Would have been a very good RPG if the difficulty and emotional levels went down a tad.
Battles (6/10) ~ The battle system itself is extremely great. The battles are fought using a combination of real time and turn-based gameplay. Basically, you just input commands at some point in the fight, and then the game goes into real time mode in which your attacks are carried out. You have limited control on where your character goes, but the overall system is extremely good. The only problem is that the battles are way too fast. Enemies can get as many as two, three, and sometimes four attacks before you are able to lay one down (and not to mention that over 6 or 7 enemies can be on one battle). Also, certain combination attacks and magic are extremely hard to execute since the battles move way too fast. Basically, you will die a lot more on random encounters than you would with a boss fight. It seems the game focused a little too much attention to the enemies than giving your party any type of advantage when the battle starts. Sometimes there is nothing you can do except watch your party get annihilated by common/random encounters. It is extremely frustrating as it is almost scary to get into a simple random encounter in this game. Overall, they should have done something with the speed of your enemies.
Story (6/10) ~ The game comes in two disc (don’t let that fool you, the game is only 30 hours), and on the first disc, the story starts off with Yuki (the main character) and his mom, Miranda, who goes off on some adventure on an airplane that Yuki secretly built. At first, the story is rather interesting and gives the player something to play and look forward to. At the end of disc 1 (and the start of disc 2) you will find that the story took a dramatic turn for the worst. The story becomes overly emotional and sometimes it is difficult to understand the emotional state of the characters. It seems that the main characters and party become way too emotional for little or no reason. By the end of the game, you will probably not know to laugh or cry with the scenes because it is way too ridiculously emotional.
Graphics (8/10) ~ The graphics are simply amazing; the character design, landscape, CG scenes, magic, and every else look spectacular as well as unbelievable. Right when you start playing this game, you will notice it is a very beautiful game as it is extremely rich in color and animation. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the graphics in this game. It is PS2 at one of its best.
Sound/Music (7/10) ~ This goes hand in hand with the story. The voices and music seem to be too emotional for little or no reason at all. At first, the game seems to be wonderful and the cutscenes are interesting. However, once on disc 2, the game takes a turn for the worst in everything.
Overall (6.1/10) ~ I was most displeased with this game. I was expecting something a little better than Grandia 2. However, don’t be mistaken, the game is wonderful if you can somehow make it through the incredibly intense battles and incredibly emotional scenes by the end of the game. I would have to say that they didn’t think this one through well enough. Hopefully Grandia 4 will be a little better in terms of story telling and battles.