sparkles with life.

It's been a rough few years for JRPGs. As the genre is left behind by the technical and storytelling advancements made in western RPGs, the once proud JRPG has gotten a bit stuck in it's ways, with only the occasional flash of innovation (eg Xenoblade Chronicles, Demons Souls) brightening up what is mostly a genre that has stayed fairly static for the past two generations of consoles. However, saying that... it does happen that we occasionally get a title that is unashamedly JRPG in nature and does everything juuuust right to remind us why we enjoyed such games in the first place. Tales of Graces f is one such game.

The plot here doesn't even try to bring anything new to the table as events kick off with you in control of a group of kids: Brothers Asbel and Hubert and their sickly female pal Cheria, as they stumble across amnesiac girl Sophie and begin to help her investigate her missing memories, a task which inadvertently draws in a young prince called Richard, who becomes friends with the group. So you lead the gang into various scrapes and adventures as you might expect... For the first few hours at least... because tragedy strikes and the kids are all seperated from each other, with Asbel consumed with guilt over his inability to save the life of a friend, leading to him leaving his hometown to join Knight school. So, events jump ahead seven years to put you in control of an adult Asbel, who is now a lot more responsible and skilled (And also the spitting image of the character Suzaku from anime series Code Geass), but has had no contact with his family or friends since leaving home. Imagine then how awkward it is for him when right as he finishes his training to become a knight, old friend Cheria turns up with some bad news for him that will see him forced to return home to confront his past, prevent a war, and also unravel the mystery behind the emergence of savage monsters across the land and how it connects to the tragic events of the start of the game. There's little here that's new ground for the genre, but at the same time it's never anything less than entertaining thanks to some well judged pacing, mostly unintrusive and not overlong cutscenes and (Most importantly) a cast of characters who possess genuine charm and likeability(Mostly). It does have some of the usual juvenile humour and sugary sentimentality you get all the time in Japanese RPGs of course, but at the same time I found the plot could be surprisingly dark and downbeat for a Tales game in places, and the character development is of an extremely high quality throughout, with the sense of relationship between all of the main controllable characters always being clearly defined so you always know what one character in the group thinks of another, thanks in large part to the well written 'skits', which for the first time I've seen are now fully voiced and are actually funny. This may not sound like such a big deal, but when I was playing this attention to detail on the characters' personalities helped tremendously with my emotional investment in the story, which is something I've never really felt all that strongly in Tales games past. The plot is by-the-numbers, sure, but it's still entertaining enough despite that and the game itself also appears to be a lot longer than past Tales games, taking me around a dozen or so hours more to get through than previous current gen Tales title, Tales of Vesperia... and that's before you even factor in the additional 15-odd hour add on epilogue story you can unlock by completing the game. A fun story with a hell of a lot of it? It certainly hit the JRPG sweet spot for me... even if the unbearable "niceness" of Asbel occasionally made me want to punch the TV at times. Word of advice? If you're going to play a drinking game while playing Tales of Graces f, don't make the rule 'Take a drink every time Asbel says 'protect'. You'll be dead from alcohol poisoning in no time if you do.

Gameplay is much like other Tales games have been in recent years, with a fixed camera, set pathway structure that gives the game's field exploration more than a passing resemblence to Final Fantasy X, especially in how it makes you actually travel between areas the 'proper' way (On foot, by boat/aircraft or handiest of all: by giant turtle) with no shortcuts for most of the game (A more traditional 'world map' is opened up to you much later in the game to make things a bit more instant). This can be slow going, yes, but it works well enough and no random battles is always a plus. The game offers a pretty enormous amount of stuff to do, with a multitude of side quests, hidden challenges and bonuses to uncover. Obviously most of these are of the fetch quest variety as you'd expect, but there are a LOT of them to do, with every town/city in the game offering it's own unique job board which is constantly updated with new quests and jobs throughout the game, all of which usually provide rewards that are actually useful. In addition there are a lot of unique sidequests with their own sub stories, including a very nice 'tournament arena' that sees you having to tackle survival rounds against waves of enemies with one character. Which brings me to the battles themselves, which are nothing short of spectacularly well put together. On the surface it may appear like the usual Tales "hack and slash" battle system, but several tweaks and updates have been made that add a whole new level of strategy to the proceedings, with the most notable change being the introduction of the "CC gauge", which essentially functions like an 'action points' system, where during combat everything is controlled completely in real time, no turn based nonsense or any of that, but every attack you use costs 'CC' (Which stands for Chain Combo if you care), with basic physical attacks costing 1 CC a hit, with tons of combos available and unlockable as the game goes, and special attacks (Artes), cost anything from 2 to 10 CC depending on the move. The CC gauge immediately begins recharging once you stop attacking, so as you can expect, this means you often need to plan attacks carefully, especially considering there are often elemental factors in play that force you to adapt your strategies, such as monsters with protective 'Nova' barriers that can only be destroyed with anti-Nova Artes, which are rarely learned attacks. There is also a rather neat feature that sees a two stage gauge on the left of the screen during battle fill up as a result of actions taken by you or your enemies, with one part of it filling with the player's meter and the other part with the enemy's meter. When your gauge fills your characters enter a kind of 'super mode' state, where they temporarily have infinite CC, can't be staggered by enemy attacks and gain access to 'Super Artes' techniques... all of which obviously gives a significant advantage in battle, however... the enemy gauges fills up? The enemies get the same advantages over you, and the best part? The gauges full levels carry over between fights, meaning choosing how full a super gauge you enter a tough battle with(For either you OR the enemy) can determine the outcome very early on. It's a great combat system and makes what could easily have felt like tedious grindfest dungeons quite engrossing to dominate. Additionally, I personally appreciated the quick pace of the battles and how fast they initiate and end. It becomes common place in later stages of the game to touch an enemy to fight them on the field and have the battle begin and end with you back to roaming the field all in the space of less than ten seconds. It's nice and quick, just how I like it.

On a graphical level, Tales of Graces f is a fairly sub-par release. For those unaware, this game started life as a Wii title, but there were apparently "issues" with the Wii version when it was released in Japan(Not least of which was apparently lower than expected sales), so the developers fixed any problems, added a bunch of content and upscaled the game for release on PS3 instead. As a result the visuals, while still well designed, well animated and smooth running, have the unmistakeable look of an upscaled title (ala Dead Space Extraction for example) and look rather dull and lifeless compared to the colourful sharpness of Tales of Vesperia. After a while you'll probably not be bothered by the last gen appearance of much of the game, but it took me a while to get past I can tell you. Soundwise things are thankfully a much brighter story. While there is no Japanese language option, the english voice acting is actually of a fairly high quality so this isn't as much of an issue as it could have been. The voices all fit each character perfectly, even if some of them play things a bit overdramatically. The soundtrack is equally quite nice to listen to... even if I could probably do without hearing that sickening pop song during the intro animated sequence again... ever!

All in all this is a superb JRPG that will do little to turn you onto the genre, but if you like these types of games then this is about as good as it gets. It's fun, it's fast paced, the characters are charming, the story is enjoyable (If a bit 'familiar'), the fast paced combat system is engrossing and the game has an epic amount of on-disc gameplay content, with a longer than usual main story, a 15-20 hour follow up story, and all the bonuses, hidden stuff and new game plus features you've come to expect from Tales games. Honestly, if you enjoy JRPGs at all, you really have no reason to NOT get this game... unless you're offended by low-res, upscaled to HD visuals or something anyway. Buy it.

From Namco and Tales studio one can only expect the best.
This game is gorgeous.
From the plot, to the graphics and soundtrack, it's a really great game.
Thumbs up for Namco!

The game is a little slow at the beginning but when the "tutorial part" ends it's really good and not easy to play properly, need some training. The system is really good though after you understand everything.
Take your time to configure Artes and shortcuts, it worth it.

Compared to the other tales games this one stands out as to how you move about in the world map and how you fight in the battles, it took me about 2-3 game hours to get use to the difference in game controls but after you are use to it it is an amazing way to play, the graphics are spot on to the style Namco Bandai uses in the tales series, with the voice acting they chose the perfect people for each of the character's and they have continued what they had done in vesperia and that was to have full voice acting in almost everything Including the skits.

hats off to all the fine ladies and gentlemen that put all their hard work and effort in to this game

Bravo!

Tales Of Graces F is my first Tales game, I got it because I was hyped for Tales Of Xillia really and I wanted to test it to see what the Tales series has to offer, my impression can be summed up as this: Tales Of Graces F is a game that tries way too hard to get the players interest but half the stuff you've already done before. Now I'm a Tri Ace fan and Tri Ace and Namco are rival companies so I thought that it wouldn't be a bad idea to try something from Namco for a change expect me to compare this game to Star Ocean a lot.

Before I start I want to say that Tales Of Graces F has a lot of features, in fact it bombards you with features. The problem is that none of them are really inventive and in the end you realize that they are merely covering up a generic combination of features normally found in your average rpg. The titles are pretty much the same as the skills in Star Ocean but you can't assign points individually, so it works more like Final Fantasy 5's class system in a way that you learn abilities in a linear fashion but you get to choose a path with 5 abilities and you have to get them all in order. You can swap titles at any time but you have to start from the top so if there's an ability you want to invest in, and it's at the bottom of a list of useless skills, your character won't be improving the way you want them to.

Speaking of bad micro management the crafting system leaves much to be desired, you only get to pick one shard to upgrade your weapon until it gets tempered which is annoying and ruins the fun of micro management. In Star Ocean you can synthesize equipment up to a certain amount of times all at once so you don't have to waste time in battles to keep managing and you can use almost any item in the game, Tales Of Graces F restricts the use of normal items and allows you to use only shards and a few other items making gathering components almost pointless, it's just a way to make money. Yes there are a few items that can dualize into completely new equips but there aren't many of them. Dualizing is just a fancy name for an incredibly slow, restricting crafting system. If you're a fan of micromanagement, this game will be a massive disappointment to you as it likes to hold your hand a lot of the time and though it can be diverse, it's not worth the effort as there is usually an upgrade of the weapon you already have by the time you've tempered your weapon enough times.

The next feature is the eleth mixer, probably the most unique feature in the game. It is simply put a more balanced version of eating food than Star Ocean which is a good thing. You can also add other items to it which either generate other items or give you bonuses. Using them costs eleth which must be recharged essentially being like the bonus board from Star Ocean 4 combined with the food mechanic found in most Tri Ace games.

Speaking of bonus board, there is a bonus line equivalent which essentially does exactly the same thing as the bonus line in Star Ocean Till The End Of Time: rewards bonuses depending on your battle performance (kill enemy in 30 seconds etc) nothing too fancy.

As for features unrelated to battles, there are discovery points and skits which essentially go together, skits are pretty much the private actions of Tales but since there aren't any multiple endings, they don't really affect the gameplay aside from a few titles, discovery is basically a log of landmarks that you can find throughout the game and are often attached to a skit. These things give something extra to do around towns, that is their main purpose, you can also do collect quests, pretty much what you expect. They're sorta like item collect guild tasks in The Last Remnant which reward you with gald and sp.

The battle system is the most balanced action battle system I've seen which uses the cc gauge to give you a number of attacks. The problem is that you often end up doing attack, block, attack, block over and over unless you manage it. You can get bonuses to cc too by parrying and evading, I just found using up all my cc and then blocking to be the most effective, maybe I'm doing it wrong but I just want to beat enemies up wildly. You have A artes and B artes, they don't connect together well for some reason though meaning you just stick to either one or the other based on the enemies weaknesses, A artes depend on the direction if your control stick and you move up a branch of moves to make a combo so you can choose which attacks you want to use on the fly which is nice as opposed to spamming the same moves over and over like in Star Ocean. B artes are essentially that of Star Ocean and vary depending on the character.

There is just so much to go over in the battle system, like I said you have the eleth mixer, you also have an eleth gauge which carries over every battle sort of like trance in Final Fantasy 9 when it fills you have a chance to use as many attacks as you want like Valkyrie Profile 2's break mode and you also have a chance to use mystic artes which are essentially soul crushes yet again from Valkyrie Profile 2, what a way to combine two cool gameplay elements into one, though sadly you can't chain mystic artes like you can chain soul crushes, just a personal nitpick of mine. In the future arc, exclusive to Tales Of Graces F you get an acceleration gauge which is pretty much rush mode from star ocean 4 (wow tri ace must be getting mad right about now...) but iT also gives off unique effects based on the character which can affect battle. The battle system is essentially the bread and butter of this game and is hands down one of the best I've seen.

Now the field segments on the other hand aren't as impressive, uninspired, repetitive puzzles litter this games dungeons. They are usually obvious but in case the player lacks common sense, there is a skit to watch which explains everything, wow way to insult the players intelligence game of course we can see that it's a moving block puzzle. On the other hand this makes the puzzles feel more involving to the characters allowing them to react towards the puzzle before them. Sometimes you feel stupid watching them but sometimes they can be humorous but they tend to be the more trivial skits. Treasure chests don't contain anything interesting, sometimes a new weapon to replace the one you just dualized to the max (which is actually rare) but it usually just tends to be a worthless item that you could have bourght in a shop, or extra eleth, exciting stuff.... (yes that was sarcasm by the way). It's usually not worth going the extra mile to grab a treasure chest, some of them are even protected by passwords. If you're in town and you want to waste time finding clues for what could likely be a crappy item be my guest.

I've decided to leave the story for last because well it's not the greatest story ever written, in fact it's as generic as can be but at least it tries to go somewhere even if we have seen it before. Most of the plot is predictable and the characters are cardboard cutouts. Most of the character development happens almost immediately and by the time the characters are all back together you've seen it all pretty much. Yeah Asbel, we know you regret your childhood past with your father but past is past. Even way later on in the game, the characters constantly talk about past events, even in the future arc, it's like they're all burdened by their own past. I mean it's ok to have a moment of reminiscence every now and again but not throughout the entire game! They even go on about this friendship pact all game, it's as if they haven't even fully grown up yet, even in the future arc.

As for the plot itself, the game directly rips off final fantasy 9, and it's so predictable. Unlike in final fantasy 9 which comes basically out of nowhere, in this game you can already tell right from the start what that one characters past is. Does this have a big impact on the game? No not really unlike in Final Fantasy 9 though to be fair it did amount to be a shaggy dog story in the end, at least it developed the characters somewhat. Richard is essentially Kain from Final Fantasy 4. I'm hoping that's not a spoiler in itself but hey, his kingdom is named Barona..... that pretty much gives it away (Richard is also ironically the name of Kain's father in Final Fantasy 4). He even looks similar to Kain in Final Fantasy 4 The After Years but without armor. An interesting fact is that each kingdom has it's own variation of rule, Barona is a monarchy, Yu Liberte is presidential and Fendal is communist, so much so that they even have the hats (FOR MOTHER RUSSIA!).

Music is kinda sub-par. The battle themes are great but the area music, as much as it tries is sort of unmemorable. I find it hard to believe that Motoi Sakuraba did the music in this game. Everything besides the battle themes seems foreign to me and I'm a fan of his music hence being a Tri Ace fan. Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile have a vastly superior soundtrack to this game, which is sort of a disappointment really, I think if the soundtrack was better I would have enjoyed the game a little better than I did. The final boss theme is as generic as they come and I hate the final dungeon theme, it's so annoyingly generic especially when they play it again in the future arc. It needs to be less ominous and more dynamic like mission to the empty space in Star Ocean Till The End Of Time. Come on Sakuraba!!!

The game itself is above average in length, it ends just before it gets too long so thankfully it's not like Legend Of Dragoon (still haven't finished it), however the quality of the time that is invested isn't all good, especially in terms of storyline. The battle system makes this game, the rest is mediocre. I haven't finished the future arc yet so consider my review to be of the main game, I don't really think it's necessary to go too much in depth with it but I'm in what seems to be the final area and if it is then all I can say is that it is short and lacking interesting plot elements, they could have done more with it, if anything it's just an extra chunk of game time to add, that is all. The main villain lacks depth and they don't go far with it. There is also a new game + feature if you want to play through the game again, though personally I don't want to go through the whole child arc again, that was a huge drag.

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Plot/story: 7.0
Graphics: 8.5
Presentation: 7.0
Gameplay: 9.2
Music: 6.9
Lifespan: 9.0
Replay Value: 6.0
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Overall Score: 7.0

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Buy if your a Tales fan, otherwise wait till the price goes down, about £15.00 worth of game right here quality wise.

If you're a fan of JRPG's such as Star Ocean and Dragon Quest this will float your boat. Definately a bit quirky for mainstream players but for fans of the genre this is very good. The graphics certainly have a Nintendo feel to them (I believe this was origanally a Wii game) but it's HD and definately has it's own charm. The Anime cutscenes are stunning but a bit few and far between. The main game took me about 70ish hours to finish with doing most of the side-quests, but then there's a whole game-after-the-game, thats taken another 50ish hours and apparently it goes on after that too! So definately value for money.

Tales of graces f looks amazing when you consider it was a Wii game in Japan. Wonderful story and solid combat rooted in the Tales style, this is a must buy for any JRPG fan.