User Reviews (1 - 11 of 47)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Pleasant Game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 30, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This was the first RPG I've played, and I picked it because I read that it had a positive storyline, centered around a boy's spirit of adventure. It's not as graphically advanced as most of the Square RPGs but this is the kind of game I wouldn't mind my kids playing. The main characters were cute and pretty good role- models. Some of the minor characters were a bit irritating - especially one lady that sounded like a redneck. The ending was predictable but enjoyable.

The combat was a bit monotonous, particularly towards the end, because one didn't have many options about fighting methods, and the same techniqes worked on almost all oponents.

Save locations are usually in good spots, typically requiring about 30 minutes of play between spots. Fortunately, save locations are almost always placed before the tough fights, preventing major frustration, so use them.

Replay value is pretty low, because there are no significant alternative paths to choose. That's all right though - the game can easily last 50 hours.

Very charismatic!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 20, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Grandia is one of the most charming games I've ever played. It is far more stylish and deep than most other RPG's out there.

Role playing is basically about combat, exploration and -most importantly- character development. Many games neglect to focus on the latter and that is sad because it destroys the game balance. But Grandia delivers the goods. Rarely have I seen such memorable characters. They all have feelings and motives that make for a great story. And their faces are extremely well drawn and have expressions for every situation.

The graphics are a bit strange. Game Arts have used a combination of sprites and polygons, and while it looks amazing at its best, it really shows that we're dealing with a port of an ageing Saturn game. Still, all locations are expertly designed. If it had just been designed for the PlayStation in the first place, it would have been a real stunner, but as it is it's still worthwhile. But I can't believe why there is graphical slowdown at times. This game is originally designed for the Saturn, a machine less powerful than the PlayStation, but still the Saturn version runs much smoother. Shame on you, Game Arts! But in the end it doesn't affect the game flow, so who cares?

The sound is really good, except for one thing - the voice acting. The PlayStation is cursed with some of the most pathetic performances in the history of acting. Need I mention Resident Evil? Or Silent Hill? Aargh! Grandia's voices are not THAT bad, but still... What sounds cool in Japanese obviously doesn't sound very well in English. Lines like "It's a tooooorrrnaaaadoooo! " or "Slice you in two! " are flung about during combat with absolutely no talent at all. Luckily it's only few moments of the game that have spoken dialogue.

Still, the game's overpowering charm will make you turn a blind eye (or a deaf ear!) to its' few shortcomings.

Bottom line: Grandia is a very balanced and enjoyable RPG with very imaginative scenery, a brilliant storyline, good sound (most of the time...), and a fast and well designed combat system that doesn't get annoying (very impressive! ).

Why are you still staring at this screen? Get out and buy the game!

d BEST

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 20, 2001
Author: Amazon User

no doubt this game is perfect it has nothing wrong about it It contains magic and a number of critical hits you could grt very stuck sometimes

Innovative battle engine for its time

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 10, 2002
Author: Amazon User

A port of the Saturn game, Grandia was certainly "different" from the dark, brooding RPGs on the market at that time. Featuring a pleasantly light-hearted story concerning a young man and his friends search for adventure, I remember some people being turned off by the subject matter. What they missed is one of the best console battle-engine designs yet. While other companies were still using the same old "enemies-on-one-side, player-on-the-other" engine, Grandia used a dynamic system involving distance and location of the enemies and characters. Certainly more strategy was needed than with other battle systems.

This port had some graphic clipping, though, and the voice acting, unsuprisingly, is rather limp. The characters never came across as being especially "deep", although this is only a video game, not a Dostoevsky novel.

If you can find this, buy it immediately.

GRANDIA - THE BEST GAME EVER!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 01, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Ignore some of the reviews- the graphics in grandia are not that cute. In fact, most if not all of the creatures are pretty freaky (but then again, aren't all of the creatures in RPG games freaky?). The game is a lot of fun. One thing that I loved about the game is that everywhere you go, each form of creatures that you ally with has different theories on life, but they all have the same destiny. Grandia is alot of fun, and i'd reccomend it to anyone who has a craving for fantasy and adventure.

Classic RPG Game That Doesn't Get Old Playing It!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Reviewed for Big Boss Games by: T.R.C.

You start out as a boy named Justin. He dreams of becoming an adventurer just like his dad. Justin has a childhood friend and cousin named Sue. Sue has a great pet named Puffy, that Justin's Dad found on one of his many adventures. As you start your adventures you will meet tons of funny and interesting people. Like Feena, a fellow adventurer, Guido, a wise, if enigmatic bunny rabbit, Gadwin, the masterful warrior, Milda, an Amazonian that likes using her body instead her head, Rapp, a hot blooded young man with a bad attitude and a host of other cast members that make this game a joy to play.

The Story - 8/10: This Game starts out a bit slow till you are about 3 hours into the game. That is when this game starts to shine and keeps shining. You will laugh, Cry, get upset, and feel joy while playing this great game.

The Battle System - 7/10: This is your typical turn based battle system with a unique leveling system. You must use your attacks and magic over and over again because they gain experience with every use. Then that leads to new spells and attacks. You must also change your party's weapons, because each weapon type gains its own experience.

Game play - 9/10: The puzzles in this game were just hard enough to give you the feeling of accomplishment. I loved the mazes in this game because most of the dungeons had a 360-degree camera control, with a nice little compass to point you in the right direction. My advice is to use the compass if you get lost. (You will get lost at some point) This game has 50+ hours of game play.

Overall - 9/10: This game was a joy to play. It has it's ups and downs, like 40+ hours into the game you want it to be over, but the game's story keeps the plot twists coming and the game keeps you glued to your seat to find out what happens next.

If you want a great game this is one of the best RPG's for the Playstation.

P.S. Don't forget to get the strategy guide for this game. Grandia (Prima's Official Strategy Guide)

What's so Grand about this game anyway?

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 30, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I'm rather baffled by all the positive reviews for this game. I bought it a couple months ago after reading all the good reviews and thinking this game must be a shining gem that has withstood the test of time. Well, now I'm rethinking that assumption... No doubt many people will disagree with me, but on with the review!

Graphics (6/10): Sigh. Everything is pixelated. I'm not sure whether the graphics for this game were considered good when the game was released or not. On the bright side, the character designs are good as well as the towns. The dungeons are another matter, but more on that later.

Music (6/10): I still can't figure out why people claim this game has a great soundtrack. I've even heard people claim that Grandia's music is some of their most favorite of all time. I wonder if Grandia is the only RPG they've ever played? Anyway, the majority of the tracks weren't too bad. Unfortuneately, I remember some pretty bad ones. There's one jungle where the "music" seems to only be ambient jungle wildlife sounds, which got annoying after the 50th bird call. Unlike others, I found the Gumbo song to be one of the most annoying village themes ever. It's okay right at first, but then starts to grate on your nerves the longer you stay in the village. One more thing-the voice acting deserves mention. It's bad. I rank it as the worst voiceing I've ever heard in a game. It sounds like they literally pulled people off the street and offered them $10 to read off some lines. Terrible.

Battle System (8/10): Nothing really wrong with the battle system. It's a variant of turn-based, with a small bar in the corner indicating who will go next. While the bar does let you see when you're characters will go, I didn't really find it all that useful. What keeps this section from a perfect score is the abilities-and how you level them up. Using them over and over again strengthens your magic, but not how you'd expect. SPEED increases, not strength. I found this very frustrating and pointless. The speed doesn't really increase enough to make much difference- and leveling spells takes forever.

Gameplay (4/10): Was the rotating camera really necessary? I've played games with rotating camera angles (like Xenogears) that worked just fine, but in this game it doesn't. The problem lies in dungeon navigation. If the graphics had been better, or if there had been better dungeon design, perhaps navigation wouldn't be so confusing. It's really hard to tell where you are because the dungeon design is so bland and repetitive; there are usually no landmarks with which to navigate, with the result that I actually wound up back at the entrance thinking it was the exit. On another note, something else that bothered me was the fact that even by the end of the game, you couldn't really return to much of anywhere you had been previously. I kept expecting be able to return to Parm eventually, but no such luck.

*NOTE: This part's an extremely important part--the game is glitchy. It would freeze randomly, forcing me to reset and start over. The cds themselves were in good condition with almost no scratches of any kind, and I've heard this same complaint before, which leads me to believe the glitches are a flaw of the game design. This is a huge turnoff--this added in extra frustration to an already boring game. This flaw knocks points off the score.

Characters (7/10): The characters are interesting at first, until you realize that everyone's the same. All possess the same plucky, happy-go-lucky adventurer personality. I have nothing against light-hearted games, but everyone really did seem to have the exact same personality; there was just no balance to the party. Speaking of party, there was a high rate of people joining and then permanently leaving, this (or something else?) really meant that no one really got any siginificant character development. Most everyone had no back story of interest (or at all) and were not well developed.

Story (5/10): Here's where Grandia really starts to "sag in the saddle", so to speak. The first 1/4 of the game and the last 1/4 are interesting and engaging. I really enjoyed the start in Parm; rummaging through people's houses, reading Justin's diary for some amusing stories, and laughing at the way any alcoholic references were changed to "coffee". Man, those were good times. Unfortunately, it all goes downhill from there. The middle of the game becomes a neverending series of filler events. The first couple "villages in need" or "musty old ruins to explore" didn't bother me at all, but after that, I started to feel like I was stuck on the wheel of karma or something. It just got really repetitive, until I just knew the next village I came to would have to be saved by me from some disaster. Well, what I refer to as the "main" story picked about the last quarter of the game, but it wasn't nearly original or interesting enough to make up for the huge amount of filler crap in the middle. By then, only my sheer will power kept me playing to the end.

Overall (4/10): Note this score is not an average, it's my subjective overall score. I must say, given the flaws of this game, I'd never play it again. It's too bad really, it could've been a decent game if the makers had cut out the middle of the "plot" and fixed the glitches. I really wouldn't recommend this to anyone unless they absolutely have played every other good RPG out there and are just dying for something else to play. Even then, it may be better to just replay an old favorite instead.

A Great RPG for the Beginner

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: June 10, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Overall I loved this game! Its easy to learn, and if you are new to RPG based games like I am then this is the game for you! The only downside to this game is the very lengthy conversations with people, and sometimes you need to talk to them 2 or 3 times before getting what you need from them.

What a start!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: December 22, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Wow, this game is great. I took off a star for some annoying voice-over and some annoying cloyingly emotional plot-lines that have simply been done to death. At times, the plot felt like it was written by an nine-year old who watches too many daytime soaps.

But the magic! The combat! The ideas! The world of Grandia is simply amazing to watch and participate in and the possibilities for a character's development are almost unlimited! I eagerly await the sequel.

Grandia has gotta be one of the best RPGs I've played....

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: June 21, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Everything about it is good. The characters, storyline, gameplay, audio, sound FX, all of them are excellent!! The graphics are very good for a Saturn port. If you want to play a non-Square RPG, give this a shot.

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 Next 

Actions