The Best Gameplay with the Worst Story
Game starts nicely, our hero Yuki has dream of being great pilot like his idol and he tries hard without giving up. He meets Alfina, the communicator that can communicate the guardians of the world ( Yuna in Final Fantasy X ), and wants to help her. So their journey begins. The game's beginning was nice, but later it becomes more common in story, more and more and the end, it reaches the top, as a terrible story. So the game's story is really bad, especially when you think this game is a RPG.
But the game has something awesome even it has a bad, cliche story, the Gameplay. This game's gameplay is definitely perfect. It has no random encounters, the world you explore has nice environment and controls are good. And the best part in the gameplay is the Battle System. Grandia 3 has one of the best battle systems ever. I don't think i can describe it in here, you should definitely try it yourself to see how amazing it is. There are great special moves with great animations. It is so much fun and its alone make this game great. From start to end, you don't get bored. Especially after i got my warp shoes, the battles became anime style and i enjoyed more. You can use your Special moves a lot, thus you can enjoy the battles more. Even it looks like its based on beautiful fighting, your strategy definitely changes everything. Boss battles differ from strategies but you'll see whole different thing in your last battle. Personally, while i'm wiped out in my first two tries, i took a big risk and changed everything in my third try and beat the game with so much fun. So instead of leveling if you try different tactics you'll enjoy the battles more.
Grandia 3 has nice intro, i like it a lot but other than that its sounds are just good nothing so great and some monster sounds may be irritating. Voice acting should not be considered bad but its not so good either.
Personally, i liked the characters, but i really couldn't stand Alfina. She is both annoying and she changes story very badly. Other than Alfina, the others were not so bad, but they were not special nor deep characters, they were just nice so liked them.
The Game's 3D anime art is really beautiful. I'm an anime fan so it was so good for me, but even for a normal person it has great graphics. It has a lot of CG movies, that is the reason Grandia 3 is 2 discs. They look really good but since the story is bad, their importance are lost. Still you can enjoy it though.
The Game's difficulty is just right, you dont need to level up because your strategy completely changes everything. While people say you should fight Desert Lord ( optional Boss ) at around level 30, i beat it at level 22 or something like that, maybe 21 maybe 23. I also faced the last boss very early too, so i thought it was too hard, i should level up maybe, but i managed to beat it with different tactic.
The game's length is said short but i find it perfect. Because the story is not good so before the game becomes boring it ends. Though i dont think i would be bored with that battle system.
In the end, Grandia 3's gameplay is alone worth buying. It has nice environments, amazing 3D anime art makes the game so beautiful, nice characters, nice intro video. Its not a must buy, but definitely worth playing. I enjoyed a lot and i hope you can enjoy a lot too.