Tales of Graces f Remastered

This game took me about 4 months since I was playing co-op with my brother and I'm very glad I got to take my time with it!

PLOT:
The plot is honestly, not very good. It picks up near the end of the main arc with Lambda's existence and all that entails. But the first 10-20 hours are a lot of worldbuilding and setup that is frankly pretty bad. None of the political intrigue is very good, and I personally did not enjoy how ungrounded the rockagong dungeon was. Asbel's struggle with what he thinks is right and what should be done is not very interesting to me. This section of the game was a lot of me and my brother complaining when something happened cause it really does suck. The Lambda focus near the end was genuinely quite good! And then the postgame villain is ecofascism which comes out of nowhere, not really sure what it was going for.

I was not fond of Asbel from the start due to my hatred of Bryce Papenbrook's voice, but I did end up becoming fond of him near the end because he is just a really kind guy, even if he is as dense as a brick. Pascal never grew on me because she doesn't have a character outside of being quirky and stupidly smart at her inventions. The rest of the cast, however, I quite enjoyed! Hubert, Sophie and Malik were the highlights for me even if their character beats were not executed in the best way. The skits really make everyone shine and even when Pascal was the focus of a skit I quite enjoyed them. Postgame having Richard with the gang was phenomenal because I really love his design, was great to see him be a dork with everyone else. Tales of consistently has very fun casts and skits, this game is no exception.

GAMEPLAY:
The gameplay is most likely the best in all 3D Tales of. Movement actually feels good! It constantly rewards skilled play with CC recharges on perfect guards and dodges. It punishes bum-rushing since enemies do a lot of damage, making dodging and blocking very important. Every character has their own gimmick and every single one is fun to use! I played as Hubert, Malik, Asbel, Richard and a bit of Sophie. My brother used the same set of characters when I wasn't using them. Additionally, titles have a very important focus as you obtain skills and artes by mastering titles. I love skill points as a gameplay mechanic so I was very happy grinding them out.

EXTRA:

• The sound mixing is honestly kinda bad so I was unable to hear most of the music.
• The character designs are really good cause it's Inomata.
• The exploration is honestly really boring. Dungeon puzzles are wayyy too easy.
Eleth mixer is very fun!