grandia II for the sega dreamcast...not a new game and certainly not a new system. this one comes across the sea courtesy of game arts (people behind lunar and many other games) and localized by ubisoft.
i'm far enough into this one that i can say with conviction that it's a pretty damn good game. the story follows ryudo, a "geohound" that has been hired to escort a songstress of granas (the god of light) to a ceremony that is supposed to stop valmar's (the god of darkness) rebirth. stuff happens during the ceremony that gets ryudo mixed up in the battle between light and darkness.
the plot is ok and it has a few interesting points, but it ends up going cliche about halfway through. that's not necessarily a bad thing, but if the story was the only thing this game had going for it, it would have fallen by the wayside. luckily that's not the case. what keeps my attention is the battle system. it's turn-based+. if you played the first grandia on the playstation, then the battle system is familiar. each participant in the battle has bar for timing attacks. the time it takes to go from "rest" to "command" is based on stats. at the "command" stage you choose your attack and then the turn progresses to the "act" stage, where the character does what you commanded. it's hard to describe, but it allows you to time your attacks so that they cancel your enemies' attacks, among other things.
as far as aesthetics go, the music is good and the graphics are great. one thing i had forgotten about this game is that it came with a soundtrack. being the video game nerd that i am, i actually used to listen to this cd quite a bit...right along with the soundtracks to the lunar games, final fantasies 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. even though the view is overhead 3/4, the world is nice and colorful and the sprites are pretty top-notch. during battles, special attacks and magical effects are nicely represented, but i sometimes want to skip the sequence on the more drawn out ones.
all in all i think grandia II is a well-rounded game. i'm having fun playing it and the battles are something i don't begrudge. in fact, i've actually cleared every "dungeon" i've gone through so far. that probably explains why my characters are pretty high in level already. i'd give this game a solid 9.
Posted by godemperor at February 25, 2006 01:24 PM