Together Retro: Grandia

[darsparx]

I am little over 11 hours in. I am climbing the wall.

Dang too bad I can't see my previous time now that I saved over, sure didn't feel like 11 hours to get to and over that...I need to charge my vita and play some..... *sigh*

[TSTR]

I am so behind on this. On a boat about 4.5 hrs in.

[noiseredux]

I got 4 people in my party now. Finished the train section a little while ago.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I wasn't crazy about the boat section. That and the first town were the only sections of the game that really dragged. Everything else has been awesome as hell.

P.S.

Once Gadwin and Sue leave your party make sure to check your stash box!

[noiseredux]

I wasn't crazy about the boat section.

yeah the boat sucks. But the

ghost ship

is awesome.

I think the boat and first town are enough to say that it's not the perfection that Grandia II hit, but having said all that, this is still a damn great game.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I do like the characters in Grandia better than those in Grandia II. It's been so long since I've played II. I'll have to check it out again to do a fair comparison.

Someone mentioned part III earlier. I know little about that one. This isn't a huge series: three main games and three spin-offs. Perhaps one day I will finish them all (well, not counting that MMO of course).

Am I opening a huge can of worms if I state that Grandia is waaaay better than Final Fantasy VII?

[noiseredux]

I do like the characters in Grandia better than those in Grandia II. It's been so long since I've played II. I'll have to check it out again to do a fair comparison.

it's a toss up. But I think Grandia II characters are for the win. I mean Millenia!?

Elena & Mareg are cool. And Ryodo is def cooler than Justin.

Am I opening a huge can of worms if I state that Grandia is waaaay better than Final Fantasy VII?

Not really, you just beat me to it. I was gonna wait a little while to say that Grandia > FFVII. I just figured all of us playing this month would come to that conclusion.

When I played Grandia II, I think I said something similar about the beloved FFX as well.

[ninjainspandex]

Grandia is much better than FF7, FF7 is the most over rated JRPG, it's only so popular because it was most peoples first RPG they ever played so it is a huge nostalgia factor. The story is so cliche, the Characters are not very likable and the battle system is really rather boring. sorry it just grinds my gears that I always see FF7 at the top of peoples top 10 RPG lists.

[BogusMeatFactory]

Oh dude, been putting a lot more time in Grandia and am falling even more in love with it. One gripe. I do not like the soundtrack at all. Most of the time I find it very grating and annoying. Besides that, absolutely this game is better than FFVII. Sure FFVII had a better soundtrack and had lots of cutscenes, but I don't think it captured character like Grandia does. There is a lot going on with these characters and they are constantly changing. A great example of that is in the spoilers below.

The scene at the wall as the characters climb is a great example of watching these characters change. You see Justin and Feena clash, Justin lose hope. Even though the scene itself seemed very fast and devoid of any real danger, you still felt the helplessness that slowly overcame the characters in a big way. It helped develop them even further. They aren't completely one dimensional and are evolving over time.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Maybe some audio expert can chime in, but the music in the game sounds really compressed. Listening to the OST an audio CD sounds 100 times better than it does in-game. The same is true for Lunar. Also, the sound effects and voice acting are significantly louder than the music, which can be grating. Hard to get a proper TV volume. Again, I find this to be common for games of this era.