Summary
Too cheerful, too slow, and generally overrated
The Good
"Grandia" is hailed by many as the ultimate Asian ("console-style") RPG. Some people see in it a kind of an incarnation of everything the genre has to offer. Being a huge fan of the genre, I naturally couldn't ignore this game. Precipitating "The Bottom Line", I must say its popularity surprised me. It doesn't mean "Grandia" is totally devoid of good sides, but... Well, read on. First, let's deal with the good stuff.
If you have played any of the
Lunar games, you are already halfway there. Note I said: "halfway". There is some resemblance between Lunar games and this one (no wonder, as they were made by the same company). This is pretty much the same style of detailed characterization and deliberate "de-heroization" of the characters, to make them look more like simple guys and not like fantasy figures we have nothing in common with. Like Lunar, it pays a lot of attention to everyday conversations, and make them more "earthly", more mundane so to say, as opposed to the artificial, heroic style of classic fantasy RPGs. Also like Lunar (and even more so), it prefers light colors and rarely shows inner conflicts or "dark sides" of its heroes. Bear in mind that the original
Lunar: The Silver Star for Sega CD is older than "Grandia", that was first released for the Saturn.
The story of the game is a naive and initially rather charming tale of a young boy, and its main heroes are children or young people. I thought for a while that the game could be compared with good children literature: it can be understood by children, but a grown-up will also find it interesting. The game's characters are somewhat lovable (in case you don't find them annoying) and are for the most time nicely portrayed. In spite of all of its typical RPG magic/world-saving/bad guys mumbo-jumbo, "Grandia" is at times pretty realistic, to the extent of describing every-day events and paying a lot of attention to what the heroes think and feel about stuff unrelated to the main plot. Its story can be seen as Justin's fantasy: the boy dreams of being a "real" adventurer, and suddenly the dream becomes reality: he is the one who has to defeat the evil. What starts as children's game, develops itself into a typical epic saga, with Justin and his friends being deliberately far away from your average world-saving heroic ideal. This is a nice touch that can surely be appreciated by those who find
Final Fantasy series and similar games too "artsy" and too superficial in terms of portraying their heroes.
The combat system of "Grandia", which was praised by fans and foes alike, is indeed very interesting, and in certain aspects superior to its slightly modified version used in the
sequel. Borrowing from the revolutionary system of
Final Fantasy II (the actual second game in the series, for NES console), it follows the rule "level up everything". You don't only level up your characters, but also their weapons and spells. Use an axe in many battles, and after some time you'll find out you are making more damage with it. Use earth spells a lot, and you'll soon be more proficient at this type of magic.
For haters of random battles, there are good news: like in Lunar (sorry for comparing again, but the games
are similar), all the enemies are visible and you can roam an area freely once you've cleared it of all the pesky critters that had been there.
The battles themselves can get quite thrilling and dynamic thanks to the counter system, that allows you to block enemy's moves when they are about to attack you. Enemies can do the same to your party members. Since the battle screen shows you the party's and enemy's preparations for action as a real-time gauge, where the corresponding icon is slowly moving towards the realization of the move, you can time your blows in such a way that you'll counter your enemy's actions when your icon is about to cross his.
Graphically, "Grandia" is what you call a mixed bag. The in-game 3D graphics are not that hot. A nice feature, however, is the usage of the characters' faces shown in the dialogue boxes. They are very nicely done graphically (in animé style), and, what's more, they change their expressions according to the character's words... you guessed it, just like in Lunar games.
The Bad
Maybe it's a matter of taste. But I think there are other RPG fans who will agree with me. You see, when I play an Asian RPG, I know I have thirty, forty, or even more hours of playing in front of me. It is a hard task to entertain the player for such a long time, but good Asian RPGs knew how to do that: usually with a suspenseful story, interesting characters, unique setting and atmosphere, or - in the very best cases - all of them together. Truth must be said: "Grandia" has none. It has light charm that doesn't last long, and a solid (although not at all remarkable) combat system, but that pretty much sums it up.
I really don't understand why it was necessary to make the whole game in light colors. It is nice to have a positive approach, but when this approach is extended to fill the whole game, one begins to miss the conflicts, the shadows, and the ambivalence, which are the "meat" of console-style RPGs.
Both Lunar games can be considered dark, violent, and disturbing horror stories compared to "Grandia". At no point of the game was I intimidated, nowhere did the tension grow really big, and all the ways to drama (let alone a tragedy) were sealed. Lunar games worked that way because of their lyrical intensity and witty, clever dialogues. "Grandia" doesn't have them, and is mostly held in a lukewarm atmosphere that prevents the player from being immersed into the quite serious and supposedly sinister tale of the ultimate battle between the good and the evil.
Optimism and happiness are justified when they appear after prolonged suffering. A "happy ending" is imaginable only if there was a lot of misery before; otherwise it won't be "happy" any more, the proper word would be "cheesy". Every great story is woven out of contrasts. Without contrast there is no suspense, and without suspense there is no interest. "Grandia" starts cheerfully, continues cheerfully, and ends cheerfully. Constant suffering is possible, because it reflects well the reality of our world; but constant happiness is a lie. Name your all-time favorite stories, name the greatest novels and theater pieces; you'll see that all of them depict suffering. Shakespeare's plays are full of tormented people, treason, envy, hatred, and dead bodies. It doesn't mean a great story
must have only dark colors. But having
only light colors is not an option. Such a story can be enjoyed only by immature people who do not understand what life is.
You'd say "Grandia" was probably made for children, to which I answer: children need stories with contrasts and suffering as much as adults. Every good fairy tale has dark sides. I just thought of Astrid Lindgren's wonderful
"Mio, my Mio", which is really a fairy tale for little children, and which has plenty of happiness and bright colors. But I'll be damned if I wasn't scared to the bottom of my soul when the hero travels to Knight Kato's land and the book's atmosphere suddenly changes to unbearable, desperate darkness. And the story still leaves you with a bittersweet feeling, because, as an adult reader, you realize of course that the beautiful land ruled by "my father, the king" was just a fantasy of a poor boy who knew no tenderness and love in his life. This is how such stories should be done.
Back to "Grandia"... The introduction of everyday events is nice, but there is a big discrepancy between them and the totally unrealistic, fantasy-oriented story the game tells. The cute, innocent characters are simply out of place in an RPG that is epic and "grand". Even the main characters of
Skies of Arcadia were more appropriate, because we didn't know every little detail of their everyday lives as children and teenagers.
It is a known fact that Japanese designers have a soft spot for "cute" characters. Some people like it, some don't. I don't mind an occasional cute character among the good guys, but this "cuteness" should still have limits and not extend itself almost to the whole party. A character like Sue should be in best case a small insignificant addition to the party, like for example Chu-Chu in
Xenogears or Eiko in
Final Fantasy IX. Instead, we are forced to believe this little child can in fact fight vicious monsters and is one of the most important characters and party members in the game. After some battles I simply couldn't stand her Puffy attacks any more.
Although the characters in the game have well-developed background stories and are, for the most time, depicted with care and detail, they still don't match the unforgettable casts of both Lunars. Most characters are simply not deep enough, and there is no feeling of a truly great cast where everyone can interact with each other.
The initial premise and the actual storyline of "Grandia" are quite good, but its progression is really slow. The first half of it barely develops the main plot, and forces you to dedicate your time and efforts to countless side quests, which would have been find if they were what they are supposed to be: side-quests. Instead, they are obligatory steps you must complete in order to finish the game.
Which brings up another problem: the game is way too linear, even for a console RPG. The "world map" allows you only to jump from location to location. There is barely anything to explore beside the places you have to visit in order to make progress. Everything must be completed in a very strict order. I know this is common for most Asian RPGs, but for a game with so few redeeming features, I hoped I would at least enjoy some exploration.
The gameplay also has its problems. The dungeons tend to be lengthy and boring, and since the difficulty level of the game is quite low, they become more tedious than challenging. The dungeons in any
Megaten game are at least thrice as long and as complex as they are here, but they are also really
difficult to complete. Particularly annoying in the dungeons of "Grandia" is the rotating camera, which makes you lose orientation very quickly. An automap would have been a much better solution.
As for the much-praised combat system: it's okay. Trust me, I've played
many Asian RPGs. The combat of Grandia is overrated to the extreme. It does nothing other games haven't done before, maybe with the exception of canceling system, which alone isn't such an important addition to build a hype around.
The Bottom Line
The readers of my reviews know how much I like Asian RPGs. This genre offers us the best stories and characters in the world of video games. But even within this genre, certainly not overrated per se (like for example first-person shooters), there are still a few overrated games. "Grandia" is one of them. The unbearable cuteness and lightness of the game gets on your nerves once you try to remind yourself that this is an epic, world-saving RPG. Dozens of hours spent in a merry-go-round atmosphere is not exactly what I expect from such a game. The slow tempo of the story and the amount of obligatory side quests that must be completed in a linear fashion ruin the pleasure, and there is hardly anything else to sustain it: no deep story, no really interesting characters, no atmosphere, no appealing setting. There are
many great Asian RPGs out there, Japanese as well as Chinese. But "Grandia", being a very popular one, is also one I do not recommend.
