Grandia 3

[Spell Breaker]

The game is out now. Has anyone played it?
_________________
One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.

[Takemura]

its not out yet for me. But i'm renting it as soon as I can.
_________________

[Leb]

This game is tedious at best. I can't take this painful mish-mash of bad story, uninteresting characters, and absurdly slow battle system (absolutely no reason regular enemies should take more than five minutes to defeat) for too long. At least one needs to pick up fast.

[Captain Hero]

Thanks Leb, you've stopped me from throwing my money away! :D

I hate games that stresses you more than school work. I play games to relax, not to work! :(
_________________

[Takemura]

dang that sucks.. But the even stupider thing is my dumb blockbuster doesn't even have the game yet.! After how many days! this sucks..

IT takes a while to get used to a grandia game if you haven't played one before but belive me they r Zuper cool! :P
_________________

[Futch]

I must tell you that Leb pretty much hitted the spot there... I think pretty much the same.

Just play Grandia I, It's the masterpiece of the series.

But Ryudo did had some of the funniest lines I had seen on a while in an Rpg (before he went all leonardo di caprio like xD)
_________________
DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

[Cedric]

Well let me say that it doesn't take much to make me interested in games. For example, I thought Secret of Evermore for the Super Nintendo was a good game. Many people bashed it, but I enjoyed it all the same. Still, I'm not immune to garbage, which is why I really hated Stella Deus as a game. So keep that into consideration as I somewhat review this game.

I've played 12 hours of the game and I just got back from a certain temple.


Overview:


So, we start off this story with Yuki, who is an exact replica of Justin from Grandia 1. Just replace Justin's adventuring bug with Yuki's pilot/airplane bug and you have what we're talking about. He's basically your typical enthusiastic kid that dreams of something bigger. His female lead is Alfina De Pamela, a young lady who is grotesquely sweet and innocent with a voice that would annoy some but would garner adoration from others. Think of her as a clone of Grandia 2's Elena only not that religious. These are the main two characters that will likely accompany the player all the way to the end of the game. Throughout the journey they will undoubtedly meet up with more characters, but in typical Grandia fashion a few of them will leave the party for good. This makes a pretty effective heart-check on the player especially if you were unfortunate enough to get attached to one of those particular characters. One in particular made me upset when he/she left the party. For those who know my preference in characters, you probably know who this person was.


Story


The story is very Grandia-esque. All three versions of the games have always been about saving the world from some evil, but it's always recycled in a way that it works to a degree. If you hate recycled themes, then yes, you will probably hate the story. If you have patience with reused storylines, then it won't bother you at all.


Visuals


Visually, I'm not sure where to put this game. The backgrounds are spectacular. Maybe I'm just not used to playing in my high definition television, but the backgrounds really stand out in this game. In the first village, you can see a towering group of mountains at the distance. And on the way to the shore, you are on a small valley overlooking the sparkling ocean. It's really nice. Unfortunately, the main objects in the foreground are not as impressive as the backgrounds. Characters look somewhat blocky during in-game scenes. It leads to people asking why they couldn't look as nice as everything in the distance. And if you're a fan of perfectionism, you're probably not going to like the mouthing of the words in English. It's not that consistent.

It should be noted that you don't see your party members run around behind you anymore. This is probably to conserve space or make you focus on the backgrounds.

And there is no world map . . . I think. The traveling system is exactly like Final Fantasy 10, where everything seems to be connected by a straight line. The thing that looked like a world map was when I was flying on a plane. I did get to control the flying to some degree, but this seems like an over glorified version of a point and click map, which doesn't count at all. Still, the Grandias all worked this way, so not too many complaints here.


Voice Acting


Personally, I don't care about the mouthing of words. The quality of voice acting makes that obsolete anyway. And contrary to what most people think, I actually think that the voice acting is good. At least with the people I've came across so far, they were able to portray their characters effectively. I do have a slight issue with Alfina's voice acting. Thanks to her, I know that I can't play this game around anyone without getting embarrassed . . . unless you want them to know how warm Yuki is all the time. Yuki's voice acting is solid, but his lines are very "Ryudo: Part 2" . . . yes THAT Ryudo. It doesn't take long for these two to develop romantic feelings either, so I'm guessing this will remain throughout the story when nothing bad is happening to our characters.


Music


Iwadare composes the music once again, so the game sounds like Grandia. Music in the towns reflects their personalities. Yuki's isolated hometown is very subdued and calm, while Mendi City's bustling market themes reflects the lively atmosphere around the island. Battle music is very catchy and will probably remain in your head for some time. I'm one of the people that likes the regular theme over the boss battle theme. One of the boss themes in particular sounds way too happy to be a boss theme. The opening for Grandia 3 sounds very J-Pop to me. It's nice and catchy . . . just ahh . . . too bad it sounds like Hilary Duff is singing. *Cries*


Interaction


Interaction with the environment is about the same as it's ever been in Grandia, but it's been converted to 3D. There are no random encounters just like usual, but with the change, enemies now have different approaches when they see your party in the world. Some of them are really fast, so they'll just rush your party out of nowhere. Others will jump at your party. Birds will usually dive-bomb your party. Some enemies will stay in one spot and wait for you to fight them. And finally, some of them may just run away from your party. Why is this important? Because gaining an advantage in battle is now different from previous Grandias. In the old games, all you had to do was approach the enemies when they didn't see you. (flashing red) In this game, you have to press the O button in order to have Yuki swing his sword at the enemies. If you time it right, he stuns the enemy and that's when you have to engage the group to have an advantage. It's tough at first, but eventually you'll get the hang of it. Just watch for other groups of enemies to rush you while aiming for another group.

Like Justin and Ryudo, Yuki can observe his environments. But this time it's much more convenient because there is a confirmation message that pops up when you are able to examine something. In previous games, you had to do keep pressing the confirm button on every little thing just in case you miss something. This time around, you'll know what you're examining beforehand; very convenient.

There is one concept of interactiveness that I didn't like though. In the field, there are times when you can press the square button. This will emulate a glowing radius that looks for items on the field that you can interact with. It finds chests and locations you can examine. The only problem I have with this is that it's very out of place. For a game that doesn't have an abundance of technological backgrounds (Pilots are rare in this game) abilities like this belongs in Star Ocean. It's convenient, yes, but if you can do that, they may as well give you the ability to teleport.


Battle System:


I disagree with my fellow members when I say that battle isn't tedious at all. *Then again, I did the Chris Lightfellow trick with no complaints*

At the beginning, battles were difficult and long, but after getting used to the battle system and getting more characters, everything fell into place. Soon, I was able to clear off enemies in a minute each, which is a decent rate. However, one may think that there are too many enemies in this game. This is probably where the tediousness comes from. On the way to Sarbata shore, I counted around 30 pairs of enemies on the way. A completist such as myself would fight them all, so it took around 30 minutes to effectively clear one screen. Again, I don't mind that, but it remains bothersome to others.

Veterans of the series know how the battle system works. Every one starts off on an IP wheel that dedicates their actions. If we use a clock as an analogy, players are able to input commands at the 4:00 position. Time will freeze until you input a command. But before they pull off the move, they will charge their action and won't perform it until it hits 8:00. In the middle of that span, the enemies can either hit you to stall the attack, or if you are unfortunate enough, they can cancel your attack sending you all the way back to 1:00 and forcing you to start over. Luckily, you can do the same thing for them. If you have the help messages on, you will be given hints as to when you should cancel, what you should cancel with, or when you should defend and brace yourself.

Combos are still the stronger form of regular attack, but it doesn't push monsters action gauge back that much. Criticals are one strong single attack weaker than the combo, but you can cancel the monsters who are attempting an attack Between 4:00 and 8:00. The beautiful thing about canceling a monster is that it launches them up in the air. If another character is able to perform an action while the enemy is in the air, that character can perform an aerial combo that increases the damage formula. If you kill someone with an aerial combo, you are also likely to get rare drops. I had a pretty neat combo going when I launched a monster up with Ryudo. Miranda did an aerial flying kick combo, but the enemy was still alive. Suddenly, Alfina's turn came up, and I noticed that the enemy was still up in the air. (Miranda's aerial combo leaves them up in the air unlike one other character) So I linked from Miranda's combo to Alfina's combo which was overkill, but looked nice nonetheless.

Magic retains its traditional Grandia names and they work similarly to Grandia 2. They are divided into magical attacks and special skills which use Mp and Sp respectively. MP can be recovered like HP in the traditional spheres that recover your health. This time around, though, SP can only be recovered within time. Anything you do in battle regenerates SP, from attacking to defending. I think when you're attacked it fills up too. Also, if you win a battle without getting hurt, you regain 10% of your maximum SP after battle.

The real trick to these battles is setting up skills and magic. This time around, you have to buy magic from magic shops and skills from skill shops. For those who have played Final Fantasy 7, it works like the Materia System. Certain skills and magic take up a certain amount of slots. More slots can be unlocked by constant battling. Magic and skills have to be equipped to use them. And the only place to equip them are magic shops, skill shops, and save points. Magic is self explanatory, especially to veterans, but the skills are new, so let's focus on that. Skills can vary from anything from "Hp Up" all the way to "Lizard Hunter" (extra damage to reptiles and very effective in the beginning of the game; takes two slots)

This time around though, unlike the special skills/Killer moves (whatever you want to call them) Magic and skills don't get stronger with use. They get stronger with Mana Eggs (Magic) and Skill Books (Skills). To put it simply, they are amplifiers which strengthen their respective traits. Flare Egg gives Level 2 power to all fire magics and skills. Ranger Book gives a level 1 boost to Body skills. It should be noted, however, that you can extract magic and skills from books by sacrificing them at the respective shop, but you lose the book/egg forever. There's also combining eggs/books, but I haven't been that far. With careful manipulation of these skills, magic, books and eggs you will find your battles much easier.


Conclusion


Face it; we all want something to tide us over until Suikoden 5. Really though, this game is pretty fun on its own. I can see where people may have problems with it, but it's still a fun game. I suppose you could wait to get it later, but I'm glad I got it now. Metacritic gave it a 78, though and anything near 80 is worth the purchase. I trust that site completely.

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps2/grandia3


Really though . . . I'm done with the "Yuki is warm" speeches.
_________________

[Himuro]

Yeah I've heard it's quite disappointing. I don't plan on checking it out until it's cheap. I'm getting Breath of Fire V today so that, MGS3S, and hopefully Silent Hill 1 (if my friend lets me borrow it) will tide me over until Suikoden V.

[Locke]

Rented it and am dissapointed. I didn't have high hopes for it cause I knew nothing about it and dang, even with low hopes I was dissapointed. You should not a game over in any RPG in the first section from common enemies. I just sat there when that happend in shock. Three hits and all three characters were dead. Whatever those things were with Fireballs and those things that flew around and hit you five hundred times was cheap.

Story, I just don't get it. It jumps around to much, one minute they are talking about flying, the next a guy with a gambling problem. I lost track of what my main mission was.

O look a treasure chest, opens chest, look a book, cool. Begins to walk away, hey the book is still hovering over chest. Goes to grab book and gets suprised attacked. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.......

Ced, lemme know if the charcter I type in black below is the one that leaves forever.

Alonso?
_________________
Legendary Locke


3 Time Suikox WWE Fantasy Champion

[Takemura]

I rented it and I like it. I don't know why you guys don't.. Its fun! Thats all that matters. The NPC are really cool, in what they say to you when you talk to them. ANd Flying planes rules!
_________________

[Cedric]

@ Locke: Yes Locke, but I don't care much about him. The one I was referring to was another person that left around the same time. That one upset me.

@ Takemura: Some of the NPC's are interesting, I suppose. At least they say different things. *It seems like you can keep talking to people up to 3 times before they say something different* Their dialogue also changes depending on where you are in the story. But it doesn't help that the locales aren't too inspiring. I mean after I was able to revisit old places, I wasn't able to get that nostalgic feeling which is part of the fun of gaming.

Yeah, the first part of the game is unusually the hardest part because of the strength of the enemies in the beginning of the game. Compared to your level, they are pretty strong. To make matters worse, you only have two characters, so you get swarmed a lot. After having a difficult time with the beginning enemies, I decided to buy "tremor" from the magic shop as soon as I could. It was a low level spell that targets the entire enemy field. Even better, it knocks enemies down and stops their movement. That's enough time to cancel, pull off another spell or eliminate a few altogether. After 3 levels or so, they become simple.

I'm at 25 hours into the game, so after getting in that much game time, I have to say that the game is losing me just a bit. I liked the battles, but the story is very odd. I have some issues with the overall plot. Sometimes the reasons for going to the next city are very sketchy. It's like someone out of the blue remembers that *name of city* has what you're looking for, and that would be the next place to go. I would like a better reason than that, but I never get it.

Oh I know how to describe this story in a perfect analogy . . . it feels a lot like Suikoden 4. The story is too quick in some places (I got to the second disk after 22 hours of play) and there seems to be a lack of sidequests despite how far I am in the game. I don't count the casino because that's a mini-game. Still, I'll wait to pass full judgment on this game until I finish it. It is easy to get attached to the characters (whichever will depend on your personal tastes) but they are all victims of bad storytelling and seemingly mundane settings.

This is just my opinion, though. For me, right now, it's worth renting, but not buying. This game should have been $39.99 US instead of $49.99. Hopefully, it will redeem itself as I near the end of the game.


Edit: As for flying planes, I was right, it is just a glorified point- and click map. You can't even visit anywhere you want to; only places where you've been and where you need to go to. It's eye-candy at best.
_________________

[fuji]

Hehe, every time I see one of those planes fly around, I'm reminded of the TV show Tail Spin for some reason.

The game is alright, the dialogue is weak, the plot odd and the two best characters I have met have promptly left me to go on a love cruise...

Gameplay/battle system wise, this game is great. The graphics are stunning, I've stopped and enjoyed the scenery a few times. This game reminds me of a bimbo cheerleader. Looks wonderful, a joy to play with but lacks depth, personality and substance. It's a shame too...

Who knows, maybe the ending (if I can make it all the way) will be so amazing that it will make up for the games shortcomings. It's a shame that such nice graphics, awesome voice acting and amazing gameplay systems are being wasted on this game.

My review on this game can be summed up in 4 words: "It is a shame."
_________________
______ "We're still flying"

___ "That's not much"

"It's enough"

[Locke]

Gah, that person left to. I understand it storyline wise, but still. Though sheep give a decent amount of gold. Hopes that the guy in black joins, but I bet that person won't. The cool looking characters never join.
_________________
Legendary Locke


3 Time Suikox WWE Fantasy Champion

[Takemura]

Spolier.!



Did you guys notice that Whats his face... umm.. The hero... Yuki! Calls people by their first name right when he meets them? Like when He found out Raven's name he yelled it at him. I found that rude! I say!

And Also... I found out that.. Well.. Their reason for doing this all seems rushed.. Like. Everything. Its just like. Why would Yuki care so much when They like just met. Its weird.. And Ced have you fought the Boss right before you leave, the verse realm? And did you try and fight the Desert Lord? or that really fast thing before the last boss in the verlse realm?

LOCKE! I'm hoping to god that Raven (the dude in black) will join me. too
_________________

[Cedric]