Grandia III

"Fly in this sky and leave your criticism behind"

Grandia III is a 2-disc spanning game. You may be thinking to yourself that if Square Enix can fit Final Fantasy X all on one disc, then they must really have an epic game here if it requires 2 discs. Not so much, really. As far as I can tell, the majority of the extra disc space was spent on CG cutscenes that look nearly identical to the real-time cutscenes. Square Enix only published the game. Game Arts is actually the proud parent of the Grandia series, and as you should expect, this fourth installment has many things in common with its predecessors. The battle system has remained nearly untouched save for the obvious cosmetic enhancements. Even the names of spells ("Howlnado" anyone?) and their functions have been carried over. Yet in this case, imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery.

Story - 6/10
The game opens with our protagonist Yuki watching an old black-and-white movie starring his pilot idol Schmidt. Yuki's big ambition to become a pilot as great as Schmidt eventually devolves into your generic save-the-world storyline. Wouldn't you know it, a girl is fleeing from pursuers the night that Yuki crashes his 19th plane (and at the tender age of 16, that's quite an...accomplishment?) smack dab into her horse-drawn wagon. After Yuki gets finished gluing himself back together, we find out that his squeeze...I mean, the girl he rescued, is heading to the mainland back to her hometown of Arcriff. Don't get too excited, though, because Yuki's mom (who you will certainly mistake for his sister at first glance) is chaperoning the whole affair. Fast forward to the party's arrival in Arcriff and we learn that the bad guy who revives an even badder guy from the Verse Realm is Alfina's moody brother Emelious. Alfina has to find it in her heart to love her brother even though he's become the kind of guy she wouldn't sit next to on the bus even if it was for the only seat left.

Graphics - 8/10
Being a late-era PS2 game, there's no doubt you'll find the graphics to meet your expectations. Like I said before, FFX-quality CGs you will not find here, but the real-time graphics are more than passable. You'll be doing a lot of camera panning to get a better look at all the details in the environments. Seeing the characters perform their physically-impossible aerial combos is a thrill, but you'll be rolling your eyes. Thirteen meter vertical jumps—WTF? This probably isn't the first time and likely won't be the last you play an RPG with an elfin-eared lead female, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't cute. The Verse Realm is the most graphically impressive place you will visit, where the motif is “glass, glass, and more glass.”

Gameplay - 7/10
One little ray of light in the occasionally dismal world of RPG dungeon-crawling is the interaction with NPCs, and Grandia has by far some of the most amusing dialogs with NPCs you could ever hope for. Each NPC has their own little personality which develops further as the game progresses. Don't skip the non-player character dialog—it's more entertaining than the main story by far! The game itself is so linear it almost hurts. There's never going to be a time you don't know where to go and what to do. There's a world map for the sole purpose of having a place to fly your plane. You can't go anywhere unless you've been told where to go. I know it's getting to be pretty standard nowadays, but Grandia III, like the original, has no random battles. There's a difficulty spike on a certain boss fight a little over halfway through the game that easily beats out the final boss in difficulty. The frustration level is high but it's nothing that a little leveling up can't fix.

Battle System - 9/10
Every RPG needs a special mention of the battle system. It's just that important! Turn-based might not be the first thing that comes to mind to describe the battle system here, but that's essentially what it is. This is certainly not your average turn-based game, though. Some gamers with short attention spans who have gotten a little too used to the frenetic run and gun style of Star Ocean or Kingdom Hearts may think going back to turn-based battles is boring. However, the biggest advantage of turn-based battles is that all the characters are under your control, so you don't have to worry about a dumb AI. Plus, where those games excel in twitch gameplay, they lack in actual strategy. Despite the fact that Grandia III has room for some great power plays (such as canceling enemy attacks with special moves of your own), you won't get much chance to use them considering the almost noobish level of difficulty (see below: no sidequests.). The character's all have a particular class that is pretty much impossible for them to break free of no matter how much you customize their skill set. Yuki's predictably the fighter with a sword, Alfina's a mage and so forth, but they fit their classes well enough that each of them carry their own weight.

Music - 8/10
The soundtrack comes courtesy of Noriyuki Iwadare, the Grandia series' regular composer and overall game music alum. His name is synonymous with a) excessively peppy character themes, and b) wickedly catchy, energetic battle themes. That's all in there, and you know you'll be humming it later on. If you're like me, you get nostalgic during the meal sequences which share music in common with the game's predecessors. However, there's a certain town theme that I might as well warn you you'll want to mute the volume on. I only really notice sound effects when they don't blend in well, and there are some minor issues with Yuki's sword making a noise before you see it hit the enemy. Finally, I would be remiss not to mention the Grandia III insert song which was dubbed into *cough*Engrish*hack* by the original artist, Miz. I'm not trying to be overly derogatory or negative, but I really believe Square Enix and a bunch of other game companies need to get over this assumption that all westerners are afraid of any language ending in -ese. As for the voices, again, I really don't like dubs AT ALL but as far as dubs go, it's on the upper tier. And that's as nice as I can be.

Replay Value - 7/10
No sidequests. Seriously, there are none. What a disappointment considering there could have been some awesome optional bosses for me to rip 'em a new one. Yet the strength of the battle system alone is enough to warrant a trip down memory land at some point down the road.

Overall - 7/10
Grandia III does not overstay its welcome and gives you a good cheap thrill while the ride lasts. You could cruise through the game and finish in under 50 hours or you could talk to every NPC numerous times and easily end up at over 50 hours. Now for my disclaimer—your results may vary, but generally speaking, fans of the Grandia formula will love it after putting to rest their initial misgivings and newcomers should feel more than welcome to start from scratch right here at episode four. Once it's done and over with, I can almost say with certainty that you'll feel like you have just spent time with good friends. After all, your friends may have faults and you may even try to criticize them, but you're still gonna love ‘em anyway.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/20/06