Grandia III was a linear and slightly generic RPG.
I appreciate and enjoy the voice work in the game, but I hate the fact that they didn't include subtitles during the cutscenes. It just throws you off a little bit, and if you are playing at a low volume you might miss bits and pieces of dialog.
The dungeons were very boring for me, no real puzzle solving to break away from the mundane battling you'll encounter. Also the overall linearness of the game was pretty disappointing too, either within the dungeons or with the world map. There just wasn't that many towns or dungeons in the game either. The game took me 34 hours, but I just don't remember going to that many places within the game.
----------Battle System----------
Grandia III is an turn-based RPG. You will have a maximum of four characters in your party at a time. Grandia III has an IP gauge system, which every character and enemy is on the same time gauge. The gauge is split into three groups, "Wait", which your character will do nothing with this time, "Command", once your character lands on this, you then get to attack, defend, item or use magic, and finally "Act", after waiting out your Command time, your character will finally act. Some spells and special attacks can take a great amount of time to finally act, if you are attacked during this period, there is a chance your character will get knocked right back to the "Wait" section of the gauge. The same can be said for the enemy, which creates a certain amount of strategy with the battle system.
You gain special attacks over time. To use these special attacks you need to use "Special Points", or SP for short. You start off with around 100 SP points early in the game, but even the early attacks can range around 25 SP or so. The more you use your Special attacks, the more powerful they can get, or the faster they can get during battle. So it's pretty wise to use them as much as possible, but it's tough to get SP points in the game, as your character needs to be attack constantly to gain it, which takes forever to happen.
The skill and magic system is a little different. You can buy or find skill and magics within the game and your character can equip them if they have empty spots for them. You can only hold so many skills or magics at a time. Any character can equip any skill or magic as well. You can also equip Eggs and skill books. The eggs boost the powers of your magics and the skill books boost the powers of your equipped skills.
The dungeons are pretty boring for me. There wasn't much for puzzle solving at all, just small mazes that were easy to figure out because they're rather linear. Each dungeon has a map, already filled out for you, so it makes it even simpler. There's a few block pushing and a couple button pressing, but none of these "puzzles" involve thought at all, as you have to do them anyways on your linear path.
All enemies are visible before you attack them. You can attack then in real time before the initial battle starts, this stuns them and gives you a slight headstart in battle. If you are attacked from behind then you will be surrounded at the start of the battle.
----------Characters / Story----------
You play as Yuki, a wannabe pilot, trapped on a secluded town far away from the Mainland. His dream is to fly away and meet his favorite pilot Schmidt, a world famous pilot. On his way to the mainland, his mom stows away on his plane, causing him to crash. Did I mention that his mom is like 15 years old? She might be older, but she looks to be the age of a 15 year old, which is pretty darn creepy. Anyways, as they're crashing, they see a young maiden being chased into the woods by warriors. They crash land, and decide to save her and run away. As they get to know this lady, Alfina, they learn she is a "Communicator". A Communicator can talk to the gods. The newly formed team decides to escort Alfina to the Arcriff Temple. The real storyline kicks off after that.
----------Graphics----------
The graphics are fairly impressive on a PS2 level. The battles are big and explosive with nice attacks, with a huge variety of enemies. The cutscenes are downright amazing and fast paced (maybe a little to much). I love the LOOK of the dungeons, I just hate the layout of them. The character models look a little generic, there's been about 5,000 characters that look exactly like Alfina, and Yuki looks like a girl. Other than that, there's a ton of detail in their models, they're just generic characters.
----------Sound----------
The music is fairly good, but there is a few really bad or just plain annoying songs within the game. The most noteable is the song from Baccula Settlement, it's just a totally annoying generic "middle east" type song you would hear in every Desert scenario in a game.
There's plenty of voice work in the game, but only during the detailed cutscenes. They shout catchphrases in battle but only during special attacks.
----------World Map----------
The world map is a free roaming overview map. The characters don't run across the land, but actually fly to their destinations in a plane manually similar to Skies of Arcadia, but with alot less things to do. While flying you'll encounter radio transmissions, I don't think they deserve a real purpose other than to give you something to listen to while flying. The only problem with that is you can't fly the plane while listening and you can skip over your destination.
There's not much flying in that game, compared to Skies of Arcadia. You only really need to fly to one place once, and then you can warp later on if you want to backtrack (which you rarely do). The biggest problem overall I have with this game is the linear aspect of it, you start in one town, on the south west part of the map, and then gradually go around the map in a clockwise fashion until you reach the middle.
----------Time to Complete Game----------
34:58
The end was rather lackluster, and extremely short, actually the credits was longer than the final scene. After the credits there's no bonus or anything. It just takes you back to the title screen.