Video Game: Grandia II

Developer: Game Arts
Platform: Dreamcast
Released: 2000
Played from: 2000-2005

Figured that the first RPG I ever beat should be the first I review.

Overview
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Grandia II is pretty typical for a Japanese RPG of the time. You are an emotionally troubled 17 year old Geohound (mercenary/bodyguard) who takes a cakewalk escort mission for some easy money, but gets caught up in something much larger than a simple job. You assemble a rag-tag team of misfits along the way, fight loads of baddies, and save the world from an ancient evil and against all odds.

Gameplay
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The gameplay is pretty straightforward, but complex enough that you will need some strategy to prevail. On its surface, Grandia II is a turn-based RPG. The real distinction comes in a few key points. First of all, the enemies are always visible on the screen in the dungeon, which lets you see what you are up against before you go head-to-head, and also lets you attempt to sneak up on the monster from behind and gain an advantage in battle. Second, rather than being strictly turn-based, the characters all have an "Action Gague" which fills based on their quickness, and requires a similar warm up time between selecting your action and the actual execution of the action. This comes in to play because in addition to a standard combo attack, all characters have a "Cancel" attack that hits once for extra damage and can either reduce the enemy's action gague, or can entirely cancel an attack if executed during the warm-up phase. Enemies can also do this to you. Finally, while characters have super moves and magic, experience is granted in the form of "Magic coins" and "S-coins" dropped by monsters. These are used to "buy" special moves and magic spells. Additionally, magic is not tied to a character, but rather to a "Mana Egg" which learns the spells, and can be passed from person to person. Each egg is typically a balanced mix of attack and defense/healing spells, but later in the game you can find eggs that are all one or the other.

Aside from the battles, you navigate the world by moving your characters (who follow single-file like a conga line) across a path from the start of the dungeon to the end. There are a few simple puzzles and a handful of secret chests, but for the most part you just walk between battles and cutscenes.

Story
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Alright, here be spoilers, so don't read this section if you want to be surprised at the various plot twists.

Thousands of years ago, a celestial being called Granas came to the world and made a pact with the people: if they would worship him as a god, he would make their world a utopia. The people agreed, and they gave him their faith and piety in exchange for technology and divine protection. However, a group of people felt that all of Grandia was now enslaved, so they created another god to challenge Granas: Valamar. The two factions went to war, and Granas was victorious but exhausted from his battle which left the world scarred in the form of a great canyon where his sword fell. He sealed the pieces of Valamar in special seals at various corners of the world, and slept to regain his strength.

Thousands of years later, Ryudo is a late adolescent geohound who takes a job to escort a priestess to a temple to renew the seal on Valamar's wings. Something goes terribly wrong, and the wings are released and possessed by the priestess Elena. You carry her back, and are attacked by Millennia, the personal manifestation of Valamar's wings with an attitude problem. She kicks your ass, and you agree to take Elena to the Pope to get the wings removed from her. As you travel, you encounter and team up with Roan, a 12-ish year old runaway who you find out later is a prince, Mareg, a beast-man intent on killing the man who destroyed his village, and Tio, an automata who wants desperately to be human. Every town you come across is plagued by one of the pieces of Valamar, and Millennia comes out to help you defeat the threat, and absorbs the piece after its defeat. After reaching the holy city and talking to the pope, you are sent after Granas's sword, the Granasaber. Meanwhile, Roan leaves the party after his father dies so he can rule his people, Millennia and Elena both fall deeply in love with Ryudo, and you learn the truth about Ryudo's past after visiting his home town. Then, you learn the truth: Granas was slain by Valamar, and Valamar sealed himself in structures designed to ensnare the souls of mortals, and Pope Zelas is using you to get Millennia to gather all of Valamar's pieces so he can defeat her to become the new Valamar. The crew travels to Valamar's moon via the Granasaber to try to stop the resurrection, but are too late, and Mareg dies while saving the party. Valamar is resurrected and Millennia is separated from Elena to complete his body. The crew rallies a last-ditch assault into Valamar's body, and Elena and Millennia are reuinited, but as different people this time. The two of them and Ryudo defeat the new Pope-Valamar and save the day.

After the sappy ending, you take control of Roan a year later, and travel the world to re-visit some of the towns you saved earlier on and see what everyone is doing now.

Okay, end of the spoilers.

Overall, the story works very well, although each village constitutes a separate side-story, and can sometimes distract you from your goal. The ending is needlessly sappy, but that is the trademark of most Japanese RPG's.

Graphics
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Sadly, the graphics for this game were outdated even at the time. The game is never muddled, but the characters look like dolls and can only be told apart by their hairdo and clothing. The world is also not particularly varied, and follows the path of Forest path - town - dungeon from beginning to end. The towns are vibrant enough, but none really stand out.

The redeeming factor here are the special moves and magic. They are all pre-rendered animations that play over the battle screen, but damn are they pretty. Oddly, one of Millennia's moves apparently couldn't be rendered correctly, so the team substituted a hand-drawn anime sequence--the only instance of this in the whole game.

Sound
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The music for Grandia II is entirely instrumental and generally mideval or church-y all the way through. It fits, but none of the songs are memorable. The voice actors are all professionals with lots of experience (Millennia is the same voice actress who played the Little Mermaid) and do a good job of voicing their characters, but the dialog is riddled with translation issues and too melodramatic for Western audiences. The actors did a good job, but the translation was lackluster.

Replay Value
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The game takes about 40 hours if you grind all the way through, 60 hours if you stop to smell the roses or need to power level, and 80+ hours if you want to attempt a 100% complete walkthrough. That said, there are some mini games that are almost impossible to beat without extreme practice, and a secret dungeon, but other than that, there is nothing to draw you back to this game unless you want to experience the whole thing over again.

Overall
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This is an RPG with a solid (if not overdone) story, lovable characters, a simple control scheme to master, and outdated graphics. It is worth a play-through for the RPG fan or if you find it on clearance (it was also ported to the PS2 and PC around 2002 if I remember), but don't worry about hunting it down over other, better games.