Grandia II

Ok, let me rant a little bit before I dive in my Dreamcast review. I originally played Grandia 2 on the PS2. I didn't know first hand of the differences until after I played it but I knew something was wrong. When you chatted with someone the dialog text ran in slow motion. It was so slow I avoided NPC chats. You also ran in slow motion in town scenes and cutscenes aswell. The Playstation 2 version was so slow and janky that I cut a couple hours off of my time when I played the Dreamcast version. There was nothing I didn't do in the Dreamcast version than the PS2 version, heck I even had more levels in the Dreamcast version by the time it was over, and I was even stuck in the same dungeon towards the end. So playing the PS2 version with all the slowdowns MUST have affected the time. Other differences are shadow effects, which look much bigger than the PS2 game. There's also a weird flickery pixel glitch in the PS2 version that is not present in the Dreamcast version. The load times are good on the Dreamcast version and the image is really sharp. I didn't not run into a single glitch or bug actually.

Besides how much better this is compared to the PS2 version, Grandia 2 still isn't a GREAT game. It's an ok game at best. I really enjoy the magic and skill system. It's a huge carrot on a stick with me. I love the battle system aswell, it's fun and fast paced (Grandia III was to slow for me in comparisons). Other than that, the graphics were "eehh.. ok". The characters were generic, the story was predictable. The dungeons were poorly designed. The towns were barren and boring. The pacing sucked, the story sections were to long and the dungeons felt to short.

----------Battle System----------
Grandia 2 is a turn-based RPG. The turns are determined by the character or enemy with the best speed. The characters and enemies speed are mapped out on a bar during the battle. You can view everyone's speed, which gives you a moment to plan attacks. There' are 2 sections of the bar, the Wait part and the Action part. In the Wait bar, your character is basically waiting to attack. Once any of your characters have hit the Action part of the bar, the game pauses for you to make your move. Once you pick your attack, the Action bar starts moving, but it's speed is determined by the speed of the attack you picked. Your character is also vulnerable in the action bar too. If an enemy attacks that character or if you attack an enemy while in their action phase, then you have the possibility to cancel their attack and send them back to the beginning. Regular attacks don't cancel an attack, it may slow them down though, but to cancel an attack you either have to use a special move or a strong "cancel" attack.

There are three kinds of attacks you can use overall. First is a standard attack, this gives anyone that uses it 2 strikes in a single move. The other is the cancel attack, as mentioned earlier. This attack cancels attacks, but it only attacks once, so it's weak. The final is the special attacks, either magic or skill based. The skill based attacks are unique to the characters. Each character can learn up to 4 or 6 attacks or spells. When you use these skill attacks, you drain SP. Magic is not unique to anyone. You can switch magics in and out as you please, kinda like Final Fantasy 7's Materia system, but simplified. You will find Mana Eggs throughout the game, each Mana Egg has three levels of magic attacks and effects. Each Egg has a theme, for example one might be a Fire and Explosion Egg, while the next could be a Healing egg. Each character can only equip one Egg at a time, but there's still plenty of magic spells on the Egg that you won't worry to much about getting new ones.

After you defeat a group of monsters you'll gain money, experience, possibly items plus Skill Coins and Magic Coins. You use Skill coins to pay for new skills for each character. You can also upgrade these skills to 5 levels if you want, it's for the best. Each upgrade powers up your skills and speeds them up during attacks. Magic coins can be spend on the Mana Eggs. Just like the skills, you can buy new magics and upgrade existing ones. There is one more thing you can do with Magic and Skill coins, and that's to upgrade your Adventure books with them. Adventure Books are status effects you can add to your character once you pay for them with either Skill or Magic coins. Each 10 level of a character, they open up a new slot for a Adventure Book addition. For example, if you have 30 levels, then you'll have 4 slots open. You can then add various status effects that you purchased, but once you assign that status effect to that character, it can only be used by that character. You can switch them around at anytime though.

Boss battles are fun for the most part. Although they're easy, all boss battles are huge and usually feature various body parts, or smaller minions you have to deal with before you attack the main body, kinda like Wild Arms 2. I had fun with them atleast.

The dungeons are my biggest problem with this game. They're just so poorly slapped together maze dungeons. They're ugly to look at and mostly boring to crawl through. You'll find the occasional box or switch puzzle, but there's nothing difficult about the dungeons. You'll never get lost or confused. I had a little trouble on the second to last dungeon, but it still got through it without a sweat, other than that the game is a breeze.


----------Characters / Story----------
You play as Ryudo, a rude, no non-sense a Geohound. A Geohound is basically a mercenary for hire. He is accompanied by his friend, and bird, Skye, who is his voice of reason. On a mission to protect Elena, a Sister of Granas. She is eventually possessed by the wings of the evil devil Valmar. Elena eventually transforms into Millenia, at Millenia's will, in a Dr. Jekyll, Mr Hyde type storyline. While Elena is on a mission to rid the world of Valmar, Millenia is trying to resurrect him.

Storyline is generic but passable at best. It's not the worst or best thing in the world. The character's are a bit generic as well.


----------Graphics----------
Let's see, Grandia 2 came out late 2000. Evolution 2, Skies of Arcadia, Shenmue was already out, and Phantasy Star Online was coming out within a month. While Grandia 2 BLOWS away Evoltion 2 by every standard known to man, it falls short of Skies of Arcadia by a long shot. Phantasy Star Online looks slightly better aswell, and why should I even bother mentioning Shenmue? It was the best looking game on the Dreamcast.

Ok, outside of comparisons. The character models are ok, while they're detailed nicely, they forgot to add mouths to the main characters. Some characters do have mouths, but others don't. It makes no sense, it's nearly as creepy as the no-face people in Granstream Saga. I really dislike the dungeon layouts, they're generic maze dungeons with the occasional block "puzzle", but overall very ugly in detail. The battle system looks great however, not quite on par with Skies of Arcadia, but better than Evoltion 2 by a mile.

Grandia 2 has a bunch of CGI cutscenes aswell. They look good, although they also look compressed into oblivion at times. Some scenes you can tell they used full CGI, others you can tell they use character models imposed into CGI, kinda like Final Fantasy 7, but it still looks good. The battle system looks pretty damn good too. I especially like all the massive attacks. Some attacks are even CGI cutscenes, or in some cases, Anime cutscenes.

----------Sound----------
The main battle theme is one of the most annoying tunes in the world. I do like some music in the game, but it's utterly boring and generic. It's kind of funny that the Dreamcast game comes up a soundtrack to the game that I'll never, ever in my life listen to.

There are voice acting in the game, but they only use it during important scenes. Mostly to during scenes where they introduce a new character they have a couple minutes of voice acting, but it's usually cut off mid-dialog scene sometimes. It's odd. I wasn't a fan of the voice acting though, especially Roan, who constantly sounds like someone with a cold.

----------World Map----------
The world map is a standard menu map system. Each town and field is just listed over a map in a linear fashion. You never really get an "option" to choose different menus, since the Grandia 2 is one of the most linear games ever made. There's only one sidequest option in the game and that's at the very end of the game. You go to 4 different maps, but once you leave a map, you won't have the option to return to it if you wanted, there's also no warning when you'll be leaving a map, so if you missed something in a dungeon or field, or want to stock up in a town, then you better do so while in that dungeon or town.

----------Time to Complete Game----------
34:04:03

The PS2 version of Grandia 2 took me 37 and a half hours to beat. I shaved quite a few hours off of this version, possibly because of the no-lag in the movement and text. The ending was quite long and satisfying. No unlockable bonus' that I noticed.