[Multiplatform] The Grandia Appreciation Thread!

Hear ye, hear ye! Grandia 3 is here! It's about time, too.

The Grandia series, to me, is that of a phenomenal one. Their RPG landmark has always been the battle system, and it shines in Grandia 3 as much as it has in the past games.

Show your love for Grandia and all of its characters! Oh and uh, make some relevant discussion too. >__>;

Has anyone picked up Grandia 3 yet? If you haven't, and you're a fan of the previous Grandia games, you should buy this. Graphically, it's amazing. Two discs contain really attractive and distant landscapes, beautiful cities, but the best part is the flying.

Yes, flying. You acquire your airplane fairly early on in the game, and it stays with you (supposedly) throughout the rest of the story. Flying is perhaps the coolest thing in this game next to the battles. As with most RPGs, flying tends to be fairly limited, but not in this one. It feels a lot more open. If you fly in areas with good reception, you can pick up on some really funny radio conversations. If you fly near scenic areas, you can get a zoomed in view of them and a brief description. But if you're REALLY daring, pull back on that analog stick and forego the world beneath you -- you can fly above the clouds! That's one of the truly amazing parts about flying in this game. It might not sound like much, but that minor addition to the game really makes for an awesome experience. Plus, there's a flying whale. You have to see it for yourself.

If you're familiar with the battle system of Grandia, you'll feel right at home. The biggest addition is the Aerial Combo/Finish. In the previous games, Cancel attacks (and Criticals) knocked the opponent down, but in this game it's an upward strike.

So let's say that Character A cancels (the attack has to actually cancel -- just using a non-cancelling Critical won't work) Monster A's attack. If Character B attacks that same monster with a regular Combo attack, Character B will launch into an Aerial Combo and if enough damage is done, an Aerial Finish will occur which results in more Gold and often an item. Another really cool thing is, if you can get your timing down right, you can have multiple characters participate in the Aerial Combo. That's right -- if one person can cancel the attack, the remaining 3 all have an opportunity to do an Aerial Combo if you told them all to target the same enemy with Combo attacks! It makes for an impressive string of attacks.

Mana Egg fusion from Grandia Xtreme is back and arguably better than before. It was more like mana egg CONfusion in Grandia Xtreme [/pun]. You can also extract magic from the mana eggs and spell books you find as well.

There's honestly not too many downsides to this game. The only real negative I've seen is that two of your near-starting four characters leave the party -- for good. And it seems like it'll happen again. It's an old RPG tactic used by the likes of Lunar, among others. Get a party member, then according to the story they leave. But it's not such a bad thing -- when they leave, at least their portion of the story is wrapped up.

Overall, this is definitely worth a buy. It's an enjoyable RPG among the several that have been released recently.

But this thread isn't just about Grandia 3. It's time to show your appreciation for the games that have raised Grandia to what it is today.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Enkidu

Ugh, lucky Americans. There still hasn't been a word about a European release, and I have the bad feeling that we won't be seeing one. I'd download it, but 7 gigs would rape what little bandwith I have left. Anyone know how long the game is, btw? I found Grandia II to be disappointingly short.

I've heard it's roughly 40+ hours, but having not finished it myself I couldn't say for certain. I just started the second disc, and I believe I'm about 18-22 hours into it.

How ya doing, buddy?

Well, I for one got hooked on Grandia with the second game being my first. I then played Xtreme and after a good bit of searching, found an excellent copy of the first Grandia. I played it an enjoyed it, but Grandia II will always hold a little more meaning for me.

Anyway, Grandia 3 is superb. Of the reviews I've read, the primary problems seems to be the lack of secondary character development. I both agree and disagree with it. Sure, Miranda and Alonso do leave your party rather quickly, but their story ends well and appropriately -- I didn't feel any lack of closure regarding those two.

I feel the same about some of th NPCs you meet, namely Captain Schmidt. You get more than enough backstory on him, and then you meet him and voila, he's done with. I think some of the reviewers make these characters far greater than what they're meant to be to the story.

If you enjoyed the first Grandia, I think you'd get a kick out of Grandia III, Megavolt.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

The secret methods for the moves are generation randomly I believe -- the more you use that particular technique, the better your chances of mastering it are. As far as I can tell, there's no indication as to which technique is about to level up.

Learning special moves is a bit less random. There are three areas your character can increase in -- Magic, Skill, and Special. You gain an extra slot for the former two, but for the latter you gain both an additional SP bar and, depending on what level for which character, the chance to learn a new move.

For example, Yuki learns Dragon Slash at Special Level 9. So when you see him hit Special Level 9, regularly use Combo attacks. The Special reveals itself in the place of your regular combo.

How ya doing, buddy?

Grandia Xtreme is more like a second-cousin of Grandia than an actual sibling sequel. It lacked a detailed story and was much more of a dungeon crawler than the previous (and future) installments. At its core, it was nothing more than a game orbiting around the battle system, instead of the other way around.

You really should play Grandia 3 though Knighthawk. If you read my first post, you'll see what I have to say about the story.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Aww fuck. I'm around level 32-34 and that guardian beat my ass into the ground. I need to do some levelling up I suppose. Yawn.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Tell me about it. INI (starting position on the command wheel) gives you a huge advantage. I've got a skill equipped on Ulf to where he gets a big starting advantage -- even when I get surprised, he usually ends up attacking first. It's great to because with Force Wave as high as I've gotten it (Level 4) it usually kills quite a few enemies since they surround me. Whatever it doesn't kill it does enough IP damage to allow the rest of my team to catch up.

How ya doing, buddy?

Correction about Grandia Xtreme -- there are two towns you have access to, and a third one appears but I think you only visit there once. But as far as necessity goes, you only need to visit one town for supplies.

Spoiler:

Emelious wasn't all that difficult for me. The hardest (and by far the most unbalanced) fight thus far has been against the Crystal Guardian. Emelious was slow enough to cancel on a regular basis, but the Crystal Guardian was waaaay too fast for having that much HP.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I finally made it to the final battle in Grandia 3...

Spoiler:

You know, for a guy having 128,000 HP, it was easy whittling him down to about 40k, and then he became a bastard. WHY DIDN'T THIS GAME HAVE STRAM?! It did, but only enemies had access to that spell. Goddamnit, I really used it a lot in Grandia 2, and they took it away from me. Could've used it here too.

Was it just my game or did Xorn REALLY take an interest in killing off Ulf? Nearly every single target spell he had he targeted Ulf with, and every Dimension Gate he was able to get on me went to Ulf.

Edit: Oh yeah, and I love the ending too. It was a real nostalgia rush!

Spoiler:

Just like the old NES days of beating games, you get the classic "Thanks for playing!" summed up in two little words -- "Thank you." XD Oh yeah.

I cried, needless to say.

Jam it back in, in the dark.