Grandia

"The greatest PSX game ever? I think so."

Grandia Grandia Grandia… What more is there to say? This so far has got to be one the best RPGs out for PSX. This is the only game I’ve played that has ever actually Rivaled the Great Final Fantasy Series. Well, I’ll Just get straight to the point.

Graphics 8.5/10

I must say, in my experience of PSX RPG games, this game is graphically superior to most others. Though one problem being that you cant really make out the detail of most characters, though they did a good job by adding a picture next to the dialogue box. Another ingenious idea they had was they ability to rotate the camera. This lets you see most things from all sides, Rather than FF where you’re mostly stuck in one view.

The only thing that I bicker about, is that in some cities, there are a lot of repeated characters. For example, in Parm (Main character’s home town, also where you start off) I’ve noticed that nearly all of the citizens look identical. I see one lady next to a house wearing green, and then I see another exactly like her standing right next to the general store. I kind of wish they would’ve tried to add some individuality to all the characters, but hey, with only 650 MB of space, what can you expect? Because of the repeated characters, I gave Graphics 8.5 instead of 10.

Sound 10/10

The music in this game is absolutely incredible. Instead of most of the loud punk rock music that you hear in most games, they give you some nice 80’s style orchestra music. Don’t let this push you away though, because most of the songs in the game are actually quite catchy, I’ve found myself humming the tune to the main theme song quite often.

The best part about the sound is that there are VOICES. The one thing that all of the PSX FF RPGs (Excluding FF10) have lacked. The voices are the best part, they let you at least some how picture if your character is more rude, or nice, just by hearing the tone of their voice. A good part being that some people are way too lazy *cough*me*cough* to sit there and read dialogue boxes. For those of you who are supreme couch potatoes like me, you’d rather enjoy this, though, most of the time there are just text boxes and no voice, but hey, as I stated before, what can you expect with only 650 MB of storage space? With the superb music and character voices, I’m giving sound a 10/10.

Gameplay 10/10 (deserves a 20/10)

Ah.… Now we come to the best part of the game, the Crème Del La Crème of this game, the Godlike Gameplay. The Gameplay of this game is absolutely magnificent, it far surpasses FF’s monotonous battle system. This game ACTUALLY gives you a chance to avoid, or ambush your enemies, unlike FF where it doesn’t matter where you go, your going to get into a fight every other minute. Of course, this is just the tip of the ice berg, I haven’t even gotten to the main course. The one thing I love about this is that you can also level up your weapons, that way, you actually have to use a variation of weapons, or else your not going to get very far, this allows the player to actually use something other than a sword.

Now, onto the greatness of the Battle System, that far surpasses anything that FF has had. In this game, instead of having your characters lined up in a row like a Set of bowling pins, your characters are spread out. The really great part being that you can actually slow down an even cancel your enemies actions, rather than having to always choose the same attack, you get a variation, you can choose to do a combo, which slows the enemy down and takes off more. You can also choose the critical hit option, This attack knocks the enemy all the way back on the time bar, and cancels any attack they were going to do. The Catch? It takes off a lot less than Combo.

This game’s Magic system is quite odd. Instead of just downright learning spells, You buy magic with “Mana Eggs” that are found throughout the game. You can use a “Mana Egg” To buy, either fire, wind, water, and earth magic. This game’s MP system is different too. The magic is split up into 3 sections, Level One Magic, Level two Magic, and Level 3 magic. Whenever you buy a “Mana Egg” it gives you a Level one magic of the element you chose. The more you use a certain type of magic, the more it gets leveled up, whenever you level up a magic, your Max MP increase for the stage you used it in. (example, you level up Level One Magic, you get +2 Max MP for Level One Magic only).

The game play is absolutely outstanding, and because of this, I’m giving it a 10/10.

Plot (Story) 10/10

I laughed, I cried, I lost hours of sleep uncovering the plot of this story. I can’t go into great detail for fear of Spoilers. But lets just say, it’s a completely understandable intricate plot that appeases to most game players, its got romance, action, and all the other things we love to see in a game, I’m giving this one a 10/10

Replay Value 10/10

I’ve had this game for over a year, and I’m still replaying it. The lovable characters, the awesome battle system, The impressive plot, I found myself playing his game over and over again and I’m still not bored. Replay Value gets a 10/10

Overall 10/10

Grandia has exactly what every RPGer wants. An intricate but not overcomplicated plot, lovable characters, tons of humor, plenty of mini-games/side quests, the great graphics (For a PSX game), Fantastic music, and of course, an awesome battle system. Overall Rating gets a 10/10

Buy or Rent?

BUY, This game can NOT be enjoyed with only playing for 5 days seeing as it has 60 hours of Gameplay, plus, who would want to rent such a fantastic and have a limited time when they good buy it and have un non-stop. I suggest Shelling out the $20 for this game.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 04/22/02, Updated 04/22/02