Among the gems of information I have wandered upon when joining RS, I have learned that, fortunately, anime fans/cel collectors can often be fellow gaming nerds like myself. The internet has been slowing down our collective computers long enough that some of us have dropped a post or two in regards to gaming reviews. Being someone who absolutely hates picking up a game only to find out after the receipt has been lost that the game bites the sour big one, I appreciate someone putting in their two cents.
Feel free to plop down a new review for the rest of us to read.
Below is a review I typed up for Grandia II. Enjoy.
The story of Grandia II begins when Ryudo, a roaming 17 year old Geohound (aka: mercenary) agrees to deliver the local Songstress of Carbo to a mysterious ceremony. Her name is Elena, and the Church of Granas, which is more than similar to Catholicism, is not a favorite of Ryudo. Religion in general isn?t, but this Church was willing to plop down enough gold coins to persuade the nomad. As any rpg fan can already surmise, the trip to the ceremony isn?t going to go well, nor is it going to end there. The religious exercise, meant to keep The Darkness from rising, fails, and Elena becomes invaded by a piece of Valmar.
The creation story of the world of Grandia begins with a legendary ?Battle of Good and Evil? where the God of Light crossed swords with Valmar, the God of Darkness. The customary version of the war is challenged as Ryudo, Elena, and their friends become more and more engrossed in the global threat of Valmar?s possible resurrection. Whatever is amiss, Ryudo has the sneaking suspicious that The Church knows more than it is telling.
Along their journey, Ryudo and Elena have a few friends join their party, but not necessarily all at the same time. Skye, an unplayable aid, is with Ryudo from the start of the story and is the voice of reason that this arrogant Geohound needs. There are also Roan (a thirteen year old boy) Tio (an android of sorts), Mareg (a giant man-beast), and Millenia (the demon possessing Elena).
Does the set-up sound similar to pretty much every epic, turn-based rpg out there? The story isn?t the only thing not blazing any new trails. Keeping true to the formula, there is a love triangle involved, although, to be fair, the conclusion is a little different than Ryudo simply choosing one of the girls. Another feature that mimes the competition is the character leveling. There is some choice as to how a player wishes to level-up a character through Skills and Magic Eggs, but most abilities will be unmasked by the end of the game. As mentioned before, the battle system is turned based. The graphics are very aged in comparison to other Playstation 2 games on the market...easily the most dated on the system.
By reading only the above, many potential players may skip Grandia II for Playstation 2 because they have already ?been there, done that,? and they would be completely correct. But Grandia II, which is essentially unrelated to the original Grandia, is a historic game that has jumped more consoles than most other games ever will.
First of all, the game was not born on the Playstation 2. A person would have to look way back to its Japanese only debut on the Sega Saturn system. It made it onto Western shores with the Dreamcast system in 2000 before finally resting currently on both PC and Playstation 2. With the original release date in mind, the graphics comparison is more aptly put against Final Fantasy VII on the original Playstation. In that case, Grandia II out performs the competition because the game is truly in 3D instead of relying on a 3D character walking through pre-rendered scenes as in the other said game. In a very lovely compliment to the 3D animation, the avatars that are attached above the dialog windows are well drawn anime pictures that change depending on how the speaking character feels.
Speaking of dialog, a percentage of it is actually voiced. Not a whole lot?not nearly as much as Dragon Quest VIII (2005)?but enough to sprinkle the conversations with voices. It is in the voice casting where Grandia II really outshines other games, new and old. Look at the following list of who did the main characters of the game:
Ryudo: Cam Clarke, who also voiced Leonardo in ?The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? and He-Man/Prince Adam in the 2002 version of ?Masters of the Universe.?
Elena: Jennifer Hale, who also voiced Elektra in the Cowboy Bebop movie and Mary Jane in the ?Spider-Man Unlimited? cartoon series.
Millenia: Jodi Benson, who also voiced Ariel in The Little Mermaid and Barbie in Toy Story 2.
Mareg: Peter Lurie, who also voiced Sabertooth in X-Men Legends and additional voices in the ?Wolf?s Rain? anime series.
Roan: B.J. Ward, who also voiced Scarlett in the ?G.I. Joe? cartoon and Hagar the Witch in the 1984 Voltron television series.
Tio: Kim Mai Guest, who also voiced Subaru in the ?.hack//SIGN? anime.
Skye: Paul Eiding, who also voiced Perceptor in the 1984 Transformers movie and additional voices in Shrek 2.
[All voice acting information found on www.voicechasers.com]
Voice acting and 3D animation were not the only things that Grandia II was ahead of the competition in. The battle system, involving a 3D battle field/zone instead of the traditional set-up of all the adventures in one line and all the enemies in another line, placed far more strategy to the random battles than simply waiting for one?s turn. The game even gives players the option of the computer manning the rest of the team for quick battling.
There are a few issues in the game that may annoy players regardless of the time period in which they were first introduced to it. For one, the lack of hidden items in rooms. Search up and down in a villager's hut or within the cabinets of a hotel room, a player isn?t going to find anything. Instead, he/she will have to be content with talking to random people who will only tell you either irrelevant back story or details that you already know. Secondly, most of the game is too easy due to frequent save points that allow free, full party recovery. The game only becomes somewhat difficult towards the very end of the storyline.
While Grandia II is not suggested for rpg fans who are looking for new types of gameplay on a modern level, it is recommended for the die hard fans out there who would like to experience a milestone in modern rpg video gaming. This game is the bridge between yesterday?s role playing games and the newest releases.
Okay, so we had this theory about Grandia 2, way back in the day.
What if Skye (the bird) is only a figment of Ryudo's imagination? Seriously. Go through the entire game and Skye will interact with a character other than Ryudo exactly once, and it's one of the female characters late at night (possibly a.... dream?) Ryudo's always talking to his "pet bird" yet no one else seems to be able to talk to the bird or even acknowledge that it even exists. Yet, the narrative completely ignores this.
Whenever Ryudo interacts with Skye in a physicial way (i.e. hitching a ride with Skye to escape from bad guys in the intro), Ryudo is the ONLY one around. I am not making this up. It's creepy.
If you frame Grandia 2 as a study in an ever-increasing psychosis on the part of Ryudo, the story gets REALLY deep, really fast. I figure that Grandia 2 is the story of a young, delusional man who must escape from the clutches of evil before his own mind degenerates to the point where he is no longer able to fight. The other characters *know* he's insane, but each of them good and bad -- you will also notice -- have a distinct motivation to not force him to come to terms with his delusions. Skye is his inner voice made manifest by his increasing paranoia of the world around him.
Fantasic plot! A++! How often do you get a game that actually forces players to read between the lines?
Theories like that are always fun to kick around. Friends and I debated the same thing in regards to pet-and-human relationship of the main characters in "A Boy and his Dog." Brilliant and strange film I highly recommend.
The idea that Skye is the result of the fragmentation of Ryudo's psyche is a good one let roll around in our own heads while playing the game: to give another dimension to the story if nothing else. I guess the big difference between "Grandia II" and "A Boy and his Dog" is that, while the latter repeatedly demands viewers to take an analogical approach to the physical plain of events, the former (unless I am overlooking something, which is quite possible) doesn't offer players other elements of the storyline that engage in such narrative depth and necessary examination. In all other venues, the plot and exchanges between characters are straightfoward. Regardless, the Skye theory is a fun one to play around with---much like looking for evidence that Aquaman was meant to be gay in the original "Super Friends" series---but that is due to my own personal amusement and not because I actually believe that was the expressed intention of the storyteller.
Heh. You have just given me a whole new reason to play Grandia II again, but with my thinking cap on this time.
Edited Jul 31 at 1:25 PM
To be clear, this was just a joke we had while playing (I played in my last year of college surrounded by three other roommates).
When given the choice to name our characters in games, we would almost unfailingly choose the worst possible name for a character involved in a dramatic or heartfelt situation. Nothing quite like "Doofus" complaining that her parents never loved her. That's sort of self-explanatory, no?
This is coming from the same group of people who used a "Wheel of Food" to determine what they were having for dinner on any particular night. Not a shining example of intellectual depth, including narrative analysis of video games designed for the 12-18 crowd.
Because at face value, 98% of RPG stories are the suckage. Might as well spice them up with tales of the mysterious such as things suspiciously labelled "elixir of health". Suuure, if that's what the kids call Southern Comfort and NyQuil these days.
Edited Jul 31 at 4:05 PM
The role playing genre's tendacy to allow character naming by the player(s) has always been a perk from how I see it. Without fail, however, my name giving habits tend to get terribly sloppy, and, depending on whether or not the character is introduced in a particularly frustrating or overly repetitive segment, they can get just plain mean spirited.
A fine example of this fraying of habit took place during FF7. In the beginning, I was all about choosing a theme to plug into the name calling. "Maybe I will go with a 'Never Ending Story' theme," I thought. Escaflowne won out---leaving Cloud lugging around an alias of Van along with his oversized sword---and the theme was set in motion. The second (or was it third?) round of characters that popped up into the plot were not so lucky.
Unless, of course, you consider "Pink Donut" complimentary.
