Grandia- in a next-gen age should we still care? yes! (Grandia (PS))

Member Name: bigbloomie1

Product:	Grandia (PS)
Date:	04/05/02 (68 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great battle system, great value for money, true 3D backgrounds/enviroments

Disadvantages: graphics not top class (minor), can get repetitive (minor)

Grandia is one of the famous cult classics from the sega mega drive, lovingly recreated onto your playstation. Lets get down to business then:

Story:
No problems here. The story, whilst is not "superb" it is more than adequate. You play justin, who goes on his big adventure, which has more than a few twists. You change characters in your party mid way through the game, and the main story is not apparent from the start.
You play justin and soon try to journey by boat to somewhere called the "new land", a exciting new continent (our boy justin is looking for adventure, you see). I would like to say more about what happens in the story, but the main stories involve real twists in both plot and character, so revealing them would be party-pooping on the grandest scale for those yet to play the game. Let me just say: you will be surprised more than once in this game...

Graphics:
These look almost 2D. You have what looks like 2D characters against a 3D background. The graphics are (in general) very cartoony style. The graphics are fine, but wont win any awards for being pretty. But Grandia has one advantage over other RPGs in this department: the backgrounds are in true 3D, you can move across stepping stones, across platforms and so on. You feel like you ARE in the background, as opposed to in most other RPGs where backgrounds have little on the interactivity scale (you feel like you are swimming against a background, doesnt draw you in much, you dont feel like you are really there). But in Grandia enviroments are very interactive, and much more extensive than in other games. You do a lot more outside of battle in this game than in most other RPGs.
7/10

Gameplay- non-battle
This is adequate, you can jump around, mess around, pick up items...... its very standard RPG fare. Since the story has so many twists and is really very good, this section is very good, you have a real will to play the game. You can ad
venture and roam around, strategically approaching different situations, without the annoyance of random battles (battles arent done by randomnly walking around, see below), so the game is a real enjoyance to play, there is less to get bored/annoyed about in grandia.

Battle:
Battle is entered not by random battles, a big advantage over other RPGs. It is in fact entered by seeing enemies on screen. Thats right. You literally see enemies roaming around, if you touch them you initiate combat. This allows you to avoid battle in some situations if you so wish. If you touch their backs, you get a surprise attack, on your backs they get a surprise attack and if they see you they run towards you trying to attack. This really revolutionises the way you play in some areas, it is no longer about finding the longer route, but the best one (should you wish to avoid or maybe encounter battle).
Abilities.. each character has various abilities. They are skilled in either two or three weapons, and cna learn magic abilities. You literally "buy" the ability to use magic, by finding things called mana eggs. There are four elements for you to learn, earth, fire, water and wind each dominating certain aspects of magic. As you use magic and certain weapons, your skill level in them increases, as it increases you learn many more abilities. You can have abilities requiring knowledge in more than one field, for more powerful abilities. for example, knowing level 10 fire, 15 earth and 12 mace might allow you to use a move called dragon king slice.
This adds different dimensions to the gameplay, and what you are skilled at using fundamentally affects how you approach battle.

Battle is carried out like so. Each character and enemy has a place on the action bar. This is a bar which each character moves down at different paces. When they get to the command place, you input a command. This can be either magic, combo attack, critical attack or use an item (mo
re on this later), or even move but you will rarely use the latter.

Combo attack does two quick attacks on an enemy, and does a bit more damage than critical attack.

Critical attack does 1 big hit rather than 2 smaller ones, but does a bit less damage. However if a enemy is between the command and action phases on the action bar, you can reset his bar sometimes with this attack.

Magic. There are two options here: special abilities, which are character specific and use your weapons to do certain things. They are basically just a character specific extention on magic abilities. They require a certain level, certain amount of MP and a certain skill in some weapons and magic.
True magic has various abilities, often shared by characters which need knowledge in either just one element or in a pair of elements.

Battle is very enjoyable in general, there is strategy and the ability to increase prowess with weapons and magic really is an enjoyable element. You will leap for joy when you finally learn a new ability youve being going for, the system of learning things is VERY VERY rewarding.
10/10

Replay value and length:
We are talking a 40-50 hour long adventure here.
There is not much replay value, it does get boring but because of the skills system there is more than in most other RPGs. eg one game you try to make your main character justin a wind/earth extra strong user, in the next one a strong fire/mace user.
But realistically only those who are REALLY into RPGs will play this more than twice.
Now that the game is available for a criminally cheap £10, via mail order companies and in bigger games shops, the only people that have an excuse not to own this are RPG haters. Everyone else should rush out and buy this now.


overall: 9/10

Summary: