Grandia Review
I have really been looking forward for this game to come out after completing Fantasy 8 and I'm glad to say I am not disappointed as its a damn fine game. Story wise I don't know UBI Soft didn't send me instructions. Well the game stars two kids Justin and Sue. Sue is the intelligent and this flying ball called puffy that looks like Kirby of Nintendo, fame, follows her around. Justin on the other hand wants to be an adventure like his dead father but he always breaks things and generally people find him as, annoying as Jar Jar Binks.
The story starts of as the emperor sends his son Heir Mullen and his female general (don't know how to spell her name), to find the legendary city Alexandra, believed to be located in some Mayan ruins. Later in the game Justin and Sue are sent there as an educational trip by the professor and sneak into the ruins, and the spirit stone around Justin's neck opens the gates to the doors of time located in the ruins, holding the where about to Alexander. Mullen follows them in and he wants the stone, when they refuse Mullen takes offence, and try's to kill them but they narrowly escape, and so begins there journey to the new world and there quest to find Alexandra.
Well I played this game quite a bit and have got quite far in to it as games like this are impossible to judge after an hour or so's play. Well the first thing that strikes you it has some amazing speech in places, apart from the sailors, as they're just stereotypical. The graphics are really nice manga art, and look a lot like the legend of blue water manga, with some appealing characters, graphics don't come close to fantasy 8s.The story is slow to start as it involves a treasure hunt for items such as a shield of truth that is really a dustbin lid etc. The items are easy to find apart from the sword which turns out is locked in a chest, so your looking for a key to open it.
Combat is difficult at first, it use a similar system to the square soft snes game secret of mana. You have 2 types of attic combo and critical. Combo is a combination of hits best used at close rang are groups of weak enemies and critical is a power strike that if counters leaves you in trouble. You only have a certain amount of movement to attack then run away which can be boosted by better armour. Also you have the usual magic and items but generally combats is hard to explain but you get used to it, if not you have a automatic battle option. Another really nice feature is that you can see the enemies on the map so you can dodge them if your fast enough, which is far less annoying then the random battles of most other rpgs.
Story wise its starts of slow and is light hearted but the story gets a lot more serious later on. There are some cinemas but there nowhere near the standard of Final Fantasy 8s also I think Squall was a more likeable character, also it's impossible to rename your characters which I prefer to use my own names. Later on in the game other characters join including my favourite character Leena and she is generally really hard.
I think this game is excellent not as good as Final Fantasy 7 + 8 and Parasite Eve, but still REALLY good and 1 of the better playstation Rpgs. Well this will definitely appeal to the hardcore gamers as in many ways its like Mana and Chrono Trigger, but other gamers the ones who like 3d graphics and buy movie ties in etc, I can't see them liking it. It's quite a hard game and the graphics are only 2D.
Well I think its good, yes it's slow to get going but it is a really good game with an involving story. So for everyone who has Final Fantasy and is looking for a good RPG get it!