This week, a remaster of Grandia 2 was released on Steam. Unlike other recent remasters, this is for a game that's A)15 years old, and B)was primarily released on the Dreamcast. I was on the fence about it until a friend that had played the original told me, "You have to buy it. You won't regret it." So I bought it, and after playing it for 7 hours I definitely don't regret it. Apparently the combat system I was clamoring for in JRPGs was actually made 15 years ago.

You see, I grew up on the old SNES Square RPGs. Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6defined JRPGs for me. I remember Chrono Trigger's combat system in particular for extrapolating complex strategies from simple mechanics (characters can do different combos depending on who's in the party, enemy position matters for some spells). I stuck with Nintendo as Square shifted to Sony, and when I got back into JRPGs around the time Final Fantasy 10 got released, I was disappointed at how the JRPGs I played were relying more on convoluted combat systems to keep people interested instead of going back to the drawing board and figuring out a better way to do the most basic JRPG commands: Attack and Defend. Finding a JRPG that made basic Attacks interesting and Defending useful became my holy grail of JRPGs for a few years...

And apparently they succeeded at it 15 years ago. I just didn't realize it at the time.

Grandia 2 uses a variation of FF6's Active Time Battle system. Each character has a gauge that fills up; at 66%, they choose (Commit to) an action. When it completely fills up, they Act on it. Once they've Committed, allies and enemies alike are locked into that choice. Enemies also become vulnerable to Criticals, a variant of the basic attack that does less damage but interrupts attacks and depletes 50-70% of their gauge. You can also see which heroes the enemies are focusing on, removing the guessing game from choosing when to Defend. In addition, Defend is beefed up compared to other games: Defending will drop an attack's damage by 60-75% (compared to the seemingly industry standard of reducing it by just 50%) and reduces the chances of getting debuffed (useful for negating Confusion attacks). The trio of Combo (high-damage basic attack), Critical (lower damage basic attack, but can delay enemies), and Defend forms the crux of Grandia 2's combat system and turns random encounters from a button-smashing spree to a tactical dance.

Let me take a standard 4-monster fight as an example. As the battle starts, I'm tempted to have my mage break out an area attack to hit all 4 of them, but as I select them, I notice 3 of them are focusing on him for their next attack, so I have my mage Defend instead. My next 2 heroes are just ahead of the enemies on the gauge, putting them in a prime position to Critical them after they've Committed and interrupt their attacks, so I have them do that. My last character goes just after the last enemy, so I have him Combo one of the Criticaled enemies to focus him down. The scene unfolds with the monsters trying to throttle the Defending mage as my other heroes charge them from behind and interrupt their attacks. In the ensuing chaos, my mage's turn comes up (Did I mention Defending cuts the delay for your next turn in half?) and he's no longer being focused on by the monsters, so I have him break out the area spells. My other heroes alternately defend or Combo, whittling the monsters' HP down enough that a single Tremor spell wipes most of them out. After that, I mop up the survivors.

In just about any other RPG, my play-by-play of that would have been "I have everyone Attack until they're dead", with maybe a Cure or a Fire spell to liven things up.

It gets even better in boss fights, with bosses tossing out powerful attacks with long charge times that will mess up your party good unless you handle them. Some turns you have to bunker down with Defends & Criticals to survive/interrupt the onslaught, others you get an opening to inflict serious damage on the boss, and sometimes you have to figure out a window for your healer to get off a Heal without getting pulverized in response. These fights have a noticeable ebb & flow to them between defend/recover and all-out assault, which is more interesting than the usual constant-attacking of JRPG boss fights.

I love it. I honestly love it. This game uses the simplest commands to do what Final Fantasy has tried to do by bolting increasingly-convoluted systems onto its combat: make fights interesting. Why hasn't another series shamelessly stolen these mechanics?

The rest of the game is pretty good so far, too. Equipment, magic, and special abilities are okay- serviceable, but nothing standout. The plot is a generic "mercenary accompanies priestess to save world" that reminds me of the first chapter of Tales of Symphonia, with a global Church that will inevitably turn out to be corrupt to the bone. (Seriously Japan, at this point an authentically good Church would be a shocking plot twist.) Most of the characters feel generic, but the game gets a lot of mileage out of its incredibly snarky protagonist. Seriously, just read his dialogue:

It makes his constant griping about the priestess wanting to stop and help everyone tolerable and even entertaining. It also livens up his companions, who are trying to play their roles completely straight and thus make great targets/partners for our would-be stand-up comedian here. Well, almost all of them are trying to play it completely straight:

Occasionally this evil sorceress will pop up to fight and/or help you, alternately chewing the scenery and matching the protagonist for sheer snarkiness. No wonder the game implies a masochistic crush between the two of them; you could probably kill a monster just by putting it between them and letting them snark at each other.

The game's now available on Steam for $20 (on sale for $15 this week); if you have any interest in JRPG combat systems, I'd suggest picking it up.

Dialogue screenshots from HMS Boromir's Let's Play Grandia 2.

Zeboyd's3rd and 4th Penny Arcade games use what is more or less the Grandia combat system.

I liked Grandia 2 quite a bit back in "The Day", but maaaaaaAAAAAAaaaannnnn I got sick of Ryudo's snark pretty quick. That being said, I completely agree with you about the combat. It's crazy how it hasn't been used more often in other franchises.

@relkin: I can barely remember the mechanics of either, but I don't recall really being blown away by them. I certainly don't remember delaying enemy turns being a keystone of their combat.

And yes, Ryudo's snark is a bit heavy sometimes, but I'd take it over the typical naive idiot or emo brooding JRPG protagonists anyday. Occasionally he'll spout a line that'll make me crack a grin, and the last RPG protagonist I remember doing that is Laharl. There's a few abrupt shifts in tone in Ryudo & Millenia's dialogue that sit uneasy with me, but I'm chalking that up to difficulties translating 2 characters that often swap between 2 emotions.

Alright let's cut to the chase....

Should someone like me play this game?

@zombiepie: Only if you write a semi-regular blog about it on the site where I can read it.

I heard people say that Child of Light stole Grandia's combat, I never did get around to playing that.

@zombiepie: Here's my opinion as someone 8 hours in (and, by my prediction, about 1/3rd through the game):

• Combat system is, as I said, one of the best I've seen.
• No grinding yet.
• You level up skills & spells with currency you earn from battles. No weird junctioning nonsense.
• Protagonist is a jerk (similar to FF8), but he's a funny jerk. This game also shows it more realistically; in addition to the inevitably-revealed deep-seated trauma, he's in a profession that's often distrusted and reviled. He's also trying to complete his escort job as quickly & cleanly as possible, and he's the voice of ruthless practicality arguing with teammates that want to stop & help everyone they meet. There's also a few times he lets his sarcasm slip and either admits he's worried about someone or gets outright pissed at how someone's being treated, so his inevitable softening has some foreshadowing.
• Supporting characters are decent, but mostly meh (so far).
• Plot's meh, but no one's done anything utterly stupid/idiotic yet. (Well, one person's done something idiotic, but he has the excuse of being a young child and the protagonist chews him out for his idiocy.) Also no bloody stupid plot twists yet; closest it's gotten to it yet is an evil brother.
• No minigames yet.

I think it'd be more enjoyable at FF8, at least.

APPENDEUM: Just watch out for that first hour. The spiders in the tower are extremely tough (presumably to teach you how to cancel attacks with Critical) and can one-shot you if you don't interrupt their attacks (or Defend against them). And there's an unwinnable fight after you return to the first town that can bug out and give you a Game Over. (I got past that bug by spending the whole fight Defending.) Once you get your 2nd party member, though, it's gravy.

The Grandia games have, as I'll shout from a mountaintop whenever I have the chance, the best turn-based combat the genre has ever produced. It's stunning to me that so few other games have lifted these ideas.

I'd be really, really happy if this somehow ever got released on PS4.

I played it back on Dreamcast, but it's been so long that I barely remember anything about it. I'd love to play it again, but my PC is poop. And, I've kinda always preferred playing games on consoles.

I loved this game growing up. A bit apprehensive about going back to it. I always thought the Grandia series had some of the best combat in a JRPG game. Grandia 3's was excellent, its just a shame the rest of the story and stuff was pretty standard.

JRPG mechanics are wide and varied, and you'd never know this due to the genre's coverage in the West. Not every JRPG is a Final Fantasy clone.

@ttthrasher: I know, and I've played a lot of them. I missed the PS1 era due to not owning one, but I've played Shadow Hearts, Lost Odyssey, Infinite Undiscovery, Dragon Quest 8, and Skies of Arcadia as well. Even dipped my toe into Xenoblade Chronicles. That's not including the action RPGs and grid-based RPGs like Disgaea. It's not comprehensive, but it's varied, and the only battle system of them I think is on par with Grandia 2 is Shadow Hearts (still like the Ring System).

Well, FFX comes pretty close, too. FFX felt like the crispest iteration of Square's old ATB system. Attacks were diverse, their effects were easy to understand, and I remember being really impressed with the system overall. Probably my 2nd favorite Square RPG combat behind Chrono Trigger. Pity Tidus's characterization sucked out any interest I had in its story; still remember bursting out laughing at the corny love scene.

@mikelemmer: A big part of FFX's success was Square's total abandonment of the ATB. If memory serves, they called it the CTB. There's no real-time element in that battle system, so the player can put together "big plays" without feeling harried by a ticking clock, and the game in turn gives precise, detailed feedback on what worked and why. Also, I remember FFX having some of the series' best bosses - some very mechanically robust encounters, like Yunalesca. Man, what a game...

@encephalon: Ah, right. Yeah, I remember that now. Pity they had to saddle it with one of the most off-putting protagonists ever. The rest of FFX's plot is decent to good, but Tidus... ugh, Tidus. And Blitzball.

Just feels like FF plots have gone downhill since then. And probably before then as well, judging by ZP's FF8 playthrough. I liked the plots of FF4 and FF6 much better. FF4 is a cliche story, but it keeps it simple and tells it well. FF6 is the epitomy of FF storytelling for me; all the main characters had distinctive personalities, their problems seemed to have weight to them, and how many games let the world get ruined halfway through and dedicate the rest of the game to the heroes trying to regroup, pick up the pieces, and save what's left of the world? The post-Airship Ruin theme still sends shivers down my spine.

I'd clamor for a FF6 remake, but I'm afraid they'd screw it up.

APPENDEUM TO APPENDEUM: According to the recent update, these 2 bugs should be fixed now.