Grandia II

Moby ID: 4091
Dreamcast Specs
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Long ago, the battle of light and darkness was held, pitting the god Granas against the demon Valmar. Though scars of the battle still mark the land, time has passed and the people of the world have built new civilizations and kingdoms to colonize the planet. The "Day of Darkness" will someday occur, heralding the resurrection of Valmar.

Ryudo is a "GeoHound", a mercenary available for hire, usually for slaying monsters and recovering goods. Working with a talking bird named Skye, who sites on Ryudo's shoulder, they will "do anything" if the price is right. One day Ryudo receives a job from a branch of the Church of Granas, they ask Ryudo to become a bodyguard for a young priestess named Elena during a prayer ceremony. During the ceremony, strange events occur requiring Ryudo to escort Elena on a journey towards the

Grandia 2 is a 3D RPG, viewed from a top-down perspective for most of the game and a 3rd person view during battle. Controlling Ryudo, the player will explore various locations, locating townspeople and objects within an area to interact with. Towns and dungeons are displayed in the same manner, though dungeons tend to be mazes filled with monsters and towns tend to be friendly areas filled instead with conversation and shops. Any monsters present in these areas will be shown walking around. Walking over to and touching the monster in any way will activate a battle. If the monster notices the player approaching it is considered a normal battle, if Ryudo is able to approach undetected the player's party will gain the initiative in battle, if any party member besides Ryudo is approached by the enemy then the party loses initiative.

In battle, each character is able to choose from a list of actions that include "attack combos" (standard attack command), Special Abilities/Magic, "Critical Strike", Guard, Evade and Escape. Critical Strikes are weaker versions of attack combos with the advantage that they can block an enemy's action. This partly depends on the positions of the character on the action bar, displayed at the bottom of the screen, which shows each character's (and enemy's) time to act within the battle. Some magic spells and special abilities are also able to block enemy actions, though they take longer to perform than normal attacks. Both combo attacks and critical attacks require the attacker to run up to the enemy in order to perform the action. This depends heavily on the character's individual movement as well as other characters acting as obstacles on the screen. Successfully defeating enemies in battle awards experience points, power points, magic points, gold, and items.

Spellings

  • ă‚°ăƒ©ăƒłăƒ‡ă‚Łă‚ąII - Japanese spelling
  • æ Œć…°è’‚äșšII - Chinese spelling (simplified)

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Credits (Dreamcast version)

234 People (194 developers, 40 thanks) · View all

Produced By
Localized By
Japanese Project Coordinator
US Brand Manager
International Brand Manager
Local Brand Manager
Public Relations
Packaging Design
Manual Design
Packaging Localization
Code Managers
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 81% (based on 48 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 94 ratings with 3 reviews)

Pretty, but annoying.

The Good
I must say, the combat system is rather nice, And the towns are amazingly detailed and original. The mix of drawn animation and game animation in the special attacks looks awesome.

The Bad
For one thing, the voice acting. It's like they lined up the most wretched, annoying people on earth up and recruited them all in an act of pity. Why they dub games at all that have subtitles already built in I've never understood. Ryudo's voice was hauntingly familiar, and, upon further research, I discovered that it was done by the same guy who destroyed the ninja turtles movie as Leonardo, and the Akira dub as Kaneda. I loathe that man. Also, the little emotion boxes next to the subtitles got under my skin. You can already understand what the characters are thinking by their (grating) speech, and, since there are only four or five different character faces each, the designers ended up having to approximate most of the time. "She's exasperated. What's the closest picture we have to that?" "Fear, sir, that or berserk rage" "Ehh, let's go with the berserk rage, then. I always liked that one." You get the idea.

The Bottom Line
Great to play, but turn the sound down. And, while it makes a handy frisbee, I'd suggest you don't pay any extra for the accompanying music CD.

Dreamcast · by Tom Blackwell (6) · 2001

Definitely worth a try for fans of the Final Fantasy genre

The Good
Grandia II has a better than average storyline, which really helps tie the game together and help one play through when the repetitive Final Fantasy style gameplay gets monotonous. I was very pleased with the ending, and was even a bit startled by a subtle underlying emotivist/taoist philosophy. But don't let me scare you away (or get your hopes up) - this isn't educational software. In general, Grandia II plays much like the Final Fantasy series -- for those who don't know, the style consists of much running about, collecting items, and fighting monsters in a turn-based fashion. Victories earn you experience points, which in turn raise your level and increase your stats. Occasional cinematic cut-scenes present the storyline, which really draws one in as the game advances.

Grandia II also sports some unique character advancement options: You can increase your magical ability by spending 'Magical Coins', or MC's (earned from battles) on your 'mana egg', the object which allows you to cast spells. You can also increase the ability of your special moves by using 'Special Coins (SC's). Finally, you can alter your character in a number of beneficial ways by equiping special skills found in 'Skill Books'.

The Bad
1)The graphical quality of the cinematic scenes was a bit disappointing.

2)Since your (Ryudo's) travelling companions are added/lost during cutscenes, you don't have any control over your party composition. (In other words, you can't choose who to bring with you and who to ditch.)

3)Battles were a bit too easy, in my opinion. Even in the final battle, none of my characters lost more than half their hit points.

The Bottom Line
Grandia II is worth the time to play through, even if just for the storyline. This is a must for fans of final fantasy.

Windows · by Gutter Snipe (21) · 2003

The Grand sequel to the 32-bit killer rpg!

The Good
The Dreamcast had two killer app rpg’s. Whilst Grandia II was the more anticipated, Skies of Arcadia stole it’s lofty crown. This does not mean that Grandia II was not a very enjoyable game. The sequel to the oft considered best 32-bit rpg, Grandia II had a large task ahead of it, it had to be as good as it’s prequel. Thankfully it is, and in some ways is better.

In Grandia II you play Ryudo, the 17 year old and already cynical Geohound. He has a new job to escort the wonderfully naĂŻve songstress Elena to a ceremony to seal away the evil god Valmar, whom a millennium ago nearly destroyed the world. (Seriously does the estate of H.P. Lovecraft get paid for this?) Yes I know that it has been done, but to me clichĂ©d plots are just a part of console rpgs like random encounters. Where Grandia II excels is the way the story unfolds, and the cast of interesting characters. There is besides the two already mentioned Millenia, the leather clad, sexy woman who happens to have the hots for Ryudo. Roan, the runaway Prince. Mareg the beast man with a heart of gold. And the only character I did not find interesting, Tio, the automaton that may have more in common with humans than she suspects. Anyhow the story is well paced, and no parts feel like the “filler” you often get in these type of games.

Graphically, this is simply one of the best looking DC games, and one of the best in general. There are PS2 games that do not look this good, including oddly enough Grandia II! The villages and mazes are all very colorful. And each village has a unique design. I hate when rpgs have all there towns look alike, Grandia II does not fail here. The characters are super deformed but still look decent, and there is tons of detail in there clothing. The magic and special attacks all look spectacular, some use FMV for optimum eye candy.

The soundtrack is excellent. As are the sound effects particularly the voice work. It is refreshing to find a Japanese that has good English voice overs. If only the entire game was in voice. The music is all good, and tends to fit the situations. And the American version of the game included a soundtrack sampler, sweet!

The gameplay is unique. From the awesome battle system, to traveling the world map. On the world map, you travel the individual areas instead of just running across and empty space. This helps make the world more convincing. The battle system is intact from the original game, and if any thing flows better. You take turns using a bar that shows when your group gets to attack as well as the enemies. So unlike most console rpg’s you can employ strategy to cancel or destroy enemies before they can even take their turn. This is very useful during boss fights. Gone is the awkward Spell/Move level up system from the original. In Grandia II your party acquires Special/Magic coins that are spent to learn new abilities. Furthermore you can equip Skill/Magic books that can boost your weaker stats.

The Bad
Grandia II is a tad on the short side. About 25-30 hours. Whilst the original was about 60-70.

The Bottom Line
If you have a Dreamcast play this game. Do not play the PC or PS2 version. You have been warned. This game along with others: Skies of Arcadia, Shenmue, and Sonic Adventure, showcase how great the DC was, and makes me wonder how it failed.

Dreamcast · by MasterMegid (723) · 2006

Discussion

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Need help: Arm-Wrestling Minigame Shoddyan (15002) Aug 21, 2007

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Grandia II appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Soundtrack

The US version includes an additional CD of Grandia II music as selected by the composer Noriyuki Iwadare, featuring words and vocals by Kaori Kawasumi.

Tracklist: 1. CancĂĄo do povo (Little Shelter Mix) 2. Carbo 3. A Deus 4. Dangerous Zone 5. Agear 6. Fight!! Ver. 1 7. Liligue 8. Mirumu 9. Saint Heim 10. Fight!! Ver. 2 11. A Deus (Sunking Mix) 12. CancĂĄo do povo

Running Time: 49:32 minutes

The lyrics for the songs Canção do Povo and A Deus are in Portuguese, even though the Japanese pronounce is quite apparent.

Special Edition

The Japanese Grandia II Special Package contains an additional Digipak music CD titled Grandia II Melodia, composed by Noriyuki Iwadare. The booklet contains character studies and background information on the music production. It is NOT identical to the US soundtrack version.

It contains 7 tracks with a running time of 22:11 minutes. The tracklist is partially written in Japanese.

Version differences

Although the game has been ported around, there are some differences between versions.

The PS2 version has quite some problems, some parts of the game are extremely slow and there are transparency clipping issues.

In the Dreamcast version, mushrooms spawn random items, Melfice's regenerator is invincible and the Millenia Zap! bug from the PS2 version doesn't occur.

The PC version has a setup program called Gmconfig which lets you assign the keys and resolution. Also on PC, only CD2 is the game disc, CD1 is solely used for installing the game.

Information also contributed by Jiguryo and Sciere

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Rogee.

Windows added by Kartanym. PlayStation 3 added by MAT. PlayStation 2 added by NeoMoose.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, msl, Apogee IV, Foxhack, DreinIX, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack.

Game added May 15, 2001. Last modified March 26, 2024.