It’s not long before Tales of Graces f Remastered graces (heh) our consoles this coming January, and fans are understandably excited for the return of the game which arguably has one of the best combat systems in the series.

Ahead of its launch, we were fortunate to interview Yusuke Tomizawa, General Producer of the Tales of Series, and Yuki Ishikawa, Producer of Tales of Graces f Remastered, who shared insights with us about the development process, exciting new features such as the Grade Shop, and how the developers strive to make the Tales of Series an accessible and beloved title for fans around the world.

The interview has been edited for clarity.

On Choosing to Remaster Tales of Graces f Remastered

Media: With the original Tales of Graces f being released almost 15 years ago, what made the team decide with a remaster instead of completely remaking the game?

Toshizawa: We acknowledge that we have multiple Tales of Series titles, and we understand that there are many titles to choose from. The reason why we went for a remaster of Tales of Graces f is that we wanted to quickly as well as accurately port this particular title to modern-day gaming devices. Instead of doing a full remake, which would take a long time, a remaster would allow us to create a game that really speaks to its audience and to deliver it as fast as possible.

Ishikawa: When we think about the points to improve from the original, it’s not just about improving what didn’t work in the original series. Since we’ve remastered this game 15 years later, the priority was to modernize the gaming experience for new players.

Media: What is the reason for remastering Tales of Graces f specifically out of all the titles?

Tomizawa: Out of all the Tales of series, one reason why we’ve chosen Tales of Graces f is that porting the graphics over from the 90s and early 2000’s isn’t as simple as you think. Porting over some of the other titles isn’t feasible with its dated graphics and user experience. Tale of Graces f is the optimal title when we’re ensuring that the graphics will be maintained from a remaster standpoint.

We acknowledge that the Tales of series is known for their character development, interaction, and combat. When we were considering out of all the Tales of games to choose from, we leaned towards Tales of Graces f as it has the most appealing points when it comes to character development and combat. One other reason that made us decide was the 10th anniversary event of Tales of Graces f in Japan. The participants in attendance requested a remastered version of the game. Since a lot of players in Japan wanted a remaster of Tales of Graces f, it is one of the reasons we decided to move forward with this particular title.

Media: What would you say is unique point of Tales of Graces f Remastered compared to the other games in the series?

Ishikawa: Combat is one of the key aspects of the game. Besides that, one other point is your ability to resonate with the characters quite seamlessly. What I mean by this is that we’ve made the key messaging of the story easier to comprehend. There is the relationship between the protagonist and antagonist where the story has evolved where they were once friends and now they’re enemies.

From the protagonist’s standpoint, they need to save the world. Compared to other series, that is something that players can relate to and be very immersed in it. That is the story design that we’ve decided on and that in my opinion is unique with Tales of Graces f.

Regarding specific story points in Tales of Graces f, we’ve been able to tell the story we wanted to tell in the original game, and these are ported over to the remaster. So we didn’t feel the need to add anything new to the plot.

Media: Tales of Graces f’s combat is one of the best in the series, does the dev team have any comments about this particular game’s strength?

Ishikawa: In my opinion, Tales of Graces f has stood out among the pack compared to other games due to its complexity of combat. There are games where you just press the button with no button combination and in more difficult games where there are complex button combinations of attacks. In Tales of Graces f, by pressing the attack button, you’re able to execute these complex attacks, and combining with the direction of the controller, this has allowed players to seamlessly ensure that style and performance are combined to achieve this effect with a simpler control configuration.

One other reason is the ability to avoid the enemy attacks, making sure that the action scenes ensure that you can avoid the attacks from the enemies. It allows your team to recover and allow a counterattack. There are steps being taken to maximize the action scenes.. I believe that these elements improve the quality and satisfaction of combat in Tales of Graces f Remastered.

Media: Among the improvements listed for the game, there was no mention of the original music being rearranged or remastered. Was any improvement made to this aspect?

We always thought about the original game in mind and for the music aspect specifically, the original content was already of a good quality and we wanted to preserve what was in the original game. Music was the least difficult to import as we were able to import the music successfully. Regarding importing the sound effects and the graphics, these were less straightforward than the music, but we were able to import them successfully for the remaster.

There is one additional feature regarding music. On the digital deluxe option, you are able to add a battle background music from another Tales of game to Tales of Grace f Remastered. This allows you to enjoy music from another Tales of game during the combat in Tales of Graces f Remastered.

Media: Can fans expect more remasters from other Tales of titles like Tales of the Abyss and Tales of Xilia?

Ishikawa: I personally love Tales of the Abyss. Obviously, we’re thinking of choosing a new Tales of title to remaster for the future. We cannot comment at this point in time on which title we’ve chosen. There are other Tales of title that are popular, and this feedback is helpful and we appreciate the request for other Tales series to be remastered. Keep the feedback coming, and it is always happy to hear that the series is in demand.

Tales of Accessibility

Media: Since Tales of Graces f is a remastered title, what steps have been taken to make the game more accessible to the broader audience?

Ishikawa: There are new mechanics that allow new users and those who are not familiar with the Tales of series to quickly familiarize themselves with Tales of Graces f Remastered. There’s an extra functionality to download the original content from the original series.

One of the key features we’ve added is a next event indicator that’s reminiscent of modern games. It allows the players to know what the next quantifiable steps to get to the next objective. There will also be an indication of a new event that is happening. Players are able to be notified if there are enemies or adversarial character encounters.

A second functionality that will cater to broader audiences will be the introduction of the Grade Shop, which we highly recommend for new players to use. Compared to the original series, the Grade Shop is only open in the second iteration of the story, where as now, the Grade Shop is open to players right away. The players are able to purchase skills and items using the Grade Shop Points, which are already rewarded to the new players, which they can enjoy right away.

Regarding downloadable content, it will include outfits from the original game as well as the skits. We acknowledge that there were some skits that were only available in Japan version. However, now that the skits are available in English audio, we’re collaborating with Bandai Namco subsidiaries across the world, and now these can now be enjoyed by players around the world.

Media: What are some new features that new players can use to easily familiarize themselves with Tales of Graces f Remastered?

New players can leverage toggling the encounter feature on or off. The direction indications as mentioned earlier can be switch on to find out where to go next. This is with the caveat that the whole point of playing RPGs is the point of discovery and solving puzzles when players tend to get lost. These options are present with the intention to accommodate different types of players who wish to take advantage of this feature. This is to give players flexibility.

I personally like the battling options by mixing up the combination of the characters using their styles and defensive options, and the developers recommend this as well. On top that, myself and the development team encourage new players to use the Grade Shop when playing Tales of Graces f Remastered.

Media: Can the team walk us through the thought and design process of adding certain Quality of Life features in Tales of Graces f Remastered?

Ishikawa: From a gaming development standpoint, we had to think about all possible option settings and features at the beginning stages of development. This is to avoid unnecessary complications in the development process down the line. Regarding the thought process and design, the team discussed internally what worked in the Tales of Graces f to make it easier to players to experience Tales of Graces f Remastered.

We brainstormed what would be the ideal settings or functionality for players to be satisfied with the remaster, with a focus on combat. Obviously, the team decided on which to implement for the overall enjoyment of players. We looked into the standards of other RPG games, and how we would adapt these trends and then implementing them with Tales of Graces f Remastered. This is with the intention that players can ultimately enjoy the world of Tales of Graces f Remastered.

Media: Since the grade shop is open right away, did the team feel the need to rebalance any combat and progression systems?

Ishikawa: Regarding the Grade Shop functionality, the producers have left its usage up to the player to choose whether to use it or leave it. For example, extra experience points like Exp x2 or Exp X5 functions are free to toggle on or off. Whether they use this function or not, players have the flexibility to choose. There are disclaimers that mention that certain settings cannot be modified, such as HP points or basic functions. The intention is that players around the world will have the flexibility to choose how they want to experience the game.

Balancing mostly had to do with player experience. On the first playthrough, players may feel that they have the time to toggle a particular setting, so they’ll leave certain bits in the second playthrough, so there was very little re-balancing. However, in the second playthrough, the developers had to balance is quite a bit in the sense that players will feel that they don’t have time to say, purchase an item, they had to rebalance it quite a bit.

Media: What influenced the decision with adding the scenes in English that was only available in Japan in the original?

Ishikawa: Traditionally, a game would first originally release in Japan and then enjoyed by fans around the world. Now that we have the means and capability to distribute the game simultaneously, the publisher wanted to ensure that distribution will happen at the same time around the world and these scenes are enjoyed equally by every Tales of fan around the world at the same time upon release.

Adding an additional language from a game development standpoint means longer dev time to debug and troubleshoot. More resources will be allotted for translation and localization, not only in Bandai Japan, but also around the world. However, this effort is to ensure the publisher’s intention to incorporate new languages so players all over the world will get to enjoy the Tales of remaster series simultaneously.

Media: The subtitles for the dialogue during the battle sequences are much appreciated, why did the development team decide to add it even if other Tales of games didn’t do so?

Ishikawa: The decision behind adding subtitles originated from previous iterations of the series where the dev team received feedback from players that they appreciated receiving the Japanese and English audio. However, many players didn’t understand what’s being said sometimes. Audio functionality was available for Japanese and English speakers, but didn’t cater to worldwide audience who do not speak Japanese or English. We intentionally decided to add multiple languages for European and Asian languages so players around the world can comprehend the scenes. It’s a key feedback and they’ve decided to improve upon it.

Media: What advice can you give to players playing Tales of Graces f Remastered for the first time?

Ishikawa: Regarding players who are less familiar with the Tales of series, I expect that the character realism would stand out. When it comes to Tales of Graces f Remastered, I’d like to see that they enjoy the battle action scenes. The gaming development team really focused on and spent a lot of time on it, so please look forward to that. Even though it’s been 15 years since it was remastered, don’t think it’s just another battle action scene, we hope you enjoy and play around with it.

Taking the Tales of Series to Modern Audiences

Media: What were some of the steps to take the Tales of Graces f Remastered to bring it to modern quality?

Ishikawa: Regarding the quality compared to other Tales of series, it is the adaptability to play on PC. In any gaming company, it is important to ensure quality making the port from one console to the PC. Tales of Graces f Remastered focused on this as well, we’ve made sure that the frames per second (FPS) is maintained at a 120 FPS. We also made sure that it is controlled by a gaming mouse and keyboard. This caters to gamers who want to play on PC. It is attention to detail with these small aspects that make sure it keeps up with the rest of the series.

Media: Were there any elements or features from the original that the development team considered removing for the Remastered version but ultimately decided to keep for nostalgic or for design reasons?

Ishikawa: As a general direction, our intention is to preserve everything from the original title. We wanted to preserve what the players enjoyed from the previous game. To be more specific on the aspects that we removed from the original titles, one is from the downloadable content. Some of the costumes or outfits were available due to collaborations with other companies that were based on a contract. 15 years later, that is no longer the case. There are some outfits that are not included, unfortunately.

Second, in the original series, it was meant to be played on the PS3. Towards the end credits, the online ranking on how long it took to complete the game. Now in the Remaster version, as it’s available on six different platforms, having this cross-platform ranking is not feasible. This feature has been removed. There are functions that may not have been ported over due to legacy reasons, but as much as possible we’ve tried to preserve and enhance the experience from the original PS3 version.

Media: Did you run any issues porting Tales of Graces f Remastered from the PS3?

Ishikawa: In general porting is a very difficult step in the development process. From a gaming library standpoint, it needs to accommodate six different gaming platforms, which is a challenge. Previous games were built on a Namco-based engine, when you port it over, it doesn’t mean the job is done. (laughs) We would need to optimize and test rigorously.

An additional point of difficulty that we faced was adding additional languages. When we added the Russian language, for example, the characters are speaking in a speech bubble. In English or Japanese, the space is enough to cover the speech of the character. However, in other languages, we needed to extend the speech bubble, which in turn covered the area of the character face. So we would have to adjust the sentence, we would have to determine where to cut, and move to the next line, depending on the language.

Media: How does Tales of Graces f Remastered contribute to the celebration of the franchise’s long and rich history?

Ishikawa: For context, Tales of Arise was introduced in 2021 and we were trying to maintain consistency of the development cycle of the Tales of series that would lead to the 30th anniversary. We also faced more complexity when it came to developing Tales of Graces f Remaster. Nowadays, it takes a longer period of time to develop, complete, and distribute games.

On the gaming development side, Tales of Graces f Remastered intentionally ensures the consistency of the Tales of series. It is positioned as the remaster title that will connect all the releases and the upcoming new releases.

With that being said, Tales of Graces f Remastered being launched on the 30th anniversary is to signal a more frequent creation of these remaster games with high quality. There will be a constant release of these remastered games from now on. Tales of Graces f Remastered is the starting point of this.

Media: Do you have a message for Tales of fans around the world?

Ishikawa: We appreciate the support from fans from around the world playing the Tales of games. There’s never enough thanks that we can give. When the original Tales of Graces f Remastered was released in 2009, I was a high school student and a core fan of this series. I can relate to the fans from around the world playing this game, after many years, I can contribute, develop, and serve the fans of the Tales of series from around the world. Once again, thank you for your support and I hope you enjoy Tales of Graces f Remastered!

Special thanks to Ishikawa-san, Toshizawa-san, and Bandai Namco Entertainment Asia for the opportunity.

Tales of Graces f Remastered is coming to PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, and Switch on January 16, 2025.. The PC version, via Steam, is coming on January 17, 2025.