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 6 defined 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.