by TheNesta » Wed Mar 14, 2012 10:20 pm
Well, here I am to talk about it, but honestly I've only played about 3 hours so far, so this is going to be some pretty limited impressions.
It's hard to compare Graces f with something like Vesperia, because Graces f is a port of a Wii game. So, despite it being quite a bit newer than Vesperia, it doesn't look as good. It looks fine, don't get me wrong, but it just makes me yearn for Xillia more which from what I've seen looks even better than Vesperia does.
On the other hand, Graces f introduces new combat mechanics which spice up the typical Tales combat a bit. I already liked Tales combat, but it's interesting to see this new system in play. Basically, they got rip of TP entirely, and now you have a CP system, which I think stands for Critical Points. Depending on your weapon you have more or less CP during battle. You spend your CP by doing attacks in battle, and you regain it through several means, like comboing enemies, guarding, and so on. There's also two different modes of attack. A and B. A attacks are your normal attacks, but instead of just mashing the attack button over and over again, you press the attack button, and a direction on the analog stick to string together different basic attacks. It's kind of like a simplistic fighting game system. And then B attacks are your usual Artes that function the same as they always did, they just require CP now instead of TP.
I only just recently got access to B attacks, so give me a little more time to play with it, and I'll let you know what I think more in depth. So far, it seems neat, but we'll have to see if the new system works out better than just spamming attacks with TP.
There's a couple of other new additions, like a revised crafting system from Vesperia, and an Alchemy pot of sorts that will either cook food during battles, or have a chance of duplicating items as you walk around. I only just recently got access to that too, but it seems neat.
All that aside, I wish I could talk more about the characters, and the story. But I just haven't seen enough of it yet. The first few hours of the game are sort of a Prologue where the main characters are just children. None of them really stand out so far though, except for Sophie, who is awesome. Asbel seems like he'll be cool too, but I can't really vouch for the others.
I will say one thing though, and that is that the game's pacing was very plodding to begin with. There were lengthy cutscenes that spent about 10 minutes depicting stuff that could have easily been addressed in half the time. Now, there's a number of reasons this could have stood out to me: A) I just got done playing Mass Effect 3, and WRPGs are quite a bit snappier with their storytelling, B) I need to re-familiarize myself with JRPGs, or C) The game just has some terrible pacing in the beginning. Admittedly it became far less noticeable the more I played, so take that for what you will.
Anyways, there you go, early impressions. I'm looking forward to playing a lot more of it pretty soon. But was trying to get through some rental games, and debating if I want to take two hours to play Journey. But, I will definitely be playing more of it soon.
Vesperia is a beautiful game and I think it is an excellent addition to the series. The story becomes so complex and the characters only become more loveable as the story develops. The battles are fun and all the characters have such awesome attacks and magic. Everyone should play a Tales game! They are so much fun! 
