Grandia III

NOTE: This review was written by me years ago, but it's never been posted on GB, so enjoy!

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Game Arts’ beloved Grandia series is back. Grandia is best known for its epic stories and combat system that truly requires strategy. Part three basically follows the same path as the last two games (I’m ignoring Grandia Xtreme here), but naturally improves on almost everything that made them great. Grandia III’s combat system reminds us just how shallow most other RPG combat systems seem. But while the battle system is top-notch, Grandia III feels unfinished at some points, most notably during the second half of the game. There is some evidence that indicates that Game Arts intended to do more with the game, but perhaps were out of time.

Grandia III’s story begins with Yuki, your average kid with above-average ambition. He hopes to one day fly his very own airplane across the ocean and reach the mainland, just like his hero Schmidt once did in the past. Yuki’s mother, Miranda, would rather see her son practice pottery—apparently, everyone’s destined to make pots in Anfog Village. Like any good son, Yuki goes against his mom’s wishes and one night sneaks out to finally achieve his dream. And, like any good mother, Miranda knows her own son better than Yuki realizes, and hops aboard Yuki’s plane just before he takes off. The combined weight of Miranda and Yuki is too much for the plane, and soon enough, they crash into a forest, interrupting what appeared to be some soldiers chasing a mysterious young girl. That’s basically the premise of Grandia III. The story overall is standard fare, except it doesn’t have Grandia II’s hilarious dialogue, nor the epic, adventurous feel of the original Grandia. But it does have lots of slick cutscenes (which explains why Grandia III is two DVDs), and the gameplay is definitely superior.

Any Grandia fan will tell you that the main appeal of Grandia games, more than anything else, is the combat system, and for good reason: the active turn-based IP (Initiative Point) system separates itself from most other combat systems by actually requiring planning and good strategy, as opposed to obvious, logical actions. In your typical RPG, when your party needed healing, you just did it; but in Grandia III, you could use that important Alhealer spell, but can your healer cast it in time? What about that enemy targeting your healer…can another party member cancel its attack in time? Does he/she have enough MOV to reach the target? Maybe you should just let your healer eat the attack (provided he/she will survive) and have someone else use a healing item instead. That’s just an example of a typical battle. The IP system lets you see who’s going to perform what action next so it takes out the guesswork associated with most RPGs. The ability to see the enemy’s hit points at all times means you can fight efficiently. Since you can interrupt the enemy’s actions, thus delaying what could have been a fatal attack, it’s very possible to end battles without taking a single hit (you get rewarded for it, too). But that doesn’t mean you can go through the whole game canceling attacks left and right. Cancel attacks are slow to execute and don’t do a lot of damage, and while every character has a quick special move with canceling ability, they consume skill points so you can’t always use those, either. Furthermore, using certain attacks results in a cooldown period before your character is placed back on the gauge. Enemies can also cancel your attacks.

New to the IP system is the ability to “juggle” enemies in the air. If you successfully cancel an enemy’s attack and the enemy is light enough, you can knock the enemy up into the air. Another party member can follow up with a special aerial attack that does extra damage to the helpless foe. Defeating the enemy in this manner results in an “aerial finish” where more money is obtained, as well as the chance to obtain rare items. Some of the best skills and equipment in the game can only be obtained in this way, so positioning your characters on the IP gauge properly is key.

You can customize characters by equipping battle skills and magic. This is done by extracting skills and magic from skill books and mana eggs, respectively. The downside to extracting abilities are twofold: one, you destroy the item containing the ability; and two, equipping books and eggs can boost existing abilities on your characters, making them more effective and faster to execute. Generally, if you find a must-have skill, you might hesitate for about ten seconds before extracting it. It helps that books and eggs are plentiful, and some enemies drop these items as well. Later on, you’ll have the option of fusing mana eggs so that their boost strength is stronger, and more importantly, stronger spells become available.

The graphics in Grandia III are well done; towns and dungeons are pretty to look at, though the dungeons are mostly straightforward and lacking puzzles. The CG cutscenes are top-notch, and there are many of them. The great thing about the cutscenes is that they can be skipped, which is a feature more RPGs desperately need. The only downside to the graphics is the inconsistent framerate during combat. When there are a lot of graphics on the screen, the action slows down a bit, but not to an unplayable state. The game’s music is largely uninspired, but there are a few good tracks, and it never hurts to have multiple battle themes. I hope I’m not the only one who has grown tired of cheesy intro pop music. The voice acting in the game is serviceable, but some may find Alfina’s constant cries to be irritating after a while.

While the gameplay is great for the most part, Grandia III begins to falter at the second disc. While I’m not as critical about story in games as other RPG gamers might be, Grandia III’s story is noteworthy for things such as blatant plot holes, a few unexplained relationships between certain characters, and more. As for gameplay flaws, there are some places on the world map that appear to be accessible, but they’re merely for show. Maybe the developers wanted to do something meaningful, but ran out of time and didn’t bother to omit the locales. If you’re a stickler for long RPGs, you’ll be disappointed to know that Grandia III only takes roughly 30 hours to complete the first time, with no post-game sidequests whatsoever. I actually don’t mind that the game is only 30 hours long, since few RPGs can be 60+ hours long and not drag on; but the lack of replay value hurts its longevity, and it also adds to the suspicion that Grandia III is an unfinished game. An extra dungeon would have been great, as it would have meant more combat and boss battles that fully exploit the greatness of the IP system.

Simply put, Grandia III is a decent game while it lasts. Most RPG fans, and Grandia fans in particular, will ultimately be disappointed with the game, but at least Game Arts can still boast that they have the deepest combat system around. If not for the IP system, Grandia III would not be as well received as it has been for the most part. It would not be surprising if Game Arts decided on a “director’s cut” version of Grandia III that would make the game feel more complete. Now that I think about it, I hope it happens, because Grandia games deserve better.