I wanted to share a fun story from 2012, when I was a simple game reviewer with Game Industry News. Back then, I was mostly a Nintendo 3DS and Xbox 360 reviewer. I remember when Chief Editor John Breeden emailed to tell me that he had snail mailed me (something we actually did back then) a really interesting game to review. This was back when we used to receive physical games to review, so I was anxiously awaiting the package. After I got it, I opened it up to see what was sent (he liked to keep me guessing) to reveal Tales of Graces f for the PlayStation 3.

I was nonplussed as I had not owned a PlayStation system since the first one was new and Legend of Dragoon was the new hit. At first, I thought I was being trolled by my boss. I called him up and asked if he got the package mixed up with another reviewer when he sent that title to review. He told me that he sent it to me because he knew I loved JRPGs. Lucky for me, my dad has a PS3 and let me power through a review of it over the next few days. It was the first 5 GiN Gems game I ever reviewed.

This was only my second time playing a Tales of game as I had previously reviewed Tales of the Abyss on the 3DS. While I gave it a high score then, in retrospect and with larger hands, it would likely be lower now. Since then, I have been lucky enough to play Tales of Arise as well, which I really enjoyed until the story lost the plot in the last couple hours. So, after gaining some experience and seeing Tales of Graces f Remastered on sale on Steam, I decided to jump back in and see if it was worth the perfect review score that I gave it so long ago.

Just booting Tales of Graces f Remastered and hearing the starting music made me happy. Seeing the anime aesthetic of the cutscenes was something I missed. Truth be told, I would love to see more titles with anime style cut scenes. Although I know that would be more work for the development teams, it would be something that’s uncommon and unique.

The combat system was the highlight of Tales of Graces f, just like I remembered. It took a little bit to get used to the fighting mechanics, but once I did I was pulling off some awesome combos. The bosses were challenging but not unbeatable. I also enjoyed the skits and post battle scenes as well. The characters are endearing in an awkward kind of way where they sometimes seem like goobers. This is especially true of the character of Sophie, who is oblivious to the point of being charming.

If you are a huge fan of JRPGs and want to revisit Tales of Graces f, then I recommend picking up the Remastered version of it. The quality-of-life upgrades such as double experience and extra money make it even better than the original. It only takes up about fifteen gigabytes of memory on consoles too, which is about half of the Call of Duty launcher.

Overall, Tales of Graces f Remastered is also a nice palette cleanser after playing more complex titles. It doesn’t require all the crawling around looking for rare items like most JRPGs do.

I think I might even start finding time to replay some of the other older titles I reviewed for GiN long ago because this time machine kind of operation with Tales of Graces f Remastered was certainly an enjoyable one for me.

And if you are wondering about what I decided when considering my GiN Gems score for Tales of Graces f from 2012, I would say that my original perfect score of 5 still holds firm in 2025. Tales of Graces f has aged well, and its Remastered version makes the experience even better while also introducing it and the Tales of series to a whole new generation of fans.