Tales of Graces f Remastered follows the story of Asbel Lhant, who's the son of a minor lord. Asbel is living out peaceful days with his friends and family when he comes across a girl with amnesia. From there, his life becomes a whirlwind of danger and events that ends with the girl, Sophie, seemingly dead and Asbel running away from his duties to become a knight. Seven years later, the grown-up Asbel discovers what seems to be an alive-and-well Sophie. This joyful discovery is tainted by the strange behavior of the crown prince Richard, one of Asbel's best friends whose actions to defend the kingdom against usurpers and invaders have begun to take on a disturbing tone.

Tales of Graces f has a very basic plot. The story, plot beats and character events don't stand out well. It takes too much time dancing around obvious plot points or lingering on mysteries that aren't mysterious. The most enjoyable parts of the game are the lighthearted or silly parts, especially the skits and post-battle conversations that are frequently laugh-out-loud funny. I certainly wouldn't play the game for the plot alone.

Like most of the games in the franchise, Tales of Graces f is a traditional RPG with action-RPG combat mechanics. The distinctive part of Graces f is the Chain Capacity system. Instead of having MP like a standard RPG, you have a resource called Chain Capacity. Every attack you can do takes one or more CC points to use, with stronger attacks or longer combos taking more CC. It replenishes very quickly while you're not attacking, and every character has a minimum and maximum amount of CC, which can go up or down, depending on how effectively you're fighting. Fight well, and your CC rises to its maximum, but take a lot of damage, and you're fighting with the minimum. Actions such as dashing and dodging also use up CC.

CC can also be replenished mid-combo in a variety of ways. Every attack has one or more (frequently more) special attributes, such as Fire, Shot and Spirit. Every enemy has multiple elemental weaknesses, so if your attack string hits one of those weaknesses, you'll do more damage. If you perform a lengthy combo that hits all of the weaknesses, you'll regain a bunch of CC, and you'll be able to execute longer combos. You also can regain CC by avoiding attacks with a narrow dodge at the last second, and that not only allows you to combo longer but also continues your combo chain uninterrupted. Additionally, effective elemental use builds up your Eleth Burst meter, and when full, it gives you a temporary power boost, makes all attacks temporarily use up no CC, and allows you to access special attacks. Later in the game, characters get individual super modes (Accel mode), which further boost the Eleth Burst meter.

I like the CC system more than any Tales combat system that has come before or since. It strongly encourages you to adjust and vary your move sets and to think about the most effective way to attack every enemy. In conjunction with the bonus for dodging and evading, it assures that combat stays varied and avoids the problem in some other Tales games, where you find one or two really good moves and spam them endlessly.

It helps that the cast are significantly varied in how they play. Every character has access to A Artes (chained attacks that require you to execute lower attacks to access higher attacks) and B Artes, which can be used at any time like traditional Tales special moves. However, each character also plays differently in how those interact. Asbel's A Artes have him attacking with his sheathed sword, while his B Artes unsheathe his sword. When his sword is unsheathed, he gains temporary super armor, and he regains health based on the number of attacks he completed. Cheria uses daggers to perform lengthy combos with her A Artes, allowing her to speed up the casting time for B Artes. Each character plays distinctively enough that it's fun to try other members of the cast and swap between them as needed. Even the healers (Cheria and Sophie) can be rewarding to play; good combos allow you to pump out high-end healing spells much faster than if you were just standing in a corner spamming them.

If I have one complaint about the combat, it takes a long time to get going. While the early combat is fun enough, you need to have a good number of CC to make the system engaging. You don't even have full access to A and B Artes until you finish the prologue, and I would say it isn't until my characters had (roughly) 10 CC that the combat system starts to shine. Beyond that, it's one of my favorite combat systems in an RPG and my favorite in a Tales game.

Leveling is pretty interesting. You have standard character levels, but the bulk of the game's power is tied up in Titles, which are kind of like achievements. Every character has their own sets of Titles, which you unlock for doing certain things, such as hitting certain plot points, finishing minigames, using certain attacks, being hit by certain status effects, and more. When a Title is equipped, it provides an active bonus and a series of learnable skills (both passive and active). By fighting with the Title equipped, you gradually learn these skills permanently.

Titles grant a surprising amount of customization when it comes to how you build and level your characters, and it strongly rewards you for engaging with every element of the game. You never know what will give you a Title, and the actual Titles show up frequently enough that you never feel stuck with one for long. Combining Achievements and gameplay mechanics is an idea I rarely see, but it works well to encourage players to do something besides spam the same attack and ignore the NPCs.

That said, Tales of Graces f is not a particularly wide-open game. It's fairly linear and tends to be somewhat repetitive, especially in the early game, when you're going back and forth along the same roads. There are dungeons, but none are super impressive. There are minigames, but nothing really grabs the attention. Functionally, the meat and potatoes of Graces f is the excellent combat system, and everything else exists to facilitate that.

The Remastered edition of the game adds a number of nice new features. There's now an in-game marker that shows your next plot location and the location of any nearby time-limited events, which is a huge boon since it means you're not missing out on some scenes that build much-needed character or potentially offer strong rewards. You also have faster movement speed and the ability to turn off enemy encounters, as well as subtitles for in-battle dialogue.

The game also includes all the DLC from the original game, which is a mixed bag. Things like bonus costumes are very welcome, and there are newly dubbed versions of special DLC skits that weren't present before. On the other hand, it also bundles in all the cheat DLC, which is thankfully optional but absurd when you see it all lined up. Similarly, the game lets you access the Grade Shop upon starting a new game and gives you enough free Grade Points to functionally buy everything in the shop — including a lot of cheat options. If you have self-control, this is entirely optional, but if you're the kind of person who feels tempted by these things, be warned that it'll be very easy to play the game on Super Easy mode.

As a remaster, Graces f looks surprisingly nice. The game is functionally a twice-warmed-over Wii title, but in this case, it works surprisingly well. The bright and colorful characters upscale really well, and it gives the whole experience a pleasantly cartoonish look. It's still relatively simplistic, but this is a case where a basic art style actually makes it age much better than something more complex. The soundtrack is not my favorite, but it's not bad; I would rank it among one of the weaker Tales soundtracks with a few standout tunes. The voice acting is cheesy but largely good, and it fits the tone of the game well. Japanese voices are an option, if you prefer.

Overall, Tales of Graces f Remastered is a strong remaster of a solid game. The plot is relatively weak but handily carried by its extremely strong combat system, which makes the game worth playing on its own. The additions to the remaster are all genuine improvements, and even the bundling of cheat-mode DLC is only a problem if you let it be. If you're a fan of action-RPGs or the Tales franchise and haven't given Graces f a gander, this is the ideal way to play it.

Score: 8.0/10