A look back at: Grandia III

 

Grandia III is a disappointment. Now, when I started this, I had already read several reviews of this game, in particular RPGenius's blog which tore through the game and all its bad qualities, as well as several reviews on GameFAQs, so my expectation weren't really that high. That being said, I was actually amazed at how this game managed to be so bad.

So the sounds, music, graphics, and the battle system. They're all alright. I appreciate some well thought-out stuff going on here. I can appreciate the slight changes in the magic usage and the introduction to skills, as well as how to get new skills, fuse mana eggs, etc. I can also appreciate the slight randomness in getting new skills or even upgrading current ones, all of which are new. That's all honestly okay. Okay at the very best that is.

Grandia III's gameplay nosedive does happen around Disc 2, or perhaps just slightly before that. The biggest problem is the INI stat. This is what governs when your characters and the enemies can start their actions in combat. Two problems. One, your characters actually DON'T gain an increase in this stat upon leveling up, meaning you have to rely on equipment, which of course is a problem if you want to equip something better. Second, the enemies on Disc 2 get much faster. So much faster that they get several turns over your characters getting one, and sometimes cancelling out your own potential attacks. At least I bothered with mana egg fusion and skills quite a bit beforehand, but it's still tough. There's a few breathers, which feel unorthodox, like the Nautica Plains area that you drop off to with bunnies and sheep and it's quite ridiculous and somewhat insulting to be dropped in an easy area right after the annoyingly aggressive Verse Realm enemies from before. Those Excise guys in particular are the worst. The Psi variant is basically what I'm talking about in regards to a fast enemy, then he has an Omega counterpart in the last dungeon that can even cancel special attacks and spells before they occur. And let's not start with the bosses, because a boss in a SquareEnix game tends to be overblown with regards to HP and defense that it feels like a marathon to survive.

And then we have the characters and plot of Grandia III. It's easy to tell that there are loads of similarities between these characters and the previous Grandia games. Heck, there's a lot of similarities between this game and Skies of Arcadia too! Let's see here.

Emelious is basically Melfice 2.0, he's a brother of a protagonist, he's corrupted with evil, and he redeems himself but dies. But he's not as exciting as Melfice, or Skies of Arcadia's Ramirez by any stretch. Heck, even Sephiroth does his schtick better.

The other villains all suck too. There's Kornell, a typical muscle-bound oaf (who's actually called out on this) who's more or less supposedly a comic relief villain. There's Violetta, the saucy chick who's in love with the bad guy but doesn't get him, she reminds me quite a bit of Wild Arms' Lady Harken both in style and character. There's the dude in the communist beret who doesn't even have a name or combat scene, and then the General Grievous-looking guy La Ilim who is there to be fodder. They're not really allusions, but they still all suck.

Miranda is basically a budget Sue, except she's Yuki's mother despite not looking like a mother at her age. Like Sue, she's only there for the first half before a tearful goodbye but could have had a lot more potential.

Alonso is a budget Gadwin more or less, except significantly less macho and not as strong. He basically is another adventurer sort of person who also leaves after the first half.

Hect is a cross between the emotionless Tio and the mysterious Liete but without any of the fun parts of either.

Ulf is Rapp 2.0, a regular fighter, but has weird fireball skills just like Rapp. Hell, his voice is almost similar to Rapp's!

Yuki is a worser Justin (or a worser Vyse for that matter). He's definitely an adventurer, but is more in line with flying rather than just trodding. Then he gets caught in the intertwined plot of the mysterious magical girl Alfina (a worser Feena, Elena, or Fina, take your pick) and madly falls in love with her, saves her at every possible point, etc. Then he marries Alfina (just like Justin did with Feena) and has a kid. Real original...

Dahna is the only playable character who has some sort of originality, but that seems to be sidelined more or less for a past love that most players would only feel sad for once. She's got a few spicy qualities that remind me of Millenia, but she's definitely not like her attitude-wise.

I don't think Raven is a ripoff of anything. But he's probably the one character who should've been playable. I liked him somewhat, even if he's one of those brooding swordsmen archetypes that gets overdone.

The Guardians really do give off some Skies of Arcadia vibes, which don't really entail much overall.

Finally the actual plot seems like a crappy rehash of the original Grandia's plot. You have the sense of adventure in Yuki wanting to fly, much like Justin wanting to adventure, and then he basically succeeds at flying a great plane. Woohoo. But then you're thrust into the plot involving Alfina's brother Emelious and his dealings with Xorn. Seem familiar? Well, in Disc 2 of Grandia 1 the evil known as Gaia corrupts the world by way of petrifying nameless NPCs and other living things. Grandia III does the same thing with Xorn, who essentially does the same thing except turning them into glass instead. There's that moment where both games make it feel like it's hopeless (Justin losing hope after Gaia's attack, same with Yuki's here) but gets encouragement (Justin gets it from his companions, Yuki gets it by finding his mentor's plane). And I already mentioned that at the end, Yuki and Alfina marry and have a child together.

I heard this game was apparently rushed in development as well. That's never a good thing for any developer to do. There's no real sidequests, but just a main plot with a bad difficulty spike, and a plot that basically makes you, the player, try to figure it out for yourself. But it's just not worth trying.