[Multiplatform] The Grandia Appreciation Thread!

AWESOME. Melc Ruins. OMG.

So, what level did you all wait until/were you at when you went there?

Regarding the Melc Ruins entrance boss:

I was told by Krizzzopolis to Level to 41, but I didn't have the patience for that. Went in at level 37 and beat the Melc Guardian like he owed me money, without using the Gaurdian Orbs. High powered monsters like that are easy to control if you balance your defense/offense strat.

Using Alfina/Dahna properly helps a lot too. I've got Dahna and Alfina equipped with all kinds of magic skills (Magic Up, Fire Mastery, Wind Mastery, etc) and Galactic Bang/Astraea Zap, and they both also have level 10 Ether Eggs equipped, so every element has a 3 stat boost. Alfina + Water Mastery for easy use of Allhealer when the boss lays on heavy attacks is a much better use than wasting the orb early on (if you need it). The rest is just switching the magic users between healing and using super spells and having Ulf and Yuki do nothing but Dragon Slash and Dynamite Rush unless you absolutely need to cancel an attack. The thing got to change to it's aerial form once, and the moment it changed back it was dead as a doorknob.

Don't try and waste it if it changes forms, stay on the defensive and keep healed until it switches back to its ground form, then wail on it like no tomorrow.

If the rest of the bosses are on this sort of level I shouldn't have a problem finishing the game in the next day or so.

EDIT:

FEEL THE BITE OF MY BLADE:

WHIRLWIND!

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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.

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

Originally Posted by SouthJag

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.

You went up against it that early? Insane, lol.

Go fight the Dessert Lord a couple of times. The extra s is because he should be a complete pushover at that point.

4000EXP every time, can't even beat that.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by YUKTOBANIA

You went up against it that early? Insane, lol.

Go fight the Dessert Lord a couple of times. The extra s is because he should be a complete pushover at that point.

4000EXP every time, can't even beat that.

Wait till you face the lucky mink!!! 15,000 exp..... that is if you can beat him!! good luck. that bastard is one tough cookie! (i'm near the end of the game).

I was speaking idiomatically.

Me too,I can't beat it.my is level 35

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

just beat the game yesterday. 60+ hours and my characters were levels 55+.
the last battle was long and it took me more than once to beat him. here's a hint, have 1 character solely as SUPPORT and do NOT underestimate the final boss.

FELIPE NO

Hmm 1st DVD finished in 15 hours and you say that game last 60 hours so 2nd one is 30 hours longer then the first one...? Insane xD Well I'm at the Flying Castle and I have 25+ hours of game play with level 35.

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

The game will normally take 30-35 hours. i spent many hours leveling up, fusing mana eggs, extracting skills, and getting my INI stat up. that's one of the most important stats for a character in the game.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

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?

Hey guys, I just got Grandia II for PC, which means I'm going through the game again (I've already beaten it, but hey its still a fun game). One question that googling didn't seem to help on:

I can't get the L/R Shoulder buttons to work in the menu. They only worked when I was messign around and decided to try the tutorial (One to refresh my mind on the mechanics of the game, and two to check and see if the buttons would work), which of course they DID work then... Anyone have a solution? Should I try a gamepad when I get home?

A nice thing about having the PC Version, is that now I've extracted some of the cool sound effects ^_^

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

INI also determines how fast your character will move on the IP gauge. In other words your turn speed is determined by this stat, including how fast you go on the ACT gauge. MOV so not to be assumed to deal with IP speed, deals with how fast your character wiill get from point A(where you are on the field) to point B(the location of your target).

Originally Posted by YUKTOBANIA

AWESOME. Melc Ruins. OMG.

So, what level did you all wait until/were you at when you went there?

First of all - Melc Ruins is my favorite dungeon in that entire game. And it's just as difficult to traverse safely as with the Verse Realm. If I remember correctly, I was level 41-43 when I entered the ruins, with about 32 hours in. The Crystal Guardian didn't wipe my party but he took an incredibly long time to kill.

I am close to the end of the game now with 46 hours in. Though I made it to

Final Dungeon:

Surmania Ruins

in less than 35 hours. The rest of those hours were dedicated to leveling up to 58, and finding items/eggs. I've killed the lucky mink three times so far and they are worth 16,363xp or something. Upon finding 6 lucky books and extracting Hero's Talent from them and equipping them to all my characters, that is 16,000xp x 2, since Hero's Talent with max boost from a skill book is 100% or x2 increase.

My thoughts on Emelious are this:

Spoiler:

Possibly the BEST villain in this series, and if not, he is DEFINITLY BETTER than Zera in Grandia II.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Personally, I loved Grandia the best. It had the most story to it, and was very involved in terms of gameplay. Plus, even if they were few and very annoying, it had sidequests you could do. And I definitely spent some time getting that End of Time move for Feena. I really liked the array of characters, although it is annoying to level up moves for a character who leaves and get only 1/3 of the experience points back.

Grandia II was pretty cool, as well. I enjoyed the story well enough, but once in a while, it seemed like way too much fighting and not enough story. The characters were pretty cool for the most part. I primarily thought it was a shame Skye didn't talk nearly enough after you started collecting party members. The Elena-Millenia thing was a nice (though not unexpected) twist.

Grandia III was definitely excellent quality in graphics, as you all said. The story was pretty weak, though enjoyable. It didn't have enough twists, and it was much too linear, I thought. I did enjoy the battle system with the extra combos and aerial combos, but I definitely wish the special moves were easier to level up than "get lucky." Even taking a lot of effort and doing a move 100 times seems easier than "get lucky" just because I'd rather know how close I am.

I never played Grandia Xtreme because I understand it to be dungeon-based, and I'm not wild about those types. I love to have a story with my games.

All in all, I love the Grandia series. And Noriyuki Iwadare composes some incredibly catchy music for every game (as well as a few clunkers). I am so in love with the main theme of Grandia. And the fight music always rocks.

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Glad there are folks who liked Grandia over Grandia II. While I did play Grandia II first, I realised it was a carbon copy of the original Grandia after I finished it. Not to say Grandia II was a bad game, it was good, but only because of the addictive battle system and Millenia!

Anyway, I was kinda sadden that Game Arts didn't come up with a good storyline and character development in Grandia III (based on the reviews I've read), as was in the original game (it had so much charm). But I'll be getting it regardless because of the battle system. It's pure crack.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Game Arts needs to create a Grandia as a good as the 1st... I did play through X-treme... so I expect Grandia IIIs bosses to be complete push overs in comparison to the crap I've fought in X... haha

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I don't know about that. Grandia III has some challenging bosses. Especially -

Spoiler:

Crystal Guardian in Melc Ruins, and that damn Emelious.

You see, unlike Grandia II(sorry never played 1 - and I do own the game), you can't level up INI as much as you want... enemies will always be faster than you unless you extract a lot of "way of speed" from a skill book and well..only one of those exist to my knowledge >_>. this fact adds to the challenge and they all follow a particular annoying attack pattern. They will do some lame attack first, then when they revolve around to the act guage again, chances are you aren't fast enough to cancel them, or have a cancelling special attack ready for them. One enemy who has the power to wipe out a party by himself is the Excise breed, particualy Excise Omega - I'm level 75 65 75 74 and this guy can still wipe me if I don't plan carefully. If that is not assuring enough that there is no push overs in this game - just wait for an enemy called the Desert Lord. I could go on an on and I kinda went off track @_@. Yea - a lot of enemies in Grandia III can be WORST than most bosses!

Ok I've just read your post again. Granted I have not fought enough bosses in Xtreme(that is one god aweful boring game) - still, III has some sick sick fights.

Quote:

I never played Grandia Xtreme because I understand it to be dungeon-based, and I'm not wild about those types. I love to have a story with my games.

Oh yea, Xtreme is 100% dungeon based. There is only one town you will ever visit.

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

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.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Grandia III

Spoiler:

I really didn't find the Crystal Guardian to be that difficult. He just took a really long time to defeat. Sure he was fast, but I got through the fight rather easily with only Alfina on healing duty. I find that in boss battles it's good to have Dhana focus on the big damage with Galactic Bang, have Alfina alternate between Al Healer and Galactic Bang and have Yuki and Ulf focus on cancelling.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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.

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

I played Grandia III till the start of disk 2 and suddenly... I lost interest. The game had NOTHING up for me that forced me to continue playing, really absolutely nothing. The soundtrack got worse with every area I visited (except Baccura - HUGE step down in the musical department).

The characters, while being nicely designed, turned out to be one of the most bland cast I ever saw. It is really a pity that the most interesting and charismatic ones leave your party before you know it. The character development is almost zero, the story is extremely generic and boring, the music is sub-par most of the time (I only really liked the first battle theme and a few boss themes) and since it's so goddamn linear - sporting no sidequests - I simply lost interest in this one.
Well, the game does have good aspects - the voice acting, which was extremely well done, for example - or the battle system, which was very fun until the point the enemies got really annoying, stretching the length of the battles (and probably the game itself as well) to about the double amount of what it could've been normally. The graphics are done really well, the environments are truly nice to explore, but else the game had nothing for me that I really liked.

I am so disappointed with this game. It started out really promising, I couldn't stop playing it first, I LOVED this game. But everything simply fell apart halfway through disk 1 and finally, disk 2 started really boring and uninteresting. In my eyes - and this is my humble opinion - it is the single worst Grandia ever made. I had even more fun playing Xtreme, which motivated me to continue playing at least a little. (Even though I hated most of its characters for their gross designs...) If another Grandia ever gets released, I will really consider not buying it, since there's nothing left that made the series so good and catchy for me. I thoroughly hope that GameArts works more on the story and character development next time, 'cause I really don't care that much about graphics.

Maybe I'll be able to put it into my PS2 again someday... but I really don't care.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I found two you're talking about to be EXTREMELY ANNOYING and I was happy they left the game for good. I don't know why people lost interest in disc 2..I thought disc 1 was horrible. All I have to tell you is try to make it to Melc Ruins. The game makes a big drastic change in difficulty and story from there. The last boss though was a push over and there's some enemies that are 10x harder than it. Alfina is the biggest cry baby in RPG history and I couldn't stand none of her voice over scenes. I admit though, the story has been done before, and basically it's a copy of the second game, but this time, there's no Granas and Valmar. Just guardians.

Southjag -

Spoiler:

I'm under the assumption that with each attempt to fight him, he selects who he's going to whore throughout the battle. For me it was all Alfina, and he made sure that every attack he landed on her was a sure instant kill.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Well, I guess the lack of interest actually made me stop since nothing good happened for so long.
Oh, and

Spoiler:

at least Miranda was a fun character to have. Alonso was a bit pimp-ish, but cool anyway. Opinions differ, natural thing. ^_^"

As soon as the first one mentioned left, the comical value of the game hit zero. =/

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Now I do have to agree with you on that one. The ones remaining have no sense of humor. Yuki(who is already a suck ass character to begin with) doesn't have someone to mock him 24/7.

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Grandia I
** ** ** ** **
(10/10)

Grandia II
** ** ** **
(8/10)

Grandia III
** ** ** *
(7/10)

My opinion that is..
I'm just hoping they can come up with something as good as the first one.

And I really dislike how they change the combat system all the time. I think Grandia(1) had the best combat system ever, dont see why they had to change it..
I was a little excited though when I saw the big golems, which looked a lot like something from the first game..

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

Well IMO and from what I have read most people like 3 battle system the most. So I guess they did a good job on perfecting it.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

well the system really don,t change much, they just improved it and really they did a good job with it, because yeah the battle system in Grandia III is the best! (one of the best rpg battle system I think) the system is fun, you never get bored with it, lot of action and can still give you some strategy.

just too bad the story doesn't follow with the great battle system and the nice graphic :\

How ya doing, buddy?