Grandia II

"Set with one of the most interesting storyline, Grandia II is indeed a great RPG, despite its flaws."

So here’s one of the most fantastic RPG of all time, Grandia II on the PC. At first on the Dreamcast, you can now get it either on the PC or PlayStation 2. Undeniably, Grandia II has a most setting story and marvellous graphics, but on the PC, it has several flaws and glitches that shouldn’t have occurred.

Graphics – 8.9
Nice and very colourful graphics. The environment around is in 3D, and the character modelling looks fine. Magic and spell effects look nice, but the only thing that falls short is the FMV sequences. They are supposed to look better than the rest but then, Grandia II on the PC has one of the most pixelated with clear polygons FMVs ever. They look terrible because the original size of the movie files is 320x192. It seems that while playing the game, they had maximized the movie files, resulting polygons showing plainly.

But then, you can content yourself with the extremely colourful environment in Grandia II, from the plain forest to the green fields and busy bustling towns. Nothing had looked as vivid and lively as this (with the exception of several known games, of course).

Music and Sound Effects – 9.0
Nice background music goes on throughout the game, and it’ll change as the situation changes, and more battle-themed music will go on. Sound effects are okay, with the usual slashing sounds and magic sound effects. There are English voices that are used to accompany the dialogue in the game (most RPGs don’t have RPGs, like the earlier Final Fantasy series like great ones like Final Fantasy VII, VIII and IX). Some of them are a little overdone, but they are full of emotions to let you identify their respective emotions. Of course, you might not get used to the voices but play through the game long enough will let you get used to them.

Gameplay – 9.3
Grandia II is the normal hack-and-slash RPG that you’ll find, with an interesting story that follows. But there are several flaws which you’ll find imminent; I don’t know whether it’s rather hard to cash in on a nice, flawless port or whether it’s because it’s hard for the developers to make the game work on the PC with their graphics system. For example, there is the weird shadow system that seemed to encage the characters in the black shadows. They look obviously weird.

This game will also crash to put you back to your desktop occasionally. This is irritating, not to mention annoying, because while fighting bosses or you have gone far through the game without the saving, you have wasted your time and energy completely. Sometimes, the game will also seemed to lock-up or just freeze while fighting against a certain boss, even though the enemy seemed to be moving.

The magic system is almost the same as other RPGs basically, but in this game, you’ll get to collect Special Coins and Magic Coins, other than the normal Gold and Experience Points. The Special and Magic Coins are used to power-up your special moves (to make them better and less waiting time), as well as powering up your magic abilities, in order to gain more magic skills. But to use magic, you’ll need to have a Mana Egg.

There are certain books like the Book of Priests which you can use to enable and equip certain skills (using those Special and Magic Coins), like to increase your HP or your agility, etc.

Some bosses would be rather easy, but you’ll need plenty of time to defeat it (I’ve encountered bosses that took me more than half an hour!). Luckily, there are Save Points (that look like a rainbow shining downwards) which you can use to save and recover yourself completely.

What I simply love is the battle system, as it’s rather unique. When it’s your character’s turn, you can choose to attack using either Combo Attacks (normal, powerful ones) or Critical (to Cancel your opponent’s would-be attacks). In addition to that, two or more of your characters could keep hitting the same enemy repeatedly, resulting in some rather cool effect. Of course, you can have up to four characters fighting at one time.

There are a few mini-games in the game (that you’ll need to find yourselves), and each of them could let you gain some items. Hidden side-quests for more powerful items and things are also in Grandia II.

The conversations in the game are always rather funny, with the main character, Ryudo being sarcastic all the time. Together with the powerful voice actors (some of the dialogues have voices for scenes that are continuing the story, while normal conversations have not), the dialogues are also one of the main aspects on why this game is successful.

Story – 9.2
Okay, what I might say may contain spoilers, depending on how you view it. So don’t read this section if you fear you might know things that you shouldn’t have known.

The story starts with a Geohound (who are disrespected and regarded as nasty and tough) called Ryudo. He has been hired by a priest to protect Elena, the Songstress who must participate in a secret ceremony to prevent the rebirth of Valmar. Unfortunately, the ceremony failed and the whole land is thrown into chaos and disaster, with Elena being possessed by the Wings of Valmar. Elena had then leaded a double-sided life; more like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

As Ryudo encounter more friends and characters, he get to learn what life is really about and he shouldn’t be pretending and hiding his feelings all the time. Ryudo is indeed destined, together with his friends, to save the world from the hands of Valmar.

Overall – 9.3
Grandia II is indeed a splendid RPG. Throw in a carefully planned story, nice and colourful graphics with great voice actors, Grandia II is what you get. Even though there are those flaws that seemed to pull the game down, those are pretty well forgiven if you like this game enough.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/07/02, Updated 08/07/02