"A great new addition to the Ps2 RPG arsenal!"

Let me start off by saying that Grandia Xtreme is different from other Grandia's, it is NOT Grandia 3. Its more of a dungeon crawler, but its great gameplay makes up for it. heres a breakdown for you.

Graphics
The graphics are definitely great, while there not as spectacular as FFX, they are very smooth, and look very nice, looking very similar to Grandia 2 for ps2

Story
The story is probably the games biggest weak point. It doesnt focus on story very much, but although its a dungeon crawler, it still manages to deliver a decent enough story to keep you playing. It starts off with the main character Evann who is a ranger getting drafted by the army. He isnt interested, but is taken by force. He is paired up with other allies to stop an elemental disorder. Its a pretty simple story, but as I said before, is decent.

Gameplay
This is where Grandia Xtreme shines its brightest, its battle system is very much similar to its predacessors, in the aspect that its turn based combat, but instead of the bar on the right side of the screen showing the turns, its a circle. There are a total of 8 characters, you can use any of them you want, except Evann must always be in the party of course. As before, each character has its own special moves that take SP, SP is recovered by doing physical attacks. You can equip skill books, and skills to help boost your stats. There are also mana eggs, you can equip more than one, depending on which character, some can equip 4, and some can only equip 1, adding to the strategy. But a new addition is that you can combine mana eggs to make more powerful ones. Most of the game is spent in dungeons, and battles take place my approaching the enemy on the field map, similar to previous Grandia's. But whats great is, that later in the game, you can return to the dungeons to fight secret bosses, harder enemies, and get better items, adding to the length, and replay value. Another new addition is that you can combine special moves, there are 2, 3, and 4 character combinations. The few downsides to the gameplay is that everything is done in town, saving, resting, weapons, items, mana eggs, and skills....all of this is done in town, even equipping the mana eggs and skills. So you have to use what they call ''geo gates'' to return to town from a dungeon, or to return to a dungeon from town. But overall, the gameplay is fantastic.

Sound
The music is nothing to drool over, its nothing more than your average soundtrack. Isn't too much to say about it good or bad.

rent or buy
If you really like RPG's, definitely buy, but if not, you may want to rent this one first, since it is a dungeon crawler, and not your typical RPG.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/06/02, Updated 10/06/02