[PS2] Grandia III

[Kane]

Sorry if this review doesn't quite fit into your guidelines. I'm just cutting and pasting it from my site as I'm planning to re-jig my site a bit.

System - PS2 via Component in 480i 4:3

I picked up this game recently and had it sitting on my shelf for a week or so. After completing Dragon Quest VIII, I thought I'd give it a go. I finished it within two days. The game counter showed a total of a 12 hours play. Now I expect that kind of thing from Fable, Jade Empire or Kotor, but not from Square-Enix and Game Arts. I feel a little cheated in fact that it was that short. I also feel cheated on a number of other respects. Don't get me wrong, this is a fun game with many redeeming points, it's just that the bad points really grate for me

First off, the graphics. They are very good. There were some really quite breathtaking moments during this game. The character models are generations ahead of what we saw in Grandia II. I did feel that the character portraits during text based conversations were... microscopic but well done. The environments are good and varied, but at the same time it's pretty standard RPG fare (forest area, temple like city, desert, ice land and castle in the sky). Oh and there are FMVs. There are a lot of FMVs. Too many FMVs. Don't get me wrong, I like a bit of spectacular FMV stuff as much as the next guy, but it was so overused in this game it's not true. There were so many scenes which could have been scripted using the game engine rather than filling up 2 damned DVDs with video. Some of the FMV were actually quite poor. One bit in particular struck me, one of the characters was wearing a ring in his ear.... it was more hexagon than ring. The point of FMV is to do things you can't do in the game engine. But yeah, the graphics were good, the good FMVs were good, but there were far too much of them.

The sound and music.... the voice acting was actually quite good. Sure there were a couple of bits where there were pregnant pauses due to the discrepancy in length between the original Japanese and the English, but for the most part it was covered well. I did feel that the actors got into the feel of the parts, and so I wouldn't have bothered with the Japanese voice option were there one. The music was.... how can I put this.... The in game music was unnoticeable. I'm sure I'd have noticed it's absence, but it's presence neither bothered me or wowed me however... the 'main theme' of the game was a translated cheesy j-pop number. Don't get me wrong, I quite like j-pop and it has it's place, but the song chosen really didn't fit the feel of the game. There was no epic-ness to it at all. It felt a bit like the intro to an American TV show in the Friends style. All in all the sounds were great, the music was nondescript and the main theme (which thankfully is only played a total of about 3 times) was completely out of place

The story is standard old-school RPG fare. Young kid runs into someone and gets embroiled in a Quest To Save The World. Not incredibly imaginative, yeah there are some nice original touches, but for the most part it's obvious what's going to happen. However, I will say it's scripted reasonably well to make it interesting. The one thing I really did not like about the story was the ending. You find out bugger all about what happens to any of your characters or the people you meet except the main two (and there are 7 characters which appear in your party). You see a 'snapshot' of each of the characters, but it's really lacking, especially considering the ending before the credits roll amounts to about a minute. Now I'm all for letting people guess what happens next, but at the same time give us some sodding direction. It's as if someone put the plot together then said 'oh crap we haven't put an end on yet..... just chuck a load of snapshots on'

There is also the longevity and replay value problems. There feels to be very very little in the way of side quests and as I mentioned I beat this game in a little over 12 hours. Now is it just me or does paying US$50 for a 12 hour long game seem a little... I dunno unreasonable? I mean I probably could have stretched it out to around 15 maybe 16, but that is not value for money

Now I know this may have all seemed a little scathing, but truth be told I really did enjoy this game, for the most part this was down to a couple of interesting characters, like Miranda, and the battle system which is superb. Essentially a turn based real time battle system (I assure you-not a contradiction), pretty much the same as Grandia II, but with a few added bells and whistles here and there.

As I said, I enjoyed the game, the graphics were great, the voice acting was superb, the battle system was great, but the plot was mediocre at best, music was nondescript , there was little in the way of mini-games and side quests, and the game was shockingly short. Should you buy it? At 50 dollars, no. Maybe when it's about half that and there aren't other better games on the shelf.

Final scores:

Gameplay: 8/10
Sound: 7/10
Graphics: 7/10
Replay Value/Longevity: 3/10
Overall: 6/10

[Cid Highwind]

Reading it it reminded me of Grandia 2. That game looked rather nice at its time, mainly because of the great texturing, mind that I played the DC version, not the dreadful PS2 port

It kinda had the same downsides, the plot wasn't that special, and the game was too short. Still, the story was made interesting by one of the better badguys I've encountered, and the truly magnificent scripting, which was way ahead of Square back in those days of FF9.

Either way, you kinda convinced me I still need to play this game, just because I really enjoyed Grandia 2.

[Hard core Rikki]

Grandia III: screenshots OR it didnt exist !

you kinda convinced me I still need to play this game, just because I really enjoyed Grandia 2

Screenshots usually have the same effects. Unless there's a way to showcase music on a DVD box, that's the way to go.

[Kane]

Unfortunately, I had no way of producing screenies from my consoles at the time. TBH, I still don't

[raksmey1309]

For me Grandia 3 was a failure compare to its pre sucessor.(GD GD2 GDX)

[Hard core Rikki]

Originally Posted by Kane

Unfortunately, I had no way of producing screenies from my consoles at the time. TBH, I still don't

The game cover wouldnt be too bad. As usual, Wikipedia is your plmp, as well as fan/official sites.