GRANDIA II Anniversary Edition Review - A Grand Ole Time 15 Years Later
There is a special place in my heart for '90s and early 2000s RPGs. Those were the days of classic JRPGs, featuring epic games with loads of gameplay — more than enough to keep a pre-teen like me busy for weeks, if not months. Games with wonderfully written and even tear-jerking stories like FF IV and Porom and Palom (thinking about it now still makes me sad). Those are the games that shaped my growth into adulthood, so when I saw an opportunity to review the Grandia II remaster, I jumped at the chance.
Grandia II is a classic RPG that implemented revolutionary gameplay mechanics like having encounters being visible (and dodgeable) on the world map, very free form advancement, and mandatory dialog sections where you talk among your own party.
As creative as the game was in 2001, it still stands the test of time. Combat involves an action meter where you can see when each character will be able receive a command and then execute it. But if you get hit with certain abilities between being told to attack and actually attacking, you can be interrupted, which results in a surprisingly deep combat system. Targeting opponents at specific times can make battles much easier, so although you can try to beat the game by just forcing your way through it, Grandia II greatly rewards you for trying to be tactical. The combat can also be incredible slow. Every special move or spell has its own animation that plays every single time. Some of the more powerful abilities even have their own cutscenes, so get ready for lots of waiting.
The graphics are what you would expect from a 15-year-old game. The models are polygonal representations of humans and all of the enemies are angular monstrosities. To be fair, the graphical updates in the re-release definitely make the game look better, but no remastering can take the retro feel out of this game.
The story holds up relatively well, with enough twists and turns to keep you mildly interested. What doesn’t hold up is the dialog. The character dialog is so '90s it hurts. With almost every sentence being a “clever” quip or retort, I would try to get through the majority of conversation by mashing the buttons...not that it helps. The dialog, especially voice acted sections, can’t be skipped. So, on multiple occasions, you are forced to sit and listen to entire conversations, even if you have listened to it before and the only reason you are listening to it again is that the game crashed and you have to replay this section oh my god please talk faster. The story isn't bad enough to prevent me from playing, but I definitely keep going back for the combat, not the "hilarious" dialog.
On the topic of crashes, let us discuss the absolute worst part of the Anniversary Edition: the stability. Modern PC games aren’t renowned for being the most stable pieces of software, but most of them don’t rely on a save point system. On multiple occasions I lost gameplay because of a crash when I wasn’t anywhere near a save point. It definitely made me feel like I was back in the '90s where a freak power outage or ornery sibling would cause you to lose hours of gameplay by simply pulling the plug, but I have grown weak and spoiled by modern gaming and I have little patience with replaying sections of a game because of something outside of my control.
Grandia II Anniversary Edition is exactly what you would expect. It’s Grandia II that runs on modern PCs with minor graphical upgrades. The addition of crashes are an unfortunate blemish on an otherwise good experience. If you like JRPGs or are looking for a nostalgia trip, I definitely recommend picking it up.