Grandia III Review

By Mathew Kumar Published 6 April, 2006

Grand, but bland.

Version tested: PlayStation 2

Back in the distant heyday of the Dreamcast, we should probably have seen the trouble on the horizon. Despite featuring a great selection of titles in general, Sega’s underappreciated box of wonders featured a mere two RPGs that anyone deemed worth talking about; Sega Overworks’ Skies of Arcadia, and Game Arts’ Grandia II.

Skies of Arcadia was the only one it was really acceptable to genuinely like. However, I’m going to have to now stand up and admit it.

I preferred Grandia II.

There. I said it. Skies of Arcadia’s world was richer, its story more joyful, but its encounter rate was ridiculous, and its battle system was beyond tedious when compared to Grandia II, even if the latter title did star a (by then) traditionally jerkfaced protagonist and a plot in which you ended up having to kill God (as you do).

It’s entirely possible that I’ve lost the respect of everyone reading this by slightly disliking Skies of Arcadia, but I tend to base my preferences on the bits of a game I actually play. So its good news for me that the evolution of the battle system in Grandia III has resulted in the most viscerally exciting turn-based battles available in any RPG.

'Grandia III' Screenshot 1

It’s honestly quite lovely looking at points but there’s really never anything worth interacting with.

Rather than a traditional turn-based battle system, in which each character attacks strictly in turn, here the game system uses a turn dial, where you can see all player character and enemies progress towards their turn at their own speed. At one point of the dial, the decision point lies, where you or the enemy choose the next move (combo attack, critical attack, magic, special move, and so on), from which point the character is charging the attack. So, for a normal attack, the charge is near instantaneous, while for a special move or magic spell, the charge can be distressingly slow.

Herein lays the beauty of the system. With up to four characters under your control and any number of enemies progressing around the turn dial, you can time your attacks of your party, allowing you to not only cancel enemy attacks as they charge, but also perform devastating attack combination such as aerial juggles, trusting that your timing and strategy are true. Unlike many RPGs in which turn-based battles become either a chore or something you barely need to pay attention to, here even the simplest battle can require concentration. Even if you do become tired of the system, it’s possible to either set the player characters as computer-controlled, or avoid the majority of them by simply dodging the enemies within the game world.

Developer Game Arts has also chosen to jettison the staid plot styling of it’s prequel with a return to the almost relentlessly upbeat adventuring featured in the original Grandia. As good as that sounds, the extremes to which they’ve taken this is blatant from the moment the disc spins up. The de rigueur introductory montage of scenes from the game (displayed in a more or less random order) features such a sickeningly saccharine brand of pop rock that you could expect it was soullessly recorded by the least interesting contestant from a reality TV show. An actual single from Japanese artist Miz, it’s a disgustingly poor piece of aural pap meaninglessly shoehorned in, but we can’t judge a game by its intro soundtrack. Thankfully the song makes a mercifully short number of appearances, with the rest of the score pleasant, though forgettable, is provided by Noriyuki Iwadare.

'Grandia III' Screenshot 2

And this girl, Alfina, love interest and the mysterious core of the entire plot, has the most sickeningly squeaky little girls voice you’ll ever hear. It’s just creepy.

Mashing start to get past the ungodly musical number will take you to a fairly unique and interesting beginning to a Japanese RPG, as teenaged protagonist Yuki tries to follow in the footsteps of his hero, the legendary pilot Schmidt, in flying across the sea. After 18 failures, he finally thinks he’s cracked it with his 19th plane design, only to crash miserably due to the fact his mum decided to stowaway.

Yes. This might be the first RPG in which you spend a fair portion of it on an adventure with your mum. Imagine what that would be like in reality. Being revived after a battle by your mum spitting on a hanky and wiping your face with it, or being told you’re not allowed to adventure any further until you drink all of your green potion.

Now, strange as it may sound, there’s actually a fairly long lineage of people going on adventures with their mum in Asian literature - Jet Li fans might recognise the precedent from the Fong Sai-Yuk series of films, and here, too, it’s actually quite a pleasing, if underused, plot device, though it unfortunately disappears far too early in the game. The rest of the plot is the usual nonsensical fluff featuring alternate dimensions and star crossed love, told in a completely overwrought fashion, ending with all long cinematics classed as tea breaks by this reviewer.

'Grandia III' Screenshot 4

Battles actually quite rarely look this over the top and flashy, and it’s all the better for it, with most special animations quick and to the point.

The game is saved from total mediocrity by its superb battle system, but a fantastic battle system does not a brilliant game make. With such a dire main plot, you could hope that an expansive world and side quests could maintain interest, but each of the world’s location are tiny and forced, and the game offers almost nothing in the way of extra challenge other than a very small series of quests featuring ‘Otto the Boy Detective’, a thinly veiled play on the long running manga/anime Detective Conan. Even the dungeons are completely linear paths from A to B.

Grandia III can be an enjoyable trip for the 30 to 40 hours it takes to complete, as each battle is a joy even in the most boring of dungeons, but while the original Grandia II battled against roughly one other title on the Dreamcast and still came out second in most eyes, Grandia III has to compete on a system with dozens of other RPGs all vying for your money. Sadly, it doesn’t even come close to second best.

6 / 10

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About Mathew Kumar

Read more articles from Mathew by visiting the Mathew Kumar archive page.

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Comments (31) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Dizzy #1 6 years ago

    Ouch... I liked this on DC

  • neuroniky #2 6 years ago

    I guess you didn't play enough of Skies of Arcadia back on the DC. I agree with you that the encounter rating was ridiculous, but the boss battles (both those on foot and those fought in flying ships) were SO good... and very hard too. The story was fantastic, and I think it is, along with Chrono Quest, the RPG where you end up caring more about your chars.

    About Grandia: great battle system, bad RPG. I guess putting a 2 or a 3 after the name doesn't change this truth.
    Edited by 1 at 06/04/06 @ 15:02

  • Dizzy #3 6 years ago

    >I guess you didn't play enough of Skies of Arcadia back on the DC

    I tried :(

    To many random battles in the beginning....
    Edited by 1 at 06/04/06 @ 15:20

  • tengu #4 6 years ago

    I'm loving it myself. It's a great game. The plot is unoriginal? Boo hoo, welcome to JRPGs, but it's no worse than most I've played. The ace visuals and wonderful combat system are what seperate this one from a lot of the chaff imo.

    I'm only a couple of hours into disc 2, but I'm already liking Grandia 3 more than Grandia 2(Neither is as great as the first game though, obviously). The only thing about 3 is that it's more cutscene heavy than 2, but I'm not sure I'd say the plot is necessarily worse. Different, definitely, but I'm not really seeing how it's any worse.

    It's harder than the ridiculously easy Grandia 2 as well, though thankfully not to the point where it gets insanely hard. Really do think you've been too harsh in this review.

  • Blerk #5 6 years ago

    I think the question we all need answering before we go any further is.... is his mum hot?

  • itamae #6 6 years ago

    "I think the question we all need answering before we go any further is.... is his mum hot?"

    Second hottest milf in a videogame ever (after Lulu). Looky here (mother and son... yeah right). The rest of the game is crap though, including the battle system which has been dumbed down from the previous games.

  • lambtron #7 6 years ago

    Skies of Arcadia was tops.

    Admittedly the random encounters were tedious but you could say that about just about any JRPG. I wish they would make a new one :(.

    As Neuroniky says the boss and especially the ship battles were Awesomo.

    Never tried Grandia, had no money at the time :(.

  • itamae #8 6 years ago

    I'm currently replaying Grandia 2 by the way and it's so much better than its sequel it isn't even funny. "A fantastic battle system does not a brilliant game make" indeed.

  • Blerk #9 6 years ago

    I loved Grandia 2. Not as much as the first one, but it was still fab. And I loved Skies of Arcadia too, but in a slightly different way. Plenty of love to go around!

    /hugs

  • Hog-lumps #10 6 years ago

    I loved Grandia 2. Not as much as the first one, but it was still fab.

    I also loved the first Grandia, but found the second a real struggle to get into - it just never really 'clicked' for me. What ever happened to grandia X by the way?

    (edit html)
    Edited by 1 at 06/04/06 @ 15:52

  • Decoded #11 6 years ago

    This review could have been written based on our bitching in the forum. Spot on.

  • tengu #12 6 years ago

    You're all dead inside, including the reviewer. I think this game's great.

  • sleepless #13 6 years ago

    Grandia III is huge disappointment for me. I expected at least Grandia II level quality, but... only battle system is still great and CG sequences are really very nicely done. That's all! Rest is average stuff at best, mainly basic - shallow story and characters. :(

  • Decoded #14 6 years ago

    Nah, not dead inside - I'd level that accusation at the game. Remove the gloss and there's precious little underneath. It's one thing crafting a glorious looking world but quite another to foster the illusion of actually existing in it; there's no side-quests, nothing to explore (even the dungeons are almost completely linear), few towns, and, consequently, no sense of freedom whatsoever. Also, it's not so much that the plot and characters are unoriginal, but that they're so uninspired.

    I enjoyed playing Grandia III, but looking at the game objectively it's little more than average.

  • tengu #15 6 years ago

    "Also, it's not so much that the plot and characters are unoriginal, but that they're so uninspired."

    It's a JRPG man, of course they're uninspired! :)
    Edited by 1 at 06/04/06 @ 16:44

  • ekko #16 6 years ago

    It can't be more bland than DQVIII can it? Surely not?

  • Rociel #17 6 years ago

    If you thought that the encounter rate in Skies of Arcadia DC was too much, go get SoA: Legends for the Gamecube. They fixed the encounter rate in that one.

  • Scimarad #18 6 years ago

    Sorry, you liked Grandia II more than Skies of Arcadia????

    /wanders away in a shocked daze

  • otto #19 6 years ago

    He disliked Skies of Arcadia, so you can immediately add three to the score. :p

    On disc 2 of this and still loving loving loving it.

  • otto #20 6 years ago

    itamae - Lulu - what, the FFX Lulu?!? (a) she mings and (b) she's a mother??!? That must have been a plot development that took place after I gave up on the game. ;p

  • lucky_jim #21 6 years ago

    I did like Grandia 2, but SoA was much more absorbing. As for this... well I'm sure I'd probably enjoy it, but given that I'm still playing through SMT: Lucifer's Call and Dragon Quest's on its way, I reckon I can afford to pass on Grandia 3. And my copy of Guitar Hero arrived today (yaaaaaaay!)

  • itamae #22 6 years ago

    otto: yup, FFX Lulu. How can you possibly say she mings though? O_o You're entitled to your opinion of course, but seriously, what the fuck? Except for her terrible taste in men (Wakka and her have a son in FFX-2) she's a total hottie! Oh well, whatever floats your boat...

  • renzo #23 6 years ago

    I'm gonna have to side with itamae on this. Goth milfs ftw.

  • tengu #24 6 years ago

    "On disc 2 of this and still loving loving loving it."

    Yay! I'm not alone!

  • darkbhudda #25 6 years ago

    One of my friends used to complain about the plot of every RPG being about saving the world and why, oh, why didn't someone try something different. Then he bought Grandia, and complained that there was no plot. What a whiner.

    Me, I loved Grandia. I also love saving the world games. What I don't like is that 99% of the gaming has nothing to do with saving the world. In real life, if I knew someone is about to take over the world, I wouldn't go finding a pink ribbon for a girls hair, I'd be training on how to kick butt.

  • Zero_ #26 6 years ago

    I absolutely LOVED Grandia 1.

  • adfegg #27 6 years ago

    Skies of Arcadia may have had ridiculously frequent random battles, but Grandia II had ridiculously long dungeons. If it wasn't for that, and the awful voice acting, GII would be my favourite from the two.

  • Virgil #28 6 years ago

    I didnt like Grandia II it seemed to go "Visit problematic town, fight boss, nmove on to next town."

    I still want this though

  • Saii #29 6 years ago

    Aren't there any more games that get both the plot AND the gameplay right?

    Dammit! I'm digging up my Panzer Dragoon Saga.
    Edited by 1 at 12/04/06 @ 08:17

  • Hugundo #30 6 years ago

    This game is shit.

  • tengu #31 6 years ago

    Nope, it really isn't.