Grandia II

"Finally an excellent RPG is on the Dreamcast!"

When I bought my Dreamcast, all I wanted to get was fighting games like Capcom vs SNK and such. But there is another genre of games I want too. That would be Role Playing Games (RPGs). Unfortunately, Evolution doesn't quite add up as a RPG for the Dreamcast due to it's lackoff gameplay.

It seems all is lost until Grandia II came to the Dreamcast. How does it fare? Most surprisingly, I'm very happy and very pleased with this game.

Read on.

-GAMEPLAY/STORYLINE- [08]
Story-wise, it's nothing you've never heard of before. It's the same GOOD vs EVIL.. but with some nice plot and twists. What makes the storyline interesting is the twists AND character developments which keeps the interests in the player's mind (you'll WANT to know what happens).

Gameplay, it's very simple to learn and such. Unfortunately, puzzles are not what you expect. Most are fairly simple and the rest are too easy. What makes the game challenging is probably the BATTLE SYSTEM.

IF there's anything Square should learn... it would be Grandia II's battle system! This battle system is PERFECT. A full-scale screen battle with lots of characters and enemies. At the bottom right there's a bar with icons showing the enemies' and you party members. There are 3 ''sections'' of the bar.. WAIT, COM, ACT. As long the icon (you and enemies) are at WAIT, you obviously will wait. Once it gets to COM, that's when you decide the battle decision and then the icon will move to ACT to activate the command. Obviously, spell casting and special moves will take longer to reach ACT compared to Attack and Defend command. What makes it challenging is that there is special situations you can do to cancel enemies attack or even use to win the battle! It's strategy! I never had this much fun watching a full screen REAL TIME battle for a long time (not since Chrono Cross).

-CONTROLS- [09]
Get controls which shouldn't give any problems at all. The only complaint is that the Equipping screen and such could've been implanted better or easier to organize.

-GRAPHICS- [09]
For a game like this.. I'm surprised that Game Arts used lots of polygons in the game! Characters and enemies are greatly detailed and even the battles are very smooth with good details! With a good and unusual style of CG and animation mix in the battle system (spell and technique casting) it looks very compatible. The ONLY minor complaint is the blurry looks of the CG movies when it's played for the main part of the storylines.

-MUSIC/SFX- [08]
The music, although is not something you'll remember for a long time (like Aerith's theme or Celes's Opera House Song), the songs here are great and lovable. From Cancao do povo to A Deus, from the battle theme to the town themes... they are well composed. What's best is the dubbing of the voices! It's VERY good and well spoken.. plus it's something that will NOT hurt your ears! The SFX is also great too! Great job Game Arts!

-REPLAY- [07]
The only 2 problems with this game is the linear gameplay and lack of challenges. You can barely go anywhere in this game, especially when going to a different legion. You're usually limited to SOME places you can choose to go.. but regardless, it's always the same path. For challenges, it's too low thanks to the abusive save cones that's posted at nearly every area.. which you can keep healing and saving. This game maybe good enough to play again due to it's FUN battle system and storyline.. also to see if you can beat it with a higher challenge (like NOT using the Save Cone to recover at all!).

-THE FINAL GRADE- 09 {HIGHLY RECOMMENDED}
My best advice is the RENT first. If you like it, then you buy it. While the difficulty in beating the game is low, it makes up for the plot, fun battle system and music. The music is also great to listen to although it isn't what I would consider the best ever. Last, the game will probably take around 30-50 hours depending if you like to level up a lot or don't. Oh yea, there are about 3 bosses that can be hard.. if you're not prepared to fight it AND have a good strategy to kill it (so it isn't that 100% super easy ^-^).

Why did I give it a 9? Despite what I've written, this RPG is an excellent RPG which can be as great as Final Fantasy and even Phantasy Star! Grandia's battle system is well loved (for me) and the game design is great! Seriously, I can't wait for the next Grandia III (hope it'll be on Dreamcast BUT longer and more harder)!

Overall Summery [+/-]
+ Battle System (#1 best battle system in my book now)
+ Characters Development (Good plot development between the 2 main characters)
+ Plot Development (some nice twists)
+ Music/SFX/Voice acting
- Save Cones abusive
- Easy to Under Average difficulty
- Linear
- Short game (30-35 hours average)

Master LL- thinks Square should implant Grandia's battle system on their Final Fantasy games!

Grade Scale (01-10):
01- Avoid like plague
05- Average
10- Perfect

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/01/01, Updated 01/01/01