FULL GAME

Grandia ii

In the fantasy world of Grandia II, a war between the Granas, the god of light, and Valmar, the god of darkness was waged many years ago. The world was rife with chaos and destruction, but eventually the god of light managed to defeat the wicked god of darkness. Heavily wounded and weary, Granas went into hiding to regenerate his strength. Flash forward a couple thousand years. The world worships Granas and prays for his return, while at the same time fear the return of Valmar and the prophesied Day of Darkness. You play as a mercenary named Ryudo who winds up with the profitable job of escorting a kind Granas Songstress, Elena, to an exorcism in which she is vital.

Most RPGs star brooding teens, silent heroes or stereotypical goody-goodies. Ryudo is sarcastic, cynical, and often hilarious. There's never any doubt that he isn't a good guy, but the way he insults people and comments on the surroundings is atypical in the genre. It's hard not paying attention to such a refreshingly unique character.

Predictably enough, things go terribly wrong at the exorcism. Elena ends up becoming possessed by the wings of Valmar, but don't expect to see any creepy moments from The Exorcist. Instead of vomiting all over priests and screaming obscenities, Elena only occasionally turns into the seductive Millenia, a sexy demon with a short fuse, not to mention mysterious intentions.

Elena is told by a priest that a visit to the Pope should help the Millenia problem. Of course things snowball from there and eventually the fate of the world ends up being in our party's hands. And thus, the game truly begins. The plot moves along at a fast pace and rarely slows down. For the most part it's the cliched good vs. evil stuff we've all seen before, but a few things add a lot to the rather simplistic storyline. Since Elena occasionally turns into Millenia, an inventive and entertaining love triangle develops. Most of the secondary villains are also developed well and remain interesting throughout the game. And finally the translation is excellent and is chockfull of humorous one-liners. The only minor grievance is that parts of the game are predictable, but even so there are still a few unexpected twists and turns to keep you involved.

So the plot is handled well, but the gameplay is really what makes Grandia II shine. You can forget about all those yawn-inducing battles in other RPGs because the ones here are far from being a bore. There is a little bar on the bottom called the IP gauge that shows a small picture of each combatant. Depending on the speed of the character, the picture moves accordingly fast towards the end and then the character can choose what to do. The game stops completely while you make your choice of magic, moves, items, etc. If you plan your attacks right you can counter-attack the foe. You really have to play free pc games download to understand how fast-paced it is since words are difficult to convey it justly. There are a few moments where you find yourself going “Ok, I can counterattack this guy in just one second” as you eagerly anticipate your next chance to attack. Battles never drag on to the point of tedium. Even after fighting in hundreds of battles I didn't tire of the excellent battle system. What makes the battles perfect is that you can see the enemies walking around onscreen before you fight them, so you can choose to avoid the battle altogether. I actually sought out fights because they were just so enjoyable.