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Great game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 27 / 33
Date: October 08, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Ok I was a little mad when I saw the reviews of this game. How can you write a review when you don't even HAVE this game? Well I have this game and I am here to tell you how good it is. First of all this game is fantastic, the graphics are the best for Dreamcast yet and the battle system is completely amazing. The best way to describe the battle system is like lunar: SCCC's battle system in 3D. Also in the battles everyone can be moving at the same time. Another thing about this game is it is SO detailed. In some of the stores you can knock over bottles or knock a picture out of place. Another example of the great detail is in the battles. When a character hits a bad monster, the character blinks there eyes, and when you hit them, you might yell AAAHHHHH or another thing. These are just some of the great things about this game. I won't keep going on telling you how good this game is, you will just have to play it for yourself. This game took me about 30 hours to beat and I literally spent about 10 of my hours battling because it was so fun. Now after you read this I hope you buy this game, the story is excellent and it can be emotional at times. Do not pass up a great game like this, because I can not tell you how good it is and how it changed my life.

Grandia 2

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 15
Date: December 18, 2000
Author: Amazon User

At first when I played this game I wasn't that impressed. The story and characters tended to be your standard RPG fare: a young, arrogant, spikey haired hero who yields a big sword; a young beutiful innocent female sidekick who knows magic; typical good vs. evil storyline. However, several hours into the game I got hooked. The graphics don't start out that impressively, but by the time you get to the meat of the game and experience the battles for the first time, I was really impressed. The music is standard RPG fare with a mix of pop, rock, and classical. By far the big draw of Grandia 2 is it's amazing battle system. For the first time in an RPG, I actually look forward to battling monsters. In fact, I'm actually running into monsters on purpose in order to experience a fight. The battles load fairly quickly and are beatifully presented in 3-D. There's a great mix of real time 3-D and prerendered FMV in the hundereds of spells that you can cast. The FMV is refreshingly unique and makes it appear as if you're looking at an anime movie. This battle system should be the standard for all future RPGs. Its that good.

Would be a 5, but the story is a little absurd...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: February 12, 2001
Author: Amazon User

... but before I get to the story, let me tell you about the great things about this game. This music is incredible. An audio CD is included with the purchase of this game, so that's an added bonus, but there's also Grandia II Deus and Grandia II Povo... if you can find these anywhere, they're also nice to have (and don't have any of the techno beats that were maliciously added to the CD they give you). And for those of you that were wondering like me, the lyrics are all in Portugese. Very nice...

The gameplay is also very very solid. The battle system is innovative and best of all, fun to play... The artificial intelligence (autopilot for battles) is great for building experience, and the flow of the battles is also great. The bad part of these are the spells. They're long- drawn out, and annoying. The best spell to watch are the ones involving the shards of ice coming out of the ground, becuase it doesn't look like a movie pasted in. All the other spells are just terrible terrible terrible.

The voice acting is as follows: Within the game.. VERY good. Within the battles: embarrasing. You'll see what I mean. but I'm glad they decided to go with professionals on this one. It adds to their personalities.

So.. back to the story. You will undoubtedly, throughout the game, stop and say to yourself, "huh? that doesn't make any sense." But take it for what it is... an rpg that isn't made by the storytellers @ square.

Have fun!

A must for any RPG fan

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: January 05, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Along side Skies of Arcadia, Dreamcast owners have another RPG to go nuts over. The sound, graphics and gameplay make Grandia 2 an outstanding RPG that everyone should check out. First, the graphics are just fantastic. The further into the game you get, the better this game looks. Fantastic character designs, great looking towns and amazing spell effects using FMV round out the visual package. The sound varies from fantastic music to music that doesn't seem appropriate to the situtation. Sound effects are solid, and the voice overs that are present are high quality (not the best but very good). The translation looks spot on as well with no major errors in the text. And the biggest standout is the amazing battle sysytem. By FAR the best battle system this real-time/turn-based system works incredibly well that adds real depth and strategy to an RGP component that can get very tiresome over time. With all that shiny goodness, there are some flaws. Grandia 2 is pretty formulatic, with a pretty tried and true story (it's still a good one though), and quite linear, as you are pretty much led from town to town, event to event, boss to boss with no real exploration of the map to be done. Beside that, it's a fantastic game with a great Soundtrack included. Highly recommended.

The greatest RPG to grace Dreamcast...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 18, 2000
Author: Amazon User

"Grandia II." What else is there to say? The original Grandia was an instant masterpiece (the Saturn version, mind you). Does this one live up to the first? Hmmm....

To start off, the story (spoiler-free) is as follows: Ryudo, a cold-hearted, cynical Geohound (a mercenary for hire), is entrusted to bring Elena to a ceremony. However, something goes wrong, and Ryudo must go on a journey to protect those which he hates the most.

The gameplay is very straight-forward and linear. Alright, let's compare it to "Zelda: Majora's Mask." in Zelda, you could go ANYWHERE in the field. In Grandia II, you are only allowed a choice of going to three places in the entire game. Which is truly sad, because that could have made this a much better game.

The character development in this game is something that is truly rare. You will see romance blossoming between Ryudo and Elena, and many other relationships with the other members of your party. Not to forget the truly sad and dramatic interaction between Ryudo and his brother.

Now, here's the highlight of the entire game: the battle system. It combines real-time and turn-based fighting into the best system ever invented ever. Here's a brief description of how it works:

All the members in your party are located on a bar that has COM in the middle-right, and ACT at the far right. Once your character reaches COM, he/she can input a command. The character then moves from COM to ACT and right when it reaches ACT, the character will perform the command. Amazing, isn't it?

The graphics in this game are awesome. Not in the realistic way, as you might think, though (like in "Shenmue"). The characters have no mouths (which is also kinda good, as there is more flexibility in voice-acting translation). Most Special and Magic moves have CG effects and the actual overworld has some great cinema movies.

The replay value is so-so. Once you beat the game, there are no real reasons except just to fight some enemies (which is still fun).

Overall, this is a great RPG that has no equal on Dreamcast, save for "Skies of Arcadia" and "Phantasy Star Online." If you have Dreamcast and are a RPG fan, you'd be an idiot to skip this one.

5 Star enjoyment, but the game has some minor problems

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: January 06, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I have truly enjoyed playing this game. It's nice to be able to see enemies and avoid them rather than being randomly attacked as you walk around. I think the story is great. Yes, it is very linear, but I think this can be said of all Japanese RPGs (the Final Fantasy series included.) The voice acting is superior. Each character has a well developed personality. The magical attacks are a combination of hand drawn animation and computer graphics that I first thought was cheesy, but now thoroughly enjoy.

In Grandia II, there are no immensely difficult puzzles to solve, and the dungeons/mazes are not overly complex. I personally do not want to spend countless hours mapping a dungeon or hunting down just the right person to talk to. This game will tell you exactly where to go and who to talk to. Some may find this annoying. I think it's great, and really keeps the game flowing right along. The game is fairly long even with this help, and really keeps your interest.

The only fault I can find with this game is that it allows your characters to become too powerful too quickly. After the first two bosses, I found that my character's attacks had become too powerful to make subsequent fights much of a challenge. In addition, there is not much variety to the enemies encountered in dungeons. I've so far encountered probably less than 20 different monster types.

Great game...too short

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: August 28, 2001
Author: Amazon User

After beating ... out of Skies of Arcadia twice, I told myself, "Self? You need another RPG." So I picked up Grandia II. Good points first. The battle engine is excellent. Characters just don't run up to the enemy, strike, then go back to their original position. They are moving around, which makes you think out a battle strategy. Everything from which magic our item to use, down to the basic question in this game, especially when fighting bosses, "Do I have enough time to cancel this guy's attack before he wipes me out?" The graphics are very good, too. It's a funky mix between polygons, CGI, and Japanese anime. pretty wicked. You'll understand what I mean when you use Ryudo's Dragon Zap, or Millenia's Fallen Wings. The storyine starts out great, but somewhere along the line it turns into a theological discussion on good, evil, and religious beliefs. But it was enough to keep me interested. To this date, other than Soul Reaver, I haven't heard better voice acting in a game. you will definitely be suprised. By far, my biggest problem with this game is that it was way too short. Ususally, when I play an RPG, I like to fight whatever I can, whenever I can. Being that in this game, you can see where you enemies are, I was in heaven. By doing that I put myself slightly ahead of the game. Beating bosses were not a problem. So, in the end, I ended up clearing Grandia II in 3 days (it didn't help that I purchased the game on a Friday. I played it all weekend). Also, don't be fooled. The jewel case says that there are 2 discs. This is true, but one disc is the game's soundtrack. But all in all, this game is great. But to this date, Skies of Arcadia is a better game. If you have neither game, buy Grandia II first, then buy Skies, so you won't be dissapointed.

Diamond in the rough

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: March 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I must say, when I found this game buried in the used rack, I wasn't expecting all that much (having no previous experience with the original). But being a fan of RPG's (and searching for cheap Dreamcast games to add to my collection), I thought "why not"? And thank god I did.
After 5 minutes, I got the sense that this game was something unique. After 15, I was beginning to like it. And after 30, I was completely and utterly hooked. I recently finished the game, and I think it is a testament to how great the game is when I say that I nearly shed a tear at the game's close.
My only issue with the game was it's rather predictable and often-times cheesy plot. I found myself repeatedly guessing (correctly)not only what was about to happen, but what was to happen several plot points down the line. But this was dwarfed by all the things I adored about the game.
First and foremost, the writing. More specifically, the dialogue writing. This game sports some of the best writing I have ever seen period. Not just in a game. The dialogue worked fantastically with the plot and characters to greatly enhance the experience. On a similar note, the voice acting was first-rate. The interspersing of voice-acting and text-based dialogue was quite well-done and did much to draw me into the game. But I think the thing I liked most of all about the writing was that it had a great sense of humor. From Ryudo's constant sarcasm, to Millenia's innuendoes (see her Heel Crush attack for my favorite line), and everything in between, the writers are the unsung heroes of this title. I mean come on! How can you not love a character that yells out "Deep-fried goodness!" when casting a lightning spell? Hell, that still cracks me up.
The battle system was another element that rapidly drew me into the experience. The hybrid turn-based/real-time system is at the same time like and not like several other RPG battle systems I've seen. The 3-D battlefield that forces the characters to run around to hit their opponents is intriguing, especially the often-useful technique of Cancelling an opponents attack. If you choose the right attacks at the right time (and if you're lucky), it's possible to defeat some of the bosses without them getting a single attack off. Also, the special attacks and magic spells looked gorgeous. The graphic artists on this game should be commended as well. From anime-style cut-scenes to the battle animations to the characters and environments themselves, this game is a joy to look at.
I know I sort of covered this already with the voice acting, but this game not only looks great, it sounds great too. The music is downright incredible for a video game (especially for one that's 3+ years old). They give you an Audio CD with the game with all the music on it, which is really cool so you can revisit all the excellent tunes anytime you want (it's still in my car's CD player in fact).
Finally, the game is very accessible to gamers of all skill levels although it is on the slightly easy side for more-skilled ones. This is not a hindrance, I have found, as I can say, without any reservations whatsoever, that Grandia II is my favorite game of all time and will remain so for a very long time to come.

I can't wait for this one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 7
Date: September 14, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This game rocks!! I played the japanese version and wow...this one wil be big here in the states. The dreamcast definitely needs an excellent RPG like this one. Great job UBI Soft!!!

Not bad, but not great.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 7
Date: January 07, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Ah, Final Grandia... er, Grandia II. Basically, UBI Soft did the Final Fantasy "thing" and made a sequel that has nothing to do with the previous game, but has pretty much the same battle system. I'm not saying Final Fantasy is bad, but more and more RPG series' are starting to do this, and there's no reason for it, except that companies want to cash out on what is already a big name. Bah to them.

Anyways... Grandia II is the story of Ryudo, the Cloud Strife ripoff. (He has spiky hair, carries a sizable blade, and he's anti-social mercenary.) Early on, you leard that Valmar, the God of Darkness is reviving, and you have to stop it from doing so. Pretty standard light-vs-darkness story. There were a couple of interesting twists, but not too much more than that.

Grandia II's best feature, like the original Grandia, is its battle system. The best way to describe it is to say it's everything Final Fantasy's Active-Time Battles should have been by now. (How many years has it's been since they've changed anything major about it, other than the magic system?)

I liked some of the changes n the battle system, but disliked others. Now, instead of increasing skill levels for weapons and elements of magic, you get Special and Magic points that you can spend on anyone in the party. While this was good for magic, (No more casting a puny healing spell dozens of times so you can get an area effect) I liked the original Grandia's weapon levels more, and I liked that if you used a skill a lot, you got better with it. Oh, well.

All-in-all, an alright game. I'd get Skies of Arcadia first, though.

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