Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17214 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: UBI Soft
• Released on: 2001-02-23
• Platform: Sega Dreamcast

Amazon.co.uk Review
See if this sounds familiar. In Grandia II for Dreamcast, you're from an outcast mercenary class that upstanding folk don't want around until there's trouble. You're sent on a mission with an innocent, idealistic woman with whom you don't immediately get along. Forces of darkness, safely contained until recently, have escaped and are threatening a world-ending clash with the forces of light, unless you successfully intercede. This is one of the safest templates for console role-playing games, as well as the story in Grandia II.

Thankfully, however, everything else in the game is fresh and provides hours upon hours of fun. The backdrops and character designs are colourful without being flashy; the game has a great pace (for an RPG) and players never have to stand around too long for the next thing to do. Even the writing, within its cookie-cutter plot, is smart, well translated and occasionally funny.

The game's strongest element, though, is its battle system. Taking the best of turn-based and real-time battle engines, Grandia II forces you to choose your moves carefully with respect to timing and position. The battles are very simple in the beginning, but grow increasingly complex as you fight larger numbers of monsters with a growing party of allies. How you meet your encounters--whether you initiate the fight, are ambushed, or meet head-on--affects both the timing of the blows and the positions of the contestants. Battles emphasise counterattacks and combination blows, but you'll soon find that movement and defence keep you alive against the tougher enemies. Elemental magic, items, and skill books are just icing on the cake. Even if the battles do grow old, the random fights are fairly easy to avoid, and a versatile AI option lets you cruise-control through the rest.

Grandia II may just be the traditional role-playing game that Dreamcast owners have been waiting for. The question of whether or not it is too traditional doesn't matter, since it offers a better experience than most that have come before. --Porter B Hall

Customer Reviews

I don't understand the guys who don't like the storyline...
This is one hell of a game. I played it for 32 hours in 5 days, and the storyline really had me hanging on. The surprises that it contains, although you cans ee a few of them coming, are all over the place. Twist after twist sucked me in to this game and kept me there until I had finished it. The battle system is superb and the voice acting is absolutely brilliant - characters are developed well throughout and this was a game that was worthy of being a novel, if ya see what I mean... ;-) To be frank, I haven't played Skies of Arcadia yet but it would have to be absolutely amazingly fantasically great to beat Grandia.

Just a word of advice; if you're the type of person who reads walkthroughs for games, DON'T on this one - it's really not necessary because the plot is very linear (in a good way) and the storyline will be, in a way, ruined. A friend told me one of the biggest twists and I felt really upset afterwards that he had.

Anyway, this game will be one of the best you've got for the Dreamcast. I play it over and over again because it is, honestly, like watching a film.

Really good - but ultimately second best
It's a shame that I played Skies of Arcadia before I played this. The Overworks game is slightly better than Grandia II on every level except addictiveness, where it is vastly superior. I spent the early parts of the game making comparisons between the two and this hampered my enjoyment of it.

That being said, this is by no means a rubbish game. There are several plot twists involved, the battles are occasionally challenging and the dialogue is convincing. The only sticking point is that some of the dungeon levels were a bit overlong - I often found myself wondering how much longer it would be until I reached the end.

Even if you've already played SOA, you should play this game. But, if possible, try to play Grandia II first and SOA second.

Far too easy and shallow.
Whilst Grandia II is one of the pretiest RPG's available don't let its slick imagery deceive you. The plot is dull, and doesn't start drawing you in until about 20 hours into the game, when at last the story finaly begins to engage the player, though it never really delivers. The deficiencies in the plotting and the attrocious dialog and poor charachters could be forgotten if the gameplay was any good, alas it isn't. Gameplay revolves around the fight scenes, if you've played any of the FF series or any other Japanease style RPG you'll know what to expect. The fight system does have great potential, it offers the opportunity to bring some tactical play into the game, but this is rendered completley unecesary since at no point in the game do you have to put any effort into defeating the laughably poor monsters, even the bosses are easy. One plus point however is the lack of random fights that plague most RPGs like this (especially Skies of Arcadia). You can usually avoid the monsters if you wish, which is extremely refreshing. Not a complete waste of time, but I'd recomend you save your money and get the infinatley better Skies of Arcadia instead.