Man, it's going to be hard to put Tales of Graces F down for a spell while I move to other May Millennial games this month. Not only am I invested in the gameplay and story (which isn't too bad, if still a little generic) but the skill-based combat means I'm a little concerned that my ability to play the game will atrophy after too much time away. Fortunately, the other three games I've picked out this month aren't quite as lengthy, so maybe I'll hop back in from time to time. Progress-wise, I'd probably say about... halfway (?) through the story if all these secret story trophies are anything to go by. (Most JRPG playthroughs are kinda rear-heavy though, given how much opens up in the late- and post-game.)
As I intimated last time, when you hit the "adult" arc (they're all still teenagers, so what this distinction is meant to suggest is anyone's guess) the game yanks the training wheels off and drops you in the deep end. It's also when Graces goes from good to great. I was utterly perplexed not by this torrent of new mechanics but how so many ingenious contributions to the Tales fold somehow remained exclusive to this game. I also spoke a little about the combat with its regenerating stock of CC (Combo Counter, used to perform artes, which I learned was first introduced in the Tales of Destiny PS2 remake) - combat also opens up in a big way, so I'll have to elaborate on that further below - and how the once superficial titles are now closely associated with character development, but since I wrote that piece last week there have also been additions like the Eleth Mixer, Eleth Bursts, and the Tempering system. They're all amazing features, if perhaps a little prone to abuse.
The Eleth Mixer burns what is essentially mana to generate items for you in battle and while travelling. This can include any meal - useful in Tales games for their mid-battle and post-battle healing and buffs - and any crafting material in the game, as long as you've found or made at least one in the past. Of course, rarer items and more buff-enabling meals have higher eleth requirements (and in the case of the former, spawn much less frequently) but this system ingeniously sidesteps the common issue of having to stop what you're doing to farm and restock curatives for an upcoming boss or dungeon. Eleth Bursts are periods in battle where the limiters come off: you can chain combos together indefinitely while the Burst is in effect and won't suffer any knock-back or stun effects, which in turn lets you fire off Mystic Artes - the big showy special finishers of the Tales franchise, equivalent to the Limit Breaks of Final Fantasy - like nobody's business. The flip side is that you need to be very careful when it's the enemy's turn to Eleth Burst. These brief and sporadic OP sessions are where the game's combo system comes to life, and there's very little outside the fighting game genre that can deliver that same level of satisfaction of nailing something with a flawless fifty-hit combo (with considerably less training required). Tempering, meanwhile, allows you to append elemental stones with various effects to your weapons and armor, and then merge those stones together when the equipment has been fully tempered. This nets you a potentially powerful accessory item (the stone) which can either be equipped or combined with other stones for even stronger effects, and it also lets you temper the equipment again: each +1 giving you more bonuses to damage and accuracy. It's gotten to the point where the crappy gear I picked up half the game ago vastly outpaces anything new in stores; the only reason to switch up is that newer gear increases your base CC.
Graces might be one of the most sophisticated and viscerally enjoyable RPGs I've ever played and I'm nowhere near the end yet. Tinkering with the titles to unlock new passive skills, figuring out how best to temper my gear, evading incoming attacks to counter with chains of varied combat moves, wondering what to stick in the Eleth Mixer next; the game is full of these engrossing moments and never seems to lag, even in its more circuitous dungeons. Modifications to Tales's usual "GRADE" system for NG+ bonuses means that even superfluous goals - mastering titles, which grants no additional skills but boosts the passive equipping the title grants you, or fighting the same enemy type enough that they drop a unique "soul orb" item - are contributing towards something, even if that something is a potential second playthrough with a whole host of "cheats" attached (like 10x XP, which will make all these "defeat a boss in under a minute" trophies much easier to acquire). It even has a card mini-game, though it's not a board-conquering Triple Triad type but rather a variant on the uniquely Japanese uta-garuta: a game where you finish famous quotes by selecting the matching cards.
The story's been, well, about as by the numbers as you can get (if I have to hear about Sophie's, Richard's, and Asbel's "pact of friendship" one more time...) but it's nothing egregious and Tales usually does a fine job fleshing out each game's cast beyond the immediate archetypes you're first presented with. I have the full party, or at least have had all the available party members at one time, and have given them all a fair shake in battle - earning titles goes a little faster if you're controlling what they do, after all - and there really isn't a weak link in the bunch. I'll go a little into how each character plays, but I want to clarify a few things about Graces's combat system first: chiefly, that every character has a set of "A-Artes" and "B-Artes". It might be easier to think of these like the A-button and B-button skills in Smash Bros., in how the former are basic attacks that change depending on the direction you're holding and the latter tend to be magic-focused or are otherwise more elaborate, character-specific, and conditional in their usage. While B-Artes rely on your magic stat equivalent for damage, not all characters use spells or use them exclusively.
- Asbel's your default character and thus by design one of the easiest and straightforward characters to master; Tales developers always have to account for those players who never switch from the protagonist, either because of personal playstyle reasons or because they simply missed the tutorial telling them how to do so (to be honest, I missed it too; it's not too hard to figure out though). Asbel's your standard melee tank, and his B-Artes are simply more powerful techniques that involve drawing his sword; A-Artes, meanwhile, leaves his sword in the scabbard and Asbel just kinda clubs enemies with it instead. There's also this neat system where building combos while the sword is sheathed and then unleashing it also gives Asbel a momentary defense boost, and doing the same in reverse restores some of his health. It encourages strategic on-the-fly switching of the two modes: a necessity for Asbel players, because unlike other characters there's no range variance to make that case instead.
- Sophie's the mysterious waif and linchpin of the story as well as the most versatile combatant in the game. Her A-Artes are absurdly fast martial arts attacks with a pair of claws, and her B-Arte repertoire balances offensive spells, support spells, and weapon artes learned from other characters. If you had to fight with a single character for some reason - the game's arena battles, for instance - Sophie would be the safest choice given her variation, high attack speed and damage, and ability to heal herself when the chips are down. I'm trying not to use her too much as she makes the game significantly easier, or at least it feels that way.
- Hubert is Asbel's stuffy younger brother and re-introduced fairly late into the "adult" arc of the game. He's a much faster combatant than Asbel, but conversely has far fewer defensive options and gets overwhelmed easily if you're not that great at dodging attacks (hence his late introduction, perhaps, since by the point you get him you should have quickstepping down). Hubert's B-Artes include a few healing spells, but mostly revolve around his double-bladed weapon transforming into a pair of guns. This allows Hubert to hop back and apply some ranged heat to enemies in lieu of getting counterattacked, switching back to melee A-Artes when they get close again. He's a great deal of fun to play as, though I usually switch back to Asbel or Sophie when there's a boss fight for the extra layer of security.
- Cheria is the party's healer, but I have it on good authority that she's also potentially one of the best damage-dealers in the game due to the way she can rack up massive combos with her fast throwing daggers. Big combos are not only the best way of keeping a tough enemy stun-locked while the rest of the party recovers or takes out the surrounding small fry, but they're the key to regularly activating Mystic Artes. These knife skills are all attached to her A-Artes, while her B-Artes are a mix of offensive and healing spells.
- Malik is the elder statesman of the group, and has a somewhat fluid role in combat that balances ranged and spell attacks. His weapon is some kind of bladed boomerang that allows for mid-range combos through his A-Artes, while his B-Artes are the aforementioned spells. Haven't used him too much; I find the AI's generally better at utilizing his unusual move set. (Oh boy, don't let enemies get close to him though. Dude's best with a bunch of tanks around drawing aggro.)
- Pascal is... a lot. Personality-wise, at least. Combat-wise, she's about as close to a core magic DPS as the game has to offer, with most of her A-Artes and B-Artes involving around energy projectiles and other showy magic. Curiously, her B-Artes usually require her to be in melee range as they fan out like shockwaves, yet like all spells they require charging up gauges that can be interrupted easily so it can be a bit of a gamble. She's also the game's designated summoner: she can call upon three elemental spirits in her Mystic Artes and stronger spells, provided you've found each of them.
- Richard is the royal childhood friend of Asbel, Sophie, Hubert, and Cheria and fights like the recurring "Magic Swordsman" of Tales previous, balancing melee with mostly offensive magic. I haven't been using him much either, for... uh, reasons. One good thing about the way his two arte styles combine is that the casting speed for the spell-like B-Artes is reduced when followed by his melee A-Artes, and this reduction is greater the larger the A-Arte combo that precedes it. It means he can finish off one enemy with a melee combo and automatically target another (hopefully some distance away) with the subsequent rapid-cast spell. You don't get to use Richard much, but he's worth a test trial when he's around.
I could spend another thousand words gushing about the glut of gameplay mechanics and how they elevate the medium, even if the medium didn't seem to care enough to retain any of these innovations, but I should probably spare you all the ungainly sight of me drooling all over myself. Graces, like a scant few other JRPGs in the past few years, reminds me why I'll forever be ride or die with the genre as a whole, parties of painfully earnest prepubescent world-saviors defeating evil with friendship notwithstanding.
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