Grandia is a game that filled me with mixed emotions. On one hand there was a great unique battle system that made the battles kind of fun. On the other hand there is the fact that the game gets repitive later on.
The battle system is kind of hard to explain. There is a bar on which everyone's head is on. It scrolls and when it reaches a certain point a battle menu pops up. You pick what you want to do and the head scrolls to the end which is the point where the charcter attacks. Even the enimies head is on the small bar so you can see how close they are to attacking. Hits and spells can set you back on the bar or start you over if they are critical enough.Your range is important also if you attack an enemy far away. If it is too far then your character will stop looking for the monster and start over on the bar.Multiple attacks are common if timing is good. Spells that cause large amounts of damage take longer to cast but hurt more, duh!Either way the battles are fun and are a very bright spot in the entire game.
The good stuff is that there is some voice acting. I love voice acting even if it sucks. This title has plenty of it. Also the military of that fantasy world jumps in and really helps the story move along.There are plenty of side characters that you will meet. Some join you and some don't.There is some humor and don't forget the stupid women generals Nanna, Sake and Mio. They are constantly bugging Justin, main character, and wind up making fools of themselves. Most important of all the battle system is fun.
On the other hand there is plenty of bad stuff too.The first thing is the ability to carry only 12 items per character. You will run out quickly. Trust me. Also there is plenty of corny dialougue. The voice acting is not the greatest either.It also takes forever to gain levels on this game. I don't know why but I wound up entering disc 2, there are only 2, on level 21!All of these pale in comparison to the repitiveness in this game however. The basic rule of this game's fighting grounds are 3 types of enemies and whatever you see in the very first section is what you will see in the entire freakin stage. No variety at all. I soon stopped looking for treasures and found myself dashing through each screen trying to find the boss or the freakin exit. Boss fights are fun but the trip to get to them is not. It is kind of hard to avoid enemies since they chase you like on Earthbound.The final complaints would be that the music sucks and the graphics are only okay. Music is confine d to a few dinks and dunks in some areas. The graphics just look like it could have been tweaked up a bit.
The game is okay but should have been so much better.The story is very straight foward but gets better and more mature later on.The battle system is great and helps me give this game a recomended buy. I brought it for $20 and it is well worth it. It starts great then drags a while but then picks up again. If you can stand a RPG that is a little repitive then go ahead and buy it . There are plenty of games out there that are worse than this. Not a classic but pretty darn fun nevertheless.
