Grandia II

"This will appeal to 12-16yo's, but will fail to impress the RPG veteran"

This is an updated review after playing the game a 2nd time, half-way through.

Graphics: 8/10
This is a dreamcast game, so no matter how bad the graphics are, they'll still look good. I'll just say that they do the job, but comment on a few things.

The characters lack detail. From what I noticed during the rare moments where the camera closes up on a character, they dont even have mouthes. The only way to know what a character is feeling like (ie, mad, happy, or puzzled) is by looking at the anime portrait of the character that appears everytime he speaks.

The monster design isn't anything to write home about. First, they're all low-poly with very few colors. A red scorpion, a brown bird, etc. You get the impression that all of them are alike even when they're not. There aren't that many enemies, so they're palette swapped and given different properties. There are rarely any good-looking, scary enemies, most are insects, birds, or reptiles.

Now the dungeon design is downright horrible. It basically consists of a maze with a few enemies and a savepoint, with the occasional switch/stairs. Many of them are set in a Cave, which will give you a feeling of deja-vu throughout the game, wether you're playing Dungeon 1 or Dungeon 6. Yeah, GameArts, that's what you get for using bland colors all the time. One exception, however, is an early dungeon set in a non-material world: that one was gorgeous, and there definitely should've been more like it.

The spell effects are probably the best thing about the graphics. They're some of the best I've ever seen, pure eye-candy.

Audio: 8/10
Grandia 2 has one of the best soundtracks in RPG history. I'd rate it in the top 5. It's by far the best thing about the game, there, I said it. The tunes aren't just an assortment of instrument sounds, they're beautiful melodies you'll have stuck in your head after you're done playing. It has classical tracks (including a very beautiful ''theme of sadness'' on a violin), electric guitar tracks (the adrenaline-pumping boss themes), etc, all depending on the moment, and all of them are adequately used. The only tracks that don't immediately catch your ear are the boring, ''peaceful'' town themes, but hey every game is allowed a few duds.
My personal favorite would have to be the boss theme, not the normal one, but the one that plays when fighting the Parts (although the normal one is amazing as well).

Unfortunately, to counter-balance the amazing soundtrack, you have the voice-acting: it's beyond awful. It actually HURTS to hear them talking. It's basically adults trying to sound like teenagers, and most end up sounding like emotionally damaged 7yo's. Better to have no VA at all than to have VA like this.

Gameplay: 5/10
The battle system is brilliant. But of what use is a brilliant battle system when the game is INSANELY easy? It made me sick, and practically ruined the whole game. It feels like a game for children, even my sister managed to beat it and it was the first time she ever played a game. Now I'm not the type that ''levels up'' while playing, I only killed the enemies that stood in my way, so I can assure you the game isn't easy because my characters were powerful. I'll explain the fatal flaws in the battle system.

First of all, you'll never be in danger, because the items that resurrect you restore your HP completely when used. They are very cheap to buy, too. If you've ever played a more recent Final Fantasy game, picture being given the spell Life 2 from the beginning of the game. But that's not the problem, no no. Chances are you'll never need a revive item, because your party is so overpowered. I cannot think of ONE occasion where I sat there after a fight and thought: ''that was close!'' All the bosses, even the last one, I defeated them with over 80% of hp on every one of my characters. So why is the game so easy?

Well, on top of imbalanced spells, you have Skill Books, which are there to make an easy game even easier. At level 10, about 5 hours into the game, I would be killing all the enemies on screen with a simple casting of the inexpensive Burnflame (a fire spell with an area of effect). It gets much easier a couple of hours later when you get a Skill Book, because then you can give your spellcaster +50 MAG, +50% Fire/Earth Damage, and +50 MP. The sad thing is, even at level 40 at the end of the game, when I started fighting the ''stronger enemies'', one casting of that same spell would STILL kill them. To make matters worse, the save points regen you to full HP/MP, and there is one in every floor of every dungeon, so you basically breeze through the dungeons without worrying about running out of MP.

You might be thinking, ''hey, well there are still the boss battles to sink your teeth in, Mac'', well you thought wrong! Another problem is that all spells work on ALL monsters, and yes that includes bosses! Can you imagine? I killed the final boss by using a spell called Spellbinding Eye (basically, the ''Stop'' spell), then kept slashing at him, and when he was free, I simply cast it again. This is the easiest RPG I've ever played.

Story: 3/10 (slight spoilers ahead)
I won't exaggerate and say it's worse than the voice-acting, but it IS pretty bad. It brings nothing new to the world of RPGs, instead borrows RPG cliches and conventions and puts them all in one package.

It seems as if though all recent japanese RPGs follow a pre-established formula: protagonists all under 18 who, much like the characters on Dawson's Creek, often have deep (or so they would want you to think) psychological debates on the human nature. Now for japanese RPG developers, this translates to ''corny dialogue, corny dialogue, bad-ass lead becomes nice guy, corny dialogue, corny conclusion''.

I can easily narrow the whole plot of the game to this:
-Bad Guy: I AM BAD GUY. I DONT LIKE LOVE, AND I WANT TO DESTROY LOVE BECAUSE I AM EVIL AND COME FROM THE DARKNESS.
-Your party: BUT YOU CAN'T DESTROY LOVE, BECAUSE IT'S IN OUR HEARTS AND OUR HEARTS WILL ALWAYS SHINE WITH LIGHT. WHICH IS OPPOSED TO DARKNESS AND ANY/ALL DARKNESS-RELATED THINGS.
*ridiculously easy fight insues*
-Bad Guy: WHAT? HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN DEFEATED BY MERE HUMANS? I COMMAND DARKNESS!
-You: WE HAD LOVE IN OUR HEARTS.

Basically the only thing the much-heralded ''touching, mature'' characters do is tell scared and confused stupid people that they don't have to be scared/confused because [thing that can fight the cause of their fear] was inside their hearts all along! My favorite quote in the game is this, during YET ANOTHER scene where your lead character shares his infinite wisdom with the weak ''normal'' adults (and adults are, like, totally stupid, and need 16yo's to reassure them! Totally!):
Villager: ''our Idol of Justice was stolen! This village is doomed!''
You: ''Justice is in your hearts! No one can steal that from you!''
Your partymember, Elena: ''Really, Ryudo? Do you really mean that?''
Villager: ''You are right! We'll rely on ourselves from now on!''

Now remember that they give the SAME ****ING SPEECH to every weak person/village they meet. Same thing, over and over. Ugh...it gets worse when it becomes ''God was inside of you all along!'' (this isn't a spoiler...you KNOW that its bound to show up with any japanese RPG with even the slightest religious overtones).

It also doesn't help that Ryudo is yet another copycat of crappy Final Fantasy heroes:

The game: ''He's mean, but that's because he had a rough past!''
Me: ''no ****? THAT IS SO ORIGINAL! I haven't seen anything of the sort since the last japanese RPG I played!''
The game: ''Now that you're half-way done, let's find out more about his past, and how it's a ripoff of Barret's in FF7!
Me: ''But Barret's past was some of the worst writing in videogame history, and only stupid 15yo's were touched by such manipulative drivel''
The game: ''I AM A MATURE GAME WITH MATURE DIALOGUE, YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY TOO STUPID TO UNDERSTAND ME''

Sorry, lost my train of thoughts here :) But I'm done.

Replay Value: None
No secrets, no special bosses, not even a world map to explore. Follow the arrow.

Rent or buy
Rent it first. If you dont like the battle system, then dont get it, because besides the battle system, the game has nothing to offer to those that don't consider contrived, sappy drivel to be quality dialogue. And remember that the game gets easier as you play. The more you progress, the easier it is to kill the enemies and bosses.

Conclusion
Get Skies of Arcadia. This game is horrible. I only give it a 6 because I want to review the games fairly in all aspects, I'm not the type of person who gives a 1 to the games he hates. Even though my score for this game is 6, and SoA's 9, SoA is FAR superior to this in every aspect except the soundtrack, which I thoroughly recommend getting.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/31/01, Updated 08/10/02