GAME REVIEW: GRANDIA II

One of the First RPG's to appear on the Dreamcast, Grandia II has has proven that the system can support very worthy and epic games in this genre and presents itself as a very solid game with a simple yet effective gameplay interface. I can honestly say that I enjoyed my experience with Grandia II and this proves just how much the Dreamcast can do, and the level of quality that continues to appear on this system.

The Dreamcast is a next generation system, so judging the graphics has to do predominantly on games on the same system and comparing the level of effort shown and quality achived during gameplay. Grandia II is filled with environments and richly textured areas including towns, forests, snowfields, grottos and caves, mechanized techno bases. etc. All of which are done to give the game an ambient feeling of scope and depth. The characters are very detailed and each distinct, however none of them has a mouth! Heh. I know this is an Video Game Anime type thing but really, no mouth? I know Final Fantasy VII did this as well. The World Map is simply a drawn image. It would have been nice if it were a rendered environment lush with topography and foliage on the world map, but I haven't seen too much of this in RPG's besides Final Fantasy. Xenogears, and some others. Some do this, some don't. But the Dreamcast has the power to do it, so why leave it so plain? Throught the game the graphics of enemies, spell effects and cinematics is all very well put together. There are never problems with the viewing angle of the camera or polygon overlapping and distortion and fog. There are a couple times where they used a still drawing or image to depict some event when it really would have been nice if they had a high res Full Motion Video inserted. Mind you they did use some FMV in this, but not the whole way through the game. Maybe the didn't have time for it?

The background music of the game is well executed and the vocal of Elena singing is a very moving piece of music. The game also includes an extra CD full of game music and some remixes that are very good. The sound effects are adequate for an RPG, nothing mindblowing, but nothing unexepected cheezy. Some parts of the game are vocally dubbed and the voice acting doesn't sound faked or unrealistic, rather it adequately portrays the personalities of the characters. They are neither overcomedic and silly or too dramatic when not necessary. Whoever these people are that voiced this game, they did a professional job of it. Is it just me or are those some voices from cartoons? I swear Ryudo's voice sounds VERY familiar. I just can't place the cartoon right off hand. T

Although simple, the gameplay works well in this. One thing that in some ways bothers me about Final Fantasy gameplay is the uncontinous nature of it. It's turn based without any innovation at times. What Grandia II brings to the table, pretty much the same concept from the last game in the series, a continous battle, even though it's a still turn based RPG. The action feels more intense just because everybody is doing something at once on the screen. You can see your guys attacking the enemies, and running away to evade them, some people hitting the same enemy at once. It's very fluid in performance. You have a great deal more control of the outcome of a battle as far as WHEN you can attack your enemies to prevent yourself from being attacked. Using combinations of cancel and combo attacks prove very effective during active battle. The active battle interface is quick and easy, no bulky menus to scroll through like the FFs. I swear it annoys me at times in FF having to select "Magic" scroll all the way to the bottom to access a spell in that little window at the bottom of the screen, and then cast it.

The storyline is excellent and kept me interested thoughout the game. From the introduction of Ryudo to the battle with Valmar. I loved the constant unpredicability of Elena's alter ego, Millenia. She was a cool character in terms of being that comic relief of a "mall girl" persona. There were some unexplained things about Millenia and Elena's connection though, and by the end of the game, the two of them are separate people doing separate things and I don't think this was really explained too well. Who WAS Millennia? She absorbed all those parts of the Dark God Valmar, but she was as plucky as usual with her crush on Ryudo through much of the game. There was a lot of good interaction and storytelling created and developed throughout this game. Yeah, there were a lot of cliche's too i.e. a mercenary outlaw saves the world, while falling in love, losing comrades, and coming to terms with demons from his past. How many RPG's do use this cliche? However it tells a good dynamic story at times and that's what is key to working this kind of plot successfully.

In many ways RPG's are not the type of games that are ever easily replayed so I never weigh an RPG too heavily in this aspect. We gamers devote many hours to completing them, and in essense to play through the game again requires an investment in time. Grandia II is a great game to enjoy the first time through, a second time of course after some period of time has gone by. There's really not to much to go back and do once you complete the game beside some things you may not have picked up in the plot or some items. I found myself with a surplus of items at the end of the game, few of which I ever used outside of healing items and a few of those explosive items and spells.