Bowflex
The fact that anyone supports Hillary boggles my mind... I have tested between 130-160 on IQ tests
Having just recently moved into a camper in the middle of nowhere with no internet service, I had to find something to do with my free time. The PS3 recently croaked and I left the Wii with my exes’ kids, because yeah. I’d owned both Grandia and Lunar: Silver Star Story for a while and had been too busy to play them, but now alone with only a PS2 and lots of boredom, it was time.
Anyhow, I started with Grandia first because I’ve haven’t played a jRPG in a few years and it seemed more accessible. I value story a lot and so my standard for games with more light-hearted or conventional plots/characters is set pretty high. Chrono Trigger, as it happens to be, is my favorite game of all time, but that's an exception. From the jump, I’d heard the story a dozen times before…excavation of ancient technology (FFVI, Xenogears, Skies of Arcadia), and a tyrannical government set on colonizing and dominating the world, of which a single figure is at the helm secretly wanting to destroy the world (FFVII, every other jRPG in existence). No surprises here. However, despite knowing I wasn’t in for any surprises I stuck with it and gave Grandia the benefit of the doubt because it was released several years before most of the other similar games I’d already played.
While I enjoyed the Nausicaa vibe, a lot of the Mexica-inspired art design of the world was generic , especially when compared to the gorgeous pre-rendered settings of Saga Frontier, Chrono Cross, FF7-9, but again this was originally on Saturn so, gotta cut some slack in that department... The pixel art and animations were better, and I couldn't help but think that without this game, Xenogears would never have existed, or at least would have been drastically different in terms of visual presentation.
The character design (especially Justin and Feena), I thought was pretty stellar - simple, 90’s anime art and likable designs - but the characters themselves were as expected: entirely one dimensional in terms of personality (or lack-thereof). Despite the intimacy of having dinner together with your characters after each ‘day,’ - a nice addition - their individual development is little more than from A to B through the entire game, and to be honest I wanted to scream at Justin several times to make a damn move on Feena already.
Voice acting. Mostly bad, sometimes even really bad, but again par for the course given the era. The only cringe worthy VA was Milda, y’all. Real southern, y’all. A bit over the top, y’all. Battle dialogue of most everyone was funny bad, and only sometimes annoying. “Ha! Here goes…! HA! Take That!” x 6,000.
All of this so far, you have a fairly underwhelming game. But as I had heard Grandia is all about the battle system and that is indeed the case. The battle system is very strong and in general it is just fun to play and level up in this game. I liked how there were stat boosters everywhere on the field maps, which adds to the constant sense of gradually progressing. Naturally, the most entertainment I had in the game was the Tower of Temptation, due the difficulty, the reward once you reach the top, and plethora of puzzles and bosses and maze navigation. Maybe I should get into dungeon crawlers...
I actually didn’t have a problem with the ending, as some people seem complain about.
I thought it was neat seeing Sue grown up (into a serious megababe(!), no less), and cute seeing all this mini Justin and Feenas. Didn’t really mind that the developers chose to leave the rest to the imagination.
Overall, I'd say it's a good game. Simply decent in many areas, but also really endearing in others. I actually came to appreciate the battle system even more once I started Lunar, immediately after. Maybe I’ll do a thread on that next once I complete it.
Your thoughts on Grandia, GAF?
