Grandia II Anniversary Edition

[Nz17]

Grandia II Anniversary Edition is now on Good Old Games:


15 years after the stunning Dreamcast debut of Ryudo and his epic adventure, Grandia II is back and better than ever! The classic Japanese RPG returns with enhanced visuals, a new difficulty level, and features both keyboard and gamepad support!

Take the role of a hardened mercenary with a heart, and go on an epic adventure filled with magic, new friendships, and surprising storyline twists in search of a weapon once wielded by a deity.

$14.99
DRM-free
http://www.gog.com/game/grandia_ii_anniversary_edition

[Edmond Dantes]

Just wondering, if I already own this game on Dreamcast then what benefit is there to getting this version?

[Nz17]

~Higher-res textures
~Higher-res running resolution (up to 1080p)
~Keyboard support
~Gamepad support
~Hard mode
~English voice acting
~Japanese voice acting

...And I kid you not, it supports the Dreamcast save files. The original source code acted as the basis for this enhanced port, so the save files are 100% compatible between the Dreamcast and Windows versions of this game. So if you have a DC memory card which you can hook up to your PC or you can transfer your DC files over the network, then you can play you PC save files on your DC and your DC files on your PC. Now that's a feature!

[sfchakan]

Just wondering, if I already own this game on Dreamcast then what benefit is there to getting this version?

Sell your Dreamcast version for almost $40 on ebay, then spend the $17 gain on pixie sticks and temporary tattoos!

[Gamevet]

Sell your Dreamcast version for almost $40 on ebay.....


Blasphemy!

[Tanooki]

Given the shaky quality of the DC and how easy the discs can eat it from scratches, maybe selling it would be smart. :) I've thought time and again I'd like to get into the DC one last time but finding good quality copies of games I like without scratches with a good price, and a system that hasn't been messed with or worn well already I just leave it be.

Grandia II was my favorite RPG on the DC, Skies did it with the airship fights but otherwise it was overkill encounter rates and drawn out animations grated on me. This one I will get, not today, no time for it, but i will. I had bookmarked it on Steam, but then I saw it was on GOG so I pulled it and popped it on the GoG wishlist.

To be honest it's not just a time factor but storage, my budget we all know kind of sucks, so I've been using a 32GB and a 4GB(I think?) pair of stick drives to store all my backups and the big one is nearly out of room and Grandia I think was like a 1.5GB download or so, not sure it would fit or if it did I'd be up against the wall. Anyone know a really really cheap deal on a not all that huge usb portable hard drive? 500GB would do, don't need terabytes of space.

[sfchakan]

PROTIP: You could skip most battle animations in Skies by pressing Start. Suck it, Final Fantasy!

[Tanooki]

True on both accounts, still was annoying it existed at all but only slightly compared to the overkill aggressive enconter rates as that got really old. I have less tolerance now than I did when the GC release popped up that I cant play the game anymore.

[Edmond Dantes]

Dreamcasts are known to scratch discs? That's news to me.

[Tanooki]

No the GDROMs are known to be quite fragile compared to a dvd or a blu-ray. They are so highly compressed since they're still technologically CD discs that they're more easier to kill. I've seen enough used DC games since the thing died it just makes me nervous wanting to even bother since most the games I'd like I'd have to buy online and hope it was ok in the end.

[Gamevet]

No the GDROMs are known to be quite fragile compared to a dvd or a blu-ray. They are so highly compressed since they're still technologically CD discs that they're more easier to kill. I've seen enough used DC games since the thing died it just makes me nervous wanting to even bother since most the games I'd like I'd have to buy online and hope it was ok in the end.

Hold on now!

Blu-ray has a near scratchless coating on it. It's the most durable optical disc on the market.

The 1st batch of Ready to Rumble Boxing was shipped without a protective coating on the disc; It was prone to easily being scratched. The 2nd print run (with a protective coating) of that game was made with an "all-new" tag on the bottom corner of the manual cover. The DC discs are just as durable, if not more durable, than your typical CD or DVD.

I have over 90 Dreamcast games in my collection. A good portion of which I had to buy used, because my Dreamcast and games were stolen @ 2001-2002. Most of the discs look just like brand new, even though they were used titles. I have 4 or so games that were pretty much 99 cents, because the manuals were missing, the case was beat to hell, or the disc had scratches; those games still work fine.

[Nz17]

The 1st batch of Ready to Rumble Boxing was shipped without a protective coating on the disc; It was prone to easily being scratched. The 2nd print run (with a protective coating) of that game was made with an "all-new" tag on the bottom corner of the manual cover. The DC discs are just as durable, if not more durable, than your typical CD or DVD.

So true. The only thing I have to add to that is that the covers for the Dreamcast reprints didn't say, "All-new." They said, "Hot! New!" For an example, see [ http://www.giantbomb.com/sega/3010-62/forums/dreamcast-collection-update-april-2011-more-492420/ ].

[Jorpho]

Everyone seems to forget that Ubisoft already published Grandia II for the PC many years ago. I've still got my copy. When I finally get around to playing it, I hope there will be a handy patch that will update it to something roughly equivalent to this new version. Of course, at this rate by that time it will probably have gone on sale on Steam for two bucks.

[sfchakan]

I heard that original port was not that great, with a lot of bugs including some that would impede your progress outright. There's supposedly a patch out there somewhere, so hopefully you can find it.