is Grandia III really that bad?

[Edmond Dantes]

So yesterday I decided to hook up my Dreamcast, originally to play Crazy Taxi but for some reason wound up playing Grandia II instead, and getting addicted... again. Truth is Grandia II shocked me as post-PS1 was the period I gave up on the RPG genre so I didn't expect a Dreamcast RPG to be good, much less one I would play twice.

Anyway, got me looking up the rest of the series and for some reason I keep seeing people say that Grandia III is terrible. Then again, some of these sources (full disclosure--primarily I'm going by a thread I found on Hardcore Gaming 101's forums) say the same about the second one as well, in which case they can screw themselves, but the opinion against III seems more universal.

My question is: Umm... why? What's wrong with the third?

(I've never played the first either, but I'm given to understand it's held in high regard)

[celerystalker]

The big complaint my friends always held to is that it has a silly story and atrocious acting. I never played it myself to know. From what someone I trust told me, he really enjoyed it when he played it in Japanese, but found the english to be horrific.

[Tanooki]

I've never enjoyed all the up turned nose behavior of weeabo types who bitch and moan how a set of voice actors and being translated out of Japanese makes a game (or translated anime cartoons/movies) like physical rape for their ears and minds. Time and again I've picked up quite a few games where this kind of bitching has been rained down upon it and found some very good games really worth digging into, such as Grandia II and also Evolution on DC. I'll admit sometimes they get someone poor who sounds ok, just really bored like they're not trying reading a script and that's a fair call, but it's not the deal breaking ruination of a game.

If Grandia III mostly is moaned over because of how some try not at all script reader in english did a games voice over I'd ignore it. If someone is so shallow to let a voice actor suck the fun out of a game, they probably should just keep it to themselves.

[FieryReign]

That's another reason that makes most of these rpgs unplayable. Cornball stories, writing, and voice acting. 5 year olds would be offended by how childish they make them. Making you play as some whiny, annoying, and overly excited teen. Usually voiced by a grown female trying to sound like a young boy.

There's a solid combat system buried beneath all that garbage. All I remember is an annoying hero who really wants/likes to fly. Badly. The dungeons were pretty lazily laid out.

[celerystalker]

I've never enjoyed all the up turned nose behavior of weeabo types who bitch and moan how a set of voice actors and being translated out of Japanese makes a game (or translated anime cartoons/movies) like physical rape for their ears and minds. Time and again I've picked up quite a few games where this kind of bitching has been rained down upon it and found some very good games really worth digging into, such as Grandia II and also Evolution on DC. I'll admit sometimes they get someone poor who sounds ok, just really bored like they're not trying reading a script and that's a fair call, but it's not the deal breaking ruination of a game.

If Grandia III mostly is moaned over because of how some try not at all script reader in english did a games voice over I'd ignore it. If someone is so shallow to let a voice actor suck the fun out of a game, they probably should just keep it to themselves.

I'm personally not much of a voice snob... I'm more than content to watch my anime in english dub, and in some cases even prefer hokey voices in early CD games. On this case, though, the guy who told me his opinion on the game wasn't a voice snob, either. He owned my favorite game store while it was around, and we used to talk games a lot. He had recommended the game to me when it was new and he was playing it in Japanese, but warned me when the english version came out, that the story and main character were distractingly bad, recommending that it was more fun to play through in Japanese without being able to understand the story, just enjoying the battles and atmosphere.


That's another reason that makes most of these rpgs unplayable. Cornball stories, writing, and voice acting. 5 year olds would be offended by how childish they make them. Making you play as some whiny, annoying, and overly excited teen. Usually voiced by a grown female trying to sound like a young boy.

There's a solid combat system buried beneath all that garbage. All I remember is an annoying hero who really wants/likes to fly. Badly. The dungeons were pretty lazily laid out.

This is a pet peeve of mine as well. It gets a bit tiring to play as teen heroes all of the time. Very few RPG leads end up feeling relatable in JRPGs for me. I have gotten past it enough to enjoy several, but since the late '90s, I've found a lot less that I could enjoy. I prefer the classic JRPG style over the western RPG models, but teens discovering their inner heroes is less than creative after decades of the same.

[WulfeLuer]

Grandia III isn't something I've played (but it is on my list and has been for a while), though I have looked at a few sites that discussed and dissected it a good bit. I got the distinct impression that the story is pretty bogus and the lead is off-putting at best, probably by taking Grandia I ideas and sticking them in a II-style world and not blending things well. The combat system is supposed to be a wonder to behold, and worth the price of admission on its own, however.

That said, never, never let internet bashing be a deterrent when it comes to trying out a new game. Collect opinions, sure, and especially ask your friends. But you're the one putting it in the console and firing it up. Try it out, and if it sucks, banish it to the back of the stack/bottom shelf/your new good buddy WulfeLuer's collection. If it doesn't, then let the ride continue.

I had to fight the net-drone mentality myself; I watched a friend play Tales of Legendia (also PS2), and was intrigued enough to try it out. I checked out some reviews and the TV Tropes page, and found out a lot of people hate this game. "There's no Mystic Artes, the hero has JRPG Autism, the love interest is helpless high-pitched offense to femininity," yadda yadda. I got a bit bummed and came close to not engaging in the campaign. But I did, and I don't regret it, and I liked it enough to get Abyss, Vesperia, Symphonia Chronicles, Graces f, and Xillia quickly thereafter.

I say go for it, and it crashes and burns, give it a good heckling and try out Romancing SaGa or something.

[Edmond Dantes]

What always disappoints me about the "Tales of" series is one of the games was called Tales of Eternia. See my comments in the GOTD Christmas thread about how awesome a He-Man RPG would be. (Though I am curious as to what "Eternia" refers to in the Tales series context)

.... but yeah, on Grandia, one comment I saw had people hating Elena in Grandia II. So far, I'm loving her. Especially every time she throws her impact bomb. It's a small thing but I love the way she does it as if she's a pitcher at a baseball game.

When it comes to voice acting, to be honest I've gotten to where I consider that just part of the territory. And I might actually be tone-deaf on voice acting anyway because when I watch modern cartoons and anime that are supposedly "better" acted, they don't really sound any different to me.

[FoxNtd]

What always disappoints me about the "Tales of" series is one of the games was called Tales of Eternia. See my comments in the GOTD Christmas thread about how awesome a He-Man RPG would be. (Though I am curious as to what "Eternia" refers to in the Tales series context)

I just finished Eternia recently. I believe it was the name of the planet that the heroes are from. There are two planets in the main plot. I won't go further than that to avoid spoilers.

I see nothing here that makes me regret buying Grandia III. I haven't played 2 yet so it'll be a while before I get to 3 but if annoying voice actors is the best excuse then I have nothing to worry about. That issue doesn't afflict the original JP release. \\^_^/

[Edmond Dantes]

The second planet wouldn't be called Etheria, would it? That would blow my mind.

[Tanooki]

I'm personally not much of a voice snob... I'm more than content to watch my anime in english dub, and in some cases even prefer hokey voices in early CD games. On this case, though, the guy who told me his opinion on the game wasn't a voice snob, either. He owned my favorite game store while it was around, and we used to talk games a lot. He had recommended the game to me when it was new and he was playing it in Japanese, but warned me when the english version came out, that the story and main character were distractingly bad, recommending that it was more fun to play through in Japanese without being able to understand the story, just enjoying the battles and atmosphere.



This is a pet peeve of mine as well. It gets a bit tiring to play as teen heroes all of the time. Very few RPG leads end up feeling relatable in JRPGs for me. I have gotten past it enough to enjoy several, but since the late '90s, I've found a lot less that I could enjoy. I prefer the classic JRPG style over the western RPG models, but teens discovering their inner heroes is less than creative after decades of the same.

I had no doubt you weren't it was a general comment of me seeing 20 years of entitled bitching online over it once earlier import shops went on the web and ebay at its earliest days. I don't like watching subbed anime either, like ever, as it takes away for me from watching the beautiful drawn scenery. I do agree with RPGs the teen hero thing is played out. I find my selection of JRPGs is fairly limited these days to when I can tolerate it, but when I do it's fine.

[FoxNtd]

The second planet wouldn't be called Etheria, would it? That would blow my mind.

Think it was Celestia.

[BlastProcessing402]

So yesterday I decided to hook up my Dreamcast, originally to play Crazy Taxi but for some reason wound up playing Grandia II instead, and getting addicted... again. Truth is Grandia II shocked me as post-PS1 was the period I gave up on the RPG genre so I didn't expect a Dreamcast RPG to be good, much less one I would play twice.

Skies of Arcadia (the other Dreamcast jrpg) is good too.


Anyway, got me looking up the rest of the series and for some reason I keep seeing people say that Grandia III is terrible. Then again, some of these sources (full disclosure--primarily I'm going by a thread I found on Hardcore Gaming 101's forums) say the same about the second one as well, in which case they can screw themselves, but the opinion against III seems more universal.

II got fairly bad ports on PC and PS2, maybe they meant one of those.

[Aussie2B]

I've never enjoyed all the up turned nose behavior of weeabo types who bitch and moan how a set of voice actors and being translated out of Japanese makes a game (or translated anime cartoons/movies) like physical rape for their ears and minds. Time and again I've picked up quite a few games where this kind of bitching has been rained down upon it and found some very good games really worth digging into, such as Grandia II and also Evolution on DC. I'll admit sometimes they get someone poor who sounds ok, just really bored like they're not trying reading a script and that's a fair call, but it's not the deal breaking ruination of a game.

If Grandia III mostly is moaned over because of how some try not at all script reader in english did a games voice over I'd ignore it. If someone is so shallow to let a voice actor suck the fun out of a game, they probably should just keep it to themselves.

Different gamers value different things. While I don't count myself among them, there are a lot of RPG players who value the story most of all, as it is a significant component of RPGs, and if a game gets a poor localization, be it a mangled script or corny acting, or both, it can absolutely ruin their ability to enjoy the story and in turn the game as a whole. For those who like a game, it's all the more frustrating to see a game you love shown such disrespect in the localization process. You want every aspect to be as good as it can be, not marred by flaws that never existed in the original Japanese release. If some gamers are snooty, that's independent of the fact that it's valid to criticize a poor localization. How badly a poor localization affects a game and a player's ability to enjoy it as a whole comes down to the individual. It may not be deal-breaking for you, but it is for some people, and they're not wrong to feel that way nor wrong to complain about it.

[Tanooki]

I didn't say they were wrong, just that they were being snobs about it when getting rude and on a soap box tirade you often see online.

[Aussie2B]

That doesn't make any sense to me. They're not wrong to feel that way, but they're rude and snobby if they those voice those feelings? Who are they being rude to? The localizers? Or to people who might enjoy the game in spite of the bad localization and might be steered away from doing so because of those complaints? It's other people's problems if they're mindless sheep and take some stranger's word on a game as gospel instead of just trying it out themselves, especially if they know that localization issues generally don't diminish their enjoyment with a game. For those who do have that stuff affect their enjoyment, then hearing complaints could be valuable information, making them take some more caution before a purchase, maybe looking up videos online or waiting to grab the game at a lower price.

I mean, I've definitely seen people being rude in, say, subtitled vs. dubbed debates, but complaining about the quality of the product in and of itself, which is what you were talking about before, isn't rude. It's not snobby either, even if you personally think they're being too picky. It only gets snobby if people start talking as if they have more discerning tastes than other gamers, and it's only rude if they start throwing insults around at other gamers for what they like or don't like it. And you're kinda doing the latter here by calling people snobby just because they voice some complaints about something they didn't enjoy.

[Tanooki]

I used to be huge into anime and JRPGs in the 90s and some of the 00s. Most of that out in So. Cal and out there you have more of an asian environment out there and white kids who try and be asian, into asian culture and they had this huge chip on their shoulder in those gaming and anime communities. Everything had to be subtitled or it was an insult. In general they'd put their nose up, talk down to people who didn't agree, and they'd pull the classic bs line of 'you are enabling/supporting... you're going to kill off the industry, creativity, and the best version possible. It got really really old to a lot of people listening to their stuck up abusive mouths or seeing it posted online acting like entitled children yet few ever making a good argument why it was better. Sometimes they were right, you had a poorly read script, or some nitwit took liberties with Japanese jokes putting in awful localized humor...but a few bad jokes or a monotone guy does not suddenly make a fantastic adventure awful. As far as they were concerned they were right, their tastes being the original format was the only way to leave it, and if you didn't agree you sucked basically and were ruining everything. It was just rude, arrogant, stuck up, snobby, and last but not least a shitty way to treat people acting like their tastes were beneath them. It's the same garbage in a way we see now with Nintend-tard collector idiots whining about bootlegs, sticker replacement, and other crap because it's not right and screws up their monetary investment what other people do with their stuff.

[kupomogli]

Like Aussie2B is stating, some people like RPGs for story above all else and the gameplay is just there. Why? I don't know, because it's very rare that the storyline is around 50% of the games content, usually being at most around 5-10% of the games content, if that. So what gets me is that's enough to ignore the games poor gameplay mechanics and noticeable flaws? Or in a game that's exceptionally well done, the amazing gameplay?

I own Grandia 3 but haven't played it. I do end up throwing recommendations of the game along with other Grandia titles since the gameplay is probably still great, but just never played it myself. Now off topic a bit, I'll get back on in the next paragraph. That being said, there's so many games that are highly praised, and these games have been littered with issues that make me find the game downright unplayable. You have no idea how many times I've tried to finish Vagrant Story but have eventually got bored of playing through the game simply because of how broken the combat mechanics are. The design of the environment is exceptionally well done and it's a Matsuno game, so it's quite obvious the story is amazing(for those that haven't played it.) But also being a Matsuno game, there's just issues with the combat that sound good on paper that ultimately make it broken(you can go back to every game he's been the director for and you'll see these issues, excluding Final Fantasy Tactics.) Despite loving a lot of the games that Matsuno as developed, I could point out so many issues with just about every one of them which would turn people off to them completely.

So anyways, since I haven't played Grandia 3, I'll bring up another game that people seem to throw endless amount of hate towards, and that's Grandia Xtreme. Now Grandia Xtreme has an awful cast of characters, a story that sucks, dungeons that are designed like randomly generated dungeons(but they're not,) and in combat the spell graphics are much worse than Grandia 2, so yes, all of that might be a turn off, but the combat is purely Grandia and altogether much better than the second game. So imo, Grandia Xtreme is a good game. It actually still has what makes Grandia great. The dungeon design being like randomly designed dungeons still benefit the way the game actually plays, where the player explores the area to find gold, items, skill books, and eggs on the ground. On Grandia 2, you leveled up a characters skills and spells by using skill points and magic points. On Grandia Xtreme you actually have to use the characters and then they'll gain new skills. Characters will even have learn team attack skills on this game. The way new magic is acquired through eggs is that you'll combine eggs to create more powerful ones, each spell might have random attributes added like faster casting, half mp cost, etc, so no leveling up the spell to make it cast faster unfortunately, and each egg also has its own MP. Mixing an egg with the same egg will increase MP, but say you mix a flare egg with an aqua egg, you'll get a dust egg, mixing with a stone egg, you'll get volcano egg, with the highest level eggs being chaos and holy. Those are only a few though, there's a literal massive amount of different egg types.

After you finish Grandia Xtreme, a huge and much harder end game dungeon unlocks with new bosses. The battle music that plays throughout this dungeon is also from Grandia 2. This dungeon is purely gameplay until the very end, and is basically the devs stating, if you liked Grandia Xtreme's gameplay, here's more of it. The extra dungeon is 100 floors also.

[Edmond Dantes]

Think it was Celestia.

............ Nope. Not gonna make the obvious reference. I won't be the one to derail this thread.

@everyone else.

I'm not sure I entirely follow the localization/voice-acting thing (like I said before I probably am tone-deaf), but what I'm getting is nobody can think of anything decidedly bad about Grandia III (or the spinoff Grandia Xtreme, the one which had the wheelchair-bound Ghostbuster... sorry, I have cartoons on the brain). So I guess I'll have to just play it and see what I think.

Any other RPGs that definitely don't suck?

[Tanooki]

Nope. Someone will always whine about something in an RPG, it's like an unwritten law. Or perhaps it's like the pattern behind the one rule about Fight Club being, don't TALK about fight club. Instead it's there's one rule about JRPGs, someone MUST bitch about something in JRPGs.

[celerystalker]

............ Nope. Not gonna make the obvious reference. I won't be the one to derail this thread.

@everyone else.

I'm not sure I entirely follow the localization/voice-acting thing (like I said before I probably am tone-deaf), but what I'm getting is nobody can think of anything decidedly bad about Grandia III (or the spinoff Grandia Xtreme, the one which had the wheelchair-bound Ghostbuster... sorry, I have cartoons on the brain). So I guess I'll have to just play it and see what I think.

Any other RPGs that definitely don't suck?

Any particular console?

[Edmond Dantes]

Dreamcast, PS2, and Gamecube. Anything before that and I've probably already heard of it, but that gen was when I stopped following the genre.

[FoxNtd]

Ah Grandia Xtreme, I heard that was a mess but don't recall any details. As a result I avoided buying it. Parallel Trippers was kinda weird. Worth playing through it once though. It was amusing to see Grandia 1 characters make a reappearance. I suspect Grandia 2 is the one that's loved the most, eventually I'll find out why. Seeing how DC has almost no RPGs, hoping it's better than Eternal Arcadia. Didn't dislike that one but comments about it online made me feel it's overrated.

[kupomogli]

............ Nope. Not gonna make the obvious reference. I won't be the one to derail this thread.

@everyone else.

I'm not sure I entirely follow the localization/voice-acting thing (like I said before I probably am tone-deaf), but what I'm getting is nobody can think of anything decidedly bad about Grandia III (or the spinoff Grandia Xtreme, the one which had the wheelchair-bound Ghostbuster... sorry, I have cartoons on the brain). So I guess I'll have to just play it and see what I think.

Any other RPGs that definitely don't suck?

I just told you what's bad about Grandia Xtreme. Except for gameplay pretty much everything. Here's the main character. Stupid looking, unlikable, and don't worry, the others look equally as stupid and are just as unlikable. Pair it with a terrible storyline and worse spell graphics in combat than Grandia 2(and aside from character models being more blocky in Grandia 2, looks worse than all of Grandia 2 actually,) it's just a really bad combination altogether. What makes this game still enjoyable is the fact that the gameplay mechanics are fantastic, and similar to Final Fantasy 10-2(which doesn't have near as much wrong with it other than the story,) the gameplay alone saves the game.

http://ps2media.ign.com/media/news2/image/grandiapaper/grx4_800.jpg

Some other RPGs that don't suck imo but have that opinion thrown around.

Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter. Okay so for one, the combat itself is fairly limited as a TRPG. It's pretty much a TRPG lite, but it's actually fairly good for what it is. Depending on your weapon and what skills you have slotted to your face buttons you'll be able to do different attacks provided you have the AP. The game itself though is a TRPG dungeon crawler with an a great storyline. The only problem with the storyline though is that the better your ranking throughout the game, the more story you're able to see, so you're required to finish it mulitple times rather than being able to see everything all at once, and considering the first time through you're the lowest rank, you see the least amount of story(and even then it's great.) The dungeon crawler aspect of the game is very hard, most people can't finish the game without restarting the game(though it's doable, I've done it. Protip is to abuse the healing herbs.) Enemies don't respawn, so playing through this game comes down to either restarting to carry over party exp, or actually being good at the game, so pretty much everyone who says this game sucks, you can account to them as sucking at the game.

MS Saga. The first thing that'll turn people off is that you walk around in "Gundams," mobile suits rather, but anyone who isn't a Gundam fan but knows the series name will just call them Gundams. The storyline is cliche Japanese kid saves the world storyline. The storyline itself is pretty bad, but the writing and such make it atleast enjoyable, doesn't bore you to play through it, a plus for many JRPGs actually. Instead of immediately dismissing it because it's Gundam, give the game a chance because the there's a lot of strategy and a lot of customization within the game which is really the games greatest strengths. So this game has a lot of customization options due to being able to remove parts from one mobile suit and add to another, but also the pilots stats base how good the pilot is at specific actions. The main character for instance has high melee but poor range, so you'll want to build this character as a melee type, while other characters might be great ranged but have poor melee, and some might be all around characters. If you have a melee focused character and you plan on almost using melee only, then stick this character in a melee focused mobile suit, same goes for characters who you plan on being ranged only, and then the other suits that aren't overly powerful either way, give them to the characters who are all around. You won't always be considering only melee and ranged though, because you might want a healing character to go first as well, and the pilot might be slow, so there's always that to think about. That doesn't even scratch the surface to MS Saga's gameplay though. Different weapons are able to be equipped to the mobile suits in a sort of Tetris/Resident Evil 4/Diablo backpack style. The further into the game you get and the better the mobile suits get, the larger their backpacks will be and the more they can carry, but equipment sizes get larger and more erratic shaped as well, so you basically fit these weapons within the pack and try to get it so you can actually equip everything you want to your characters. Then characters have different slots to equip a specific amount of accessories. Then finally there's combat. You have tech skills which are basically magic spells and cost TP, healing spells, attack spells, debuff spells, buff spells, basically anything you'll find in another RPG, but on this one you have boost skills, which are basically special attacks. It someteimes takes 0BP to attack with specific weapons, other times 1 or 2, and while in the front row you get 2BP per turn, so you'll usually want a weapon that can use 0BP to make an attack, even if the damage is lower. Boost skills though allow you to use this BP for special attacks with any of the equipped up to all of the equipped weapons to either take more damage or activate support actions. One flaw on the game is that end game is that the later boost skills take so much more damage than a regular attack and enemies have so much health that using regular attacks isn't just pointless, it's stupid, so at that point you'll do little else but use boost attacks, however throughout the remainder of the game there's a lot of strategy required. You have three characters in the front row at the time and three characters in the back row as back ups(which you will often be switching out, especially during boss battles.) The back ups gain 1BP a turn rather than 2BP and if a character on the front row wants to switch out with another character, it reduces 1BP. You could say it's sort of like Final Fantasy 10, but it's used far better in this game, because there's more strategy involved than just chaging characters and attacking the correct enemy type.

So yeah. Here's two PS2 RPGs that are really good that get a lot of hate. Not going to go into detail, but others that get bashed and aren't as bad as people make them out to be.

Beyond the Beyond(if someone rebalanced this game to not require the timed button presses it'd be one of the best classic RPGs ever, however, I still consider this one fairly good.)
Dirge of Cerberus(bad story, pretty good actually.)
Guardian's Crusade(don't let the pink disc and the blocky 3D graphics fool you, this is a good game.)
Legaia 2(it's good, just not as good as the original.)
Granstream Saga(this is pretty much like the Souls games, except it's got a storyline, not amazing, but it's a fairly good game.)
Brigandine(no one I've known to have played this has ever said it was a bad game. This is the best RPG ever though and deserves to be played by more people.)

[BlastProcessing402]

Dreamcast, PS2, and Gamecube. Anything before that and I've probably already heard of it, but that gen was when I stopped following the genre.

Dreamcast it was pretty much Grandia 2 and Skies of Arcadia.

For Gamecube there's an (I'm not sure exactly how) enhanced port of Skies of Arcadia, the card based Baten Kaitos games, and Paper Mario the 1000 Year Door.

There were also Phantasy Star Online games on those, but I don't personally count online stuff, YMMV. Also how playable they are a decade and a half or so later, I dunno, but I wouldn't cross my fingers.

PS2, way to much to go over (like most genres). Dragon Quest 8 was a good one, though

[Zthun]

I always had the problem with all Grandia games in that they start off really strong, but they drag on and on and on and on and on and on long after they get to a point where the game should have ended.

[Edmond Dantes]

There were also Phantasy Star Online games on those, but I don't personally count online stuff, YMMV. Also how playable they are a decade and a half or so later, I dunno, but I wouldn't cross my fingers.

I actually have PSO 1 for the Dreamcast. It's basically Diablo with a behind-the-character perspective so how much you like that will factor into how much you like this. Personally I found both fun for awhile but quickly got bored, and of course not being able to co-op on the original Dreamcast version is a bummer.

[Haoie]

Too bad this never got a PAL release! Ugh, still peeved about this.