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Video Games: Grandia III
Date: Wednesday, 07 January, 2009 :: 13:14
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Grandia III
Brand: Square Enix
List Price: USD $29.99
Price: USD $54.49
Product Group: videogames
Manufacturer: Square Enix
Model: 662248906010
Release Date: 2006-09-08
Studio: Square Enix
Features:
- Create incredible combos and try your hand at magic as you explore a strange new world filled with amazing enemies
- Intuitive combat system with a wide range of options -- and even more waiting to be unlocked
- Incredible visuals bring the strange and beautiful world of Grandia to life
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Editorial Review:
Array
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Reviews:
Average Customer Review: 
Summary: Not as Good As 2
Date: 2008-12-23 - 
Comment: I really LOVED Grandia 2. I can't say enough good about that game and it's perhaps one of the best RPG's I've ever played. When I first got it I played NONSTOP till I beat it. But this one, was just not as memorable.
I'll just go over stuff as it comes to mind.
The music. I honestly didn't like the direction they chose for music in this game. It was fruity and kidsy, while the music in 2 (I treasure the bonus cd that came with 2!) was really unique, cool, and rock centered. Basically, it sounded like something from a Final Fantasy game and I wanted something that set the sound of the two apart.
Combat. Well, it was sorta fun, but it just felt like it was lacking somewhere. It was quite engaging to pull off the combos, but somehow not as fun to try to do cancels. I got to that point where I was just blowing through battles without caring about strategy or combos and that my friends, is a BAD place to be at.
Special Moves. I sort of preferred the upgrade system from Grandia 2 where you bought what seemed the coolest to you with points. It just wasn't that fun constantly doing special moves until someone would say "that's it!" I'd rather be able to see what I'm working towards with all these battles.
Mana Eggs. I didn't like the way they did upgrading of them either. I'd like to see progress if I constantly do magic, but I didn't get that feeling from combining mana eggs. All I saw was those orange level bars on the screen, but it didn't seem like it made a big difference. It wasn't fun going through all the trouble of getting new spells from the eggs as well. I just felt bored out of mind while I was waiting for the eggs to combine and break to form spells even if it did take only 5 seconds.
Story. UGH, the story. They borrowed from the Final Fantasy book again. The story was just so aggravating to watch and I rolled my eyes hundreds of times throughout it. I couldn't even try to care about this wacksauce story if I wanted. When game stories keep throwing this "love is stronger than.." or "my heart is between us.." mess in I instantly get bored with it. When I got to the end, I was just like, "okay, back to playing Battlefield." When I beat 2 I was like, "wooooooooow that was great" and I just didn't want it to end.
Oh yea, In some instances the characters were over serious. Like for example, let's say Alfina tripped on a rock. The whole party would be like, "AHHHHHHHHHHH ALFINA!!!! ARE YOU OKAY?!!!!!!" Yea, it ain't that serious now.
But yea, overall I thought this game was just decent. It wasn't horrible, but at the same time, I'm mad I went so crazy trying to find it locally.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Summary: What ever happened to that one guy?!
Date: 2008-07-05 - 
Comment: My title pretty much sums up this game; the plot is full of holes. But that's not the only thing, there are many other faults of this game which overall make it nearly unplayable. Continue on, brave readers, for the rest of my review.
Graphics (10/10): Let's start with the good parts of the game. The graphics of this game are absolutely beautiful. Everything is lovely, right down to the leaves on the trees. Even your characters look excellent. Everything is just amazingly great.
Music (6/10): The music is pretty good, nothing too memorable though. But, the music seems to fit the scenes and isn't irritating. There is one exception though. The Baccula settlement music is irritating beyong all reason and is quite possibly the worst town music in an RPG I have ever heard. Since you are in this town quite a bit, it really lowers the music score. The voice acting is superb, though. I believe the guy who voiced Yuki is the same one who voiced Vash in Trigun. It's just too bad the excellent voice actors didn't have better material to work with...
Characters (1/10): While I didn't find anything wrong with Yuki, the rest of the characters range from dull and pointless to excruciatingly irritating. Ulf and Dahna don't really seem to serve much purpose, and Alfina is very annoying. She cries in almost every scene, whether it's warranted to not (mostly not). I kept hoping she'd die, but alas, no such luck. I remember coming to a certain place in the game and admiring how pretty it was, when Alfina melodramatically falls to her knees and starts crying all of a sudden about how "dead-looking" the place is. None of the other characters have much personality. I found Miranda annoying, but at least she had some sort of personality. Alonso was my favorite character, but he and Miranda up and left the party never to be seen again (more on this later). Overall, none of the characters had any development and either had no personality or extremely irritating ones.
Story (0/10): The story is almost as though several people each wrote their own version and then they all got together and swapped random pages to make one whole story. It's just that incoherent. There are so many plot holes and random occurences that have no real explanation. For example, Yuki's best friend says he will meet him at a certain city. I arrive, he's nowhere to be found. Then, near the end of the game he shows up in a certain town in the middle of nowhere, with no explanation as to where he's been the rest of the game and why he's here now. Okay, you may think this is just one little incident, but the list goes on. There's a certain vilian whom I have no idea who he is or why he's even there. Remember how Miranda and Alonso leave the party? No mention is ever made of where they went for the rest of the entire game. Where did they go? Why was Yuki's mother so young? They mention her youngness all the time but don't mention why, and no mention is ever made of Yuki's father. Why is Raven so sinister looking? There's a certain pilot I assume died near the end of the game, but why does no one ever mention it? I could go on and on.
Aside from all these plot-holes, the main story itself is not impressive at all. It basically degenerates into a giant fetch-quest; having you travel from one place to another to get "orbs" from giant spirit creatures which seem to have no real purpose in defeating the final enemy. I tell you after slogging through a dungeon, having a very short bit of "here's the orb, you need to hurry" dialogue is not very rewarding at all. Plus, the "love will conquer all" theme made me want to gag. There's really nothing good about Grandia 3's story.
Battle System (5/10): The combat system is just like it's predecessors, Grandia 1 and 2. There is a little bar at the bottom of the screen which lets you know when your characters and the enemies will take their turn. If you hit one of the enemies while it's icon is in a certain part of the bar, you can cancel the attack. Also, you can perform special attacks if you can get one of your characters to knock an enemy into the air and a second character to hit the enemy at roughly the same time. I found this move almost impossible to pull off though. It is very hard to time it just right. Speaking of difficulty, the game's enemies ramp up in difficulty almost impossibly near Dragon Valley. The only good place to level raise is near the end of the game, which resulted in ridiculous amounts of level raising just so I could finish this monstrosity.
Gameplay (6/10): This is my catch-all category. Firstly, I must say that the only thing I enjoyed about this game is the NPCs. Never have there been such well-developed and interesting NPCs in an RPG I've played. I actually spent the last part of the game revisiting towns just to see what had happened to various NPCs. However, NPCs should NEVER be more interesting that the main characters. The fact that this occurs in this game bodes for more ill than good. Another complaint I have in this area is the flying around in your airplane. It is very slow, almost excruciatingly slow. I only did it to get to new areas-after that I used the instant teleport feature. It doesn't matter anyway, there's really nothing to explore, and the game had very few sidequests or minigames.
Overall (3/10): NOTE this score is not an average, it's my subjective overall score. Overall, the only fun to be had in this game is the colorful NPCs. This, however, does not save this game from horridness in any way. The characters and story are terrible, and this is really the meat of an RPG. While some may enjoy the challenge of the high difficulty level, I did not. Perhaps if the "challenge" part had been rewarded by an awesome story and lovable characters, this game would've gotten a better score. As it is though, there is really nothing about this game that made me want to slog through the difficult battles. Overall, I really can't recommend this game to anyone except those who will enjoy the challenge but don't care about the story.
Summary: How did they manage to screw it up?
Date: 2008-07-03 -
Comment:
This adventure flies to a strong start, when a boy called Yuki who aspires to become a pilot, leaves his home village with his suspiciously young-looking mother. They run into a mystical girl and save a gambling addict from a floating barrel. Facing the saved man's tormentor and sailing on his ship make an interesting tale with the inclusion of the protagonist's mother giving an unique viewpoint. But suddenly both the mother and the gambler leave the game to give way for the boy and his young naive friends as they travel the world searching for the meaning of love. Their journey leads them to strange guardian spirits - whose presence or words of "wisdom" have no meaning in the game - and completely underdeveloped bad guys. The very linear story turns into a save-the-world adventure and is laden with horrifyingly naive dialogue and trite characters. The music in the desert makes deafness seem like a boon, and the rigged card games requires you to hit the X-button for hours and hours to win the prizes.
Summary: A good piece of RPG if you like Grandia 2
Date: 2008-02-05 -
Comment: The game plot seems rather straight on from the beginning after taking off in the plane but the story has it's quirks here and there but it's nothing breaking or anything. It should give the player anywhere from 40 to 45 hours spanning over both discs.
The combat system is nearly identical to Grandia 2's but the addition of aerial attacks which can deal a great deal of damage to enemies and the attacks can be chained (one after another), which is rather helpful against strong enemies or bosses.
Graphics are an upgrade from G2 just about everywhere, some of the cutscenes, both CG and in-game really show some emotion on the characters such as tears falling down their faces to emotionless laughter.
Voice acting is very good among all the characters as well, just as good as Grandia 2 did.
Grandia 3 in my opinion, is worth buying if you enjoyed Grandia 2.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Summary: Standard Fare RPG, Better Than Average RPG Story
Date: 2007-08-12 -
Comment: Reviewed for Big Boss Games by: T.R.C.
The Cast:
Yuki - A wet behind the ears pilot.
Miranda - Yuki's much too young mother.
Alfina - A communicator.
Alonso - A captain and gambler.
Ulf - A dragon rider.
Dahna - A village chief.
Hect - A lonely girl with great violin talent.
Story (Score: 6/10): Guardians protect the world from great evil. Communicators are the chosen that can speak with the Guardians and pass down the wisdom imparted to them. When one of the Communicators starts to hunt down the Guardians it is up to Yuki and friends to save the Guardians and the world.
Music (Score: 8/10): Popish with some haunting violin tunes and orchestra music plays a big roll in the soundtrack of this game.
Battle System (Score: 6/10): Typical turn based attack system. No random battles! You can fight or stun an enemy and run away from them. Magic system is unique and fun to play with.
Although, after about the 30th time you see the same spell, you will wish for a shortened form of that spell. Mana Eggs can be found in dungeons, you can fuse the eggs together to make stronger Mana Eggs. Which can be converted into stronger spells.
Item of note: You can do combo attacks with your team members. Start by having one of your team members do a strong attack, this will knock the monster into the air. Then have another one of your team attack the monster before it hits the ground and watch the show.
You can have more them 2 people do a combo attack on the same monster if you can time it right.
Game-Play (Score: 6/10): Grandia III was a good game. It took me 41+ hours to complete. This is an average length for a PS2 RPG game.
Overall Score - 6/10: Grandia III was a fun game to play. I enjoyed the battle and magic systems. The story is what kept me playing, even at the times when I was about to walk away from the game forever, when another wonderful plot twist would unfold in the story. That would keep me glued to the TV to find out what would happen to Yuki and his friends. All in all, Grandia III is a good not great gaming experience. I recommend that you maybe rent this one or buy it used.
PS: Don't forget to get the strat guide for this game. Grandia III Official Strategy Guide (Bradygames)
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Accessories:
PlayStation: The Official Magazine (1-year)
Electronic Gaming Monthly
Play
Tips & Tricks Magazine
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Grandia III Official Strategy Guide (Bradygames)
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