Calling this a Grandia is a sin, and calling it a 'game' will send you to a mental institution. It just flat out sucks.
The Bad: The original's story, combat, exploration, and gameplay is completely thrown out the window; The voices and music are about the same feeling as Barret's gun arm on a chalk board; The visuals are the best part of the game, which basically means Satan has teamed up with Enix; A masterpiece completely ruined...
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Let's play the "I'd rather" game. I'd rather beg my friend to kick me in the groin until my vocal chord pops, than play this again. It's THAT bad. It's honestly so bad, that I would pardon anyone who refused to play the 'real games' because they hated this so much. This is saying alot(As I, a true blue Nintendo fan, gave Grandia my first perfect score), and anyone who's played this is probably in rehab, or has vowed video game celibacy. I honestly wanted to cry in pain like I'd just been castrated in front of my girlfriend. It's painful, and humiliating. DDR makes you look stupid, but it's still fun. This game is probably worse than E.T. As a member of the Fate of Scribes Union, I will tell you exactly why this game's a project of the first of the fallen; in grisly, blood curdling detail.
Story: Just completely, morbidly obese in the category of lame; it sticks out like a teacher who talks in William Shakespear style dialogue to his kindergarten class. It leaves the children wanting to kill their parents, and it scars them for life. That's what this game does. The intro is killed in its tracks by viewing awful looking elemental lands with horrible military-sounding music involved(more on the sound later). After a moment or two of a raised eyebrow, you meet the main character. His name's Evann, and like a typical mid 1900's American, he's trying to avoid a draft. He should have just faked homosexuality. Anyway, a friend shows up in a really goofy, spinning, vehicle, delivers mail, and leaves. Evann then finds himself captured by some army who wants to extinguish the Elemental Disorder. Probably some lame excuse to wait a long time for the 'evil god' concept to kick in. I really don't care, I've made it far enough to assume that they're trying to do a Grandia I. It's not working. You find yourself teamed up with a party with worse personalities than the characters from 'The Giver,' and adventure soon comes. It get's boring quickly; in fact, it causes involuntary cardiac arrest borne from boredom. You'll come back to life once your PS2 overpowers and explodes.
Gameplay: The battle system's the best part, although awful compared to other entries. Once again, it's just too easy. There's a few cool concepts, and the introduction of a circular IP gauge was cool, but that's it. Exploration sucks. There's basically one town with characters who have nothing to say. They even ripped off the main character of the original. Justin, is now Juston, a red haired middle aged man who speaks of adventures. What, did Justin's wife and kids die in a plague or something? That pissed me off alot, and just screams travesty as players scream bloody murder when they lose insanity and kill their entire family. The world map is another select, and choose, which is lame for the new century. The map's not even detailed. It's a dungeon crawler at heart, and I want a little depth in my RPG's but there's none. The battle system gets one point for the entire gameplay experience; at least they didn't try to change to KIngdom Hearts or FF style and make gamers hate those, too. Visuals: The best part of the game, but it still blows. Look at the infernal character art, the blocky models, awful frame rate, sh!tty environments, lame world map, and crap-tastic cinematic clones. How can the Playstation 2 screw up cinematics, especially in RPGs? No effort. Kudos for making the monsters intersting, but damn you all to an early demise for ruining the awesome boss designs from Grandia 2! The Tongue of Valmar's suddenly a crab? What's this, the Mega Man X series?
Sound: Flat out rancid. The music is too jolly and happy, and makes me wnder if I'm watching Barney. The sound effects are far and few in between, and the voices are worse than the(then acceptable) Grandia I. That's really bad. There's no acting present. Each character speaks dynamically in battles, but the 'attack lines' are so corny that they just kill it. Ulf was pretty cool when he did his wheel move in Grandia 3, but Miam says: "Vroom! Vroom! Vroom! Spinning Wheel!" I wondered at one point if these 'actors' were at remedial speech classes in High School, and Enix just waltzed in the door and snagged a few studdering nerds to save money. Honestly, Evann's a broken record. He'll complain worse than Luke in Tales of the Abyss(Decent game) and he talks like the president. He'll pause on and off like he's making a speech of how to end world hunger. He'll also talk slow like he's reading from a script and can't fluently speak. I wonder if they even memorized the lines. Brandal(WTF kinda name is THAT?) talks in an adult Gibari scratch, but he's a bigger @sshole than Senel from TOL. There's also a Leen(Grandia I's imperial lieutenant) impersonating chick who talks like a Charley Brown style cartoon character. The sound quality is painful.
Value: If you can play this game for more than 1/2 an hour without getting a self-induced epileptic seizure, I'll eat my pants; as well as my hat. Tilt: Only for adults who openly admit they still read Goosebumps novels, the mentally handicapped, or an inhumane form of Capital Punishment for convicted terrorists. Satan has returned, and he's taken up a 'game' design career!