Game Review: Grandia III

Developer: Game Arts
Publisher: SquareEnix
System: PS2
Number of Discs: 2
Version Reviewed: Japan (USA version box pictured)
Number of Players: 1
Release Date (Japan/U.S.) Aug 04, 2005/Mar 01, 2006

-Overview-
Grandia III is THE best RPG I've played in the 128-bit console generation. Nothing lights a candle to it in my book. Grandia III is actually the fifth game in the series including Grandia(Saturn, Playstation), Grandia II (Dreamcast, PS2, PC), Grandia: Parallel Trippers(GBC), Grandia Xtreme(PS2).

Good Points:
Finely-tuned battle system, gorgeous belongs-in-a-museum art design, unparallelled character development, awesome story, eye-popping special effects, steady pacing, excellent voice acting (Japanese version - I have yet to hear the US rendition).

Bad Points:
No widescreen support. Difficulty seems to triple when you start disc 2.

Gameplay -
Grandia III has taken the awesome battle system from the previous games and tweaked it to perfection, allowing for very intuitive and in-depth strategies. Add to that a variety of creative battle scenarios that let you get very creative in how you formulate your strategy, and you have a game that is a sheer joy to play on the merits of its battle system alone.

But they didn't stop there. Exploring has also been made less tedious by the inclusion of a "sonar"-type action that will reveal the location of treasures, switches, doors and various items of import (if you're familiar with the Wild Arms games, it's akin to the "move-find" system employed there). But they don't take all of the challenge out of it - you still have to figure out how to get at what you're looking for.

The "overworld" map consists of flying sequences where you pilot a plane to your destination. And just so that doesn't get monotonous, you can choose to jump directly to a location as long as you've landed your plane there at least once before.

The pacing of the game allows you to move through it very quickly and naturally. Basically if you take a time to clear out all of the enemies in each area as you move through, you should advance in experience quickly enough to be ready for the next challenge. This is true up until you start Disc 2. For some reason at that point the difficulty seems to just about triple. All in all I spent about 2.5 of the 43 total hours "leveling" so I could survive a particular boss fight. That's not really bad in comparison to a number of other games I've played.

Ordinarily RPGs have you explore an area and fight gradually stronger enemies then fight a boss, wash, rinse, repeat. That's true for the most part in G3 as well, however there is one area where you actually fight the boss first, then explore the level. The magic and skill systems allow you to tailor and balance your party for whatever scenario you encounter. About a fourth of the way through the game you will begin to collect orbs that let you turn loose a super move - kind of like a trump card. You really have to plan your boss fights out to decide which super move is best for which situation. And best of all, the gameplay is always stimulating, never repetitive. The boss fights are all hard, but never impossible (although you might freak out to see how many hit points some of these bosses have!) All in all, the gameplay is solid, fresh and fun - you can't really ask for anything more from an RPG.

Story -
If the lackluster stories from Grandias II and Xtreme disappointed you like they did me, you're really going to be happy that G3 goes back to its roots. This is another area where this game stands out dramatically. Yuuki, the main character is very much like Justin from the first Grandia. Yuuki is a happy-go-lucky kid that craves adventure and wants to become a pilot. He sets out with the best of good intentions and from there the story blossoms into a full-fledged epic adventure to save the world. The plot itself has a lot of elements in common with Grandia II, I noticed, however the execution is next to flawless. The story is engaging and emotional. The character development makes you feel like you know these people personally. You will share their fears, their joys, their triumphs, saddness, happiness and general silliness. By the end of the game you may want to cry tears of joy - it's that good! One touch I particularly like was the way that the pre-rendered (i.e. you're watching a video) cinemas, and the real-time (i.e. the polygons graphics and sounds are actually being generated by the PS2) cinemas both used the same character models so it very nicely preserved the continuity of the whole thing.

Graphics/Sound -
As if the killer gameplay and engrossing plot weren't enough to make this game phenominal, the graphics and sound will just blow you away. Some of the scenery in this game literally took my breath away. I have a hard time believing that what I'm seeing is being generated by a PS2. This game impresses the way the first one did on that generation of hardware. My one criticism in the graphics department is the "blurring" effect sometimes employed to create forced perspective scenes - it looked a little shoddy I have to say, but it's a small thing, and probably only really noticable because I was playing on an HDTV. As far as the sound goes, the music is riveting. There are a huge variety of pieces ranging from symphonic to tribal, and each one is tailored for the environment. Many of the tracks are straight from the original game. The tracks are all crisp and clean. The voice acting was also very well done. Not being a native Japanese speaker, you'll have to take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I've played a good number of Japanese titles, and the acting in this one is some of the best I've heard.

Play Time/Replayability -
It took me approxamately 43 hours to complete this game. That means thoroughly exploring each area and defeating every enemy at least once and about 2.5 hours of "leveling up". (The end boss took nearly an hour to kill - so be prepared!). As far as replayability - this game is like a really good book. You don't usually just flip back to the first page and start over right after you've finished, but you will put it on your shelf and come back to it some day when you want to remember that wonderful experience again.

Conclusion/Closing Thought -
This game is awesome in every way that an RPG should be. It was better than a good movie or a really good book. The gameplay is stimulating and fun. I simply could not put it down once I picked it up. I wanted to skip work just to play it (but I resisted the urge!). Oh yeah, and that last boss is a doozy - I finished him off at level 54-barely! If I had a rating system, this game would set the standard for it. This game is an essential title for any RPG-lover's library.