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Grandia II

Sega Dreamcast
Produced By:Ubi Soft
Developed by:Game Arts

Visuals:9.75
Sound:10
Gameplay:9.75
Innovation:9.75
Overall:10

Review by: Hobbes

Grandia II. Possibly the greatest RPG on Dreamcast. Wait, we're shooting too low. It might be the greatest RPG ever, its strengths only rivaled by Sega's own Skies of Arcadia and Phantasy Star IV.

The visuals are incredible. These are probably some of the best graphics on Dreamcast, and it shows some of the untapped power of it. The overworld is nice, dungeons and towns are extremelu colorful, and the game definently knows when to use FMV and when not to use it, keeping the game at one disc but still letting the game tell the story in incredible FMV when it needs it. There's only one problem with the general graphics, and that's that the characters have no mouths... I don't know why that is.

The sound is even better than the graphics. Almost all of tunes are catchy, and the main battle theme, 'Fight Version 1', is only rivaled by Phantasy Star IV's 'Meet Them Head On'. Most of the music fits the mood of the games. Definently perfect.

The gameplay is probably the most substancial part of the perfect 10 that we gave this game. First off are the battles. The formula used here is simply genius. There is the IP bar, which is hard to explain, so I'll just show it:

The characters on the bottom are your characters. The ones on the top are the enemies. When you one of your characters gets to the word COM, you give him/her a command, such as attack ETC. When that character gets to ACT, he/she will perform the attack. There are also several twists to this. Normal attacks will get to ACT much faster than super powered Special moves, and such. There are two types of normal attacks: There is Combo, which does more damage, and then there is critical. Critical does less damage, but if the enemy is in the middle of ACT when you hit him, his move will be canceled. Some magic and special moves also have this effect.

Earning spells and special attacks are also very unique in this game. Rather than traditionally getting spells when you level up, after a battle you earn four things: experience points, special coins, magic coins, and gold. Experience points are for leveling up your character(duh), special coins are used to power up special moves, and magic coins are used to power up magic. Gold is for buying stuff.

Magic is commanded by mana eggs. Each mana egg has a different assortment of spells, and each of them can be equipped to a different player, making character customization very possible.

Exploration in the overworld is downplayed in this game(although is is encouraged in dungeons). All you get is a screen and you can choose to go from area to are from there, but you don't do the action itself.

Battles in this game aren't random, which is a blessing for beating the game quickly, but a curse if you're trying to level up.

All in all, the perfect 3D RPG. Oh yes, and you may be wondering, "Is this game better than Skies of Arcadia because you gave it a higher rating?" The answer is no, but we like this game better. Overall: A perfect 10.

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