Grandia
by Game Arts
Our Price: $99.95
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Category: Video Games
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Product Summary
Brand: SonyFormat: NTSC
Platform: PlayStation
Publisher: Game Arts
Video Game Reviews of Grandia
Customer Review: What's so Grand about this game anyway?
Summary: 2 Stars
I'm rather baffled by all the positive reviews for this game. I bought it a couple months ago after reading all the good reviews and thinking this game must be a shining gem that has withstood the test of time. Well, now I'm rethinking that assumption... No doubt many people will disagree with me, but on with the review!
Graphics (6/10): Sigh. Everything is pixelated. I'm not sure whether the graphics for this game were considered good when the game was released or not. On the bright side, the character designs are good as well as the towns. The dungeons are another matter, but more on that later.
Music (6/10): I still can't figure out why people claim this game has a great soundtrack. I've even heard people claim that Grandia's music is some of their most favorite of all time. I wonder if Grandia is the only RPG they've ever played? Anyway, the majority of the tracks weren't too bad. Unfortuneately, I remember some pretty bad ones. There's one jungle where the "music" seems to only be ambient jungle wildlife sounds, which got annoying after the 50th bird call. Unlike others, I found the Gumbo song to be one of the most annoying village themes ever. It's okay right at first, but then starts to grate on your nerves the longer you stay in the village. One more thing-the voice acting deserves mention. It's bad. I rank it as the worst voiceing I've ever heard in a game. It sounds like they literally pulled people off the street and offered them $10 to read off some lines. Terrible.
Characters (7/10): The characters are interesting at first, until you realize that everyone's the same. All possess the same plucky, happy-go-lucky adventurer personality. I have nothing against light-hearted games, but everyone really did seem to have the exact same personality; there was just no balance to the party. Speaking of party, there was a high rate of people joining and then permanently leaving, this (or something else?) really meant that no one really got any siginificant character development. Most everyone had no back story of interest (or at all) and were not well developed.
Story (5/10): Here's where Grandia really starts to "sag in the saddle", so to speak. The first 1/4 of the game and the last 1/4 are interesting and engaging. I really enjoyed the start in Parm; rummaging through people's houses, reading Justin's diary for some amusing stories, and laughing at the way any alcoholic references were changed to "coffee". Man, those were good times. Unfortunately, it all goes downhill from there. The middle of the game becomes a neverending series of filler events. The first couple "villages in need" or "musty old ruins to explore" didn't bother me at all, but after that, I started to feel like I was stuck on the wheel of karma or something. It just got really repetitive, until I just knew the next village I came to would have to be saved by me from some disaster. Well, what I refer to as the "main" story picked about the last quarter of the game, but it wasn't nearly original or interesting enough to make up for the huge amount of filler crap in the middle. By then, only my sheer will power kept me playing to the end.
Battle System (8/10): Nothing really wrong with the battle system. It's a variant of turn-based, with a small bar in the corner indicating who will go next. While the bar does let you see when you're characters will go, I didn't really find it all that useful. What keeps this section from a perfect score is the abilities-and how you level them up. Using them over and over again strengthens your magic, but not how you'd expect. SPEED increases, not strength. I found this very frustrating and pointless. The speed doesn't really increase enough to make much difference- and leveling spells takes forever.
Gameplay (4/10): Was the rotating camera really necessary? I've played games with rotating camera angles (like Xenogears) that worked just fine, but in this game it doesn't. The problem lies in dungeon navigation. If the graphics had been better, or if there had been better dungeon design, perhaps navigation wouldn't be so confusing. It's really hard to tell where you are because the dungeon design is so bland and repetitive; there are usually no landmarks with which to navigate, with the result that I actually wound up back at the entrance thinking it was the exit. On another note, something else that bothered me was the fact that even by the end of the game, you couldn't really return to much of anywhere you had been previously. I kept expecting be able to return to Parm eventually, but no such luck.
*NOTE: This part's an extremely important part--the game is glitchy. It would freeze randomly, forcing me to reset and start over. The cds themselves were in good condition with almost no scratches of any kind, and I've heard this same complaint before, which leads me to believe the glitches are a flaw of the game design. This is a huge turnoff--this added in extra frustration to an already boring game. This flaw knocks points off the score.
Overall (4/10): Note this score is not an average, it's my subjective overall score. I must say, given the flaws of this game, I'd never play it again. It's too bad really, it could've been a decent game if the makers had cut out the middle of the "plot" and fixed the glitches. I really wouldn't recommend this to anyone unless they absolutely have played every other good RPG out there and are just dying for something else to play. Even then, it may be better to just replay an old favorite instead.
Description of Grandia
If you can put up with the cutesy graphics, Grandia is one of the longest, most compelling, and most character-driven role-playing games you'll ever spin in your PlayStation. By the time we finished this massive quest, we really cared about the game's characters. (By comparison, our interest in Final Fantasy VII was focusing more on getting from one transition movie scene to the next).The main story line is standard role-playing fare. The powerful General Baal has plans to unleash something of a Pandora's box on the world, and you can guess whose job it is to stop him. Grandia provides a world packed with colorful characters who are fun to talk to, and the unconventional combat system lets players pick and choose their fights. The characters in your party grow, as do their magical skills and weapons, meaning there's always some new accomplishment just around the corner that keeps players adventuring long into the night. Role-playing fans should be overjoyed that this conversion from the Sega Saturn classic was made, as it provides weeks of solid adventuring that never becomes a chore. --T. Byrl Baker
Pros:
- An entertaining adventure with loads of interesting characters
- Characters, weapons, and spells all improve with experience
- Quirky, cutesy graphics won't appeal to everybody
Role-Playing Games
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