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The Grandia series is one of the most beloved RPG series out there and Game Arts hopes to continue the tradition with Grandia Xtreme. This game is a bit different from the previous two, and the old style has been replaced by dungeon crawling. There’s a HUGE emphasis on Grandia’s awesome battle system, and you can expect to do a massive amount of fighting here. Don’t play this game looking for classic Grandia…this one is meant for battle lovers only!
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The story in Grandia Xtreme isn’t bad, but it’s by no means the focus of the game. You play as Evann, a young boy with the power to open Geo Gates, which can be used to transport great distances. The Nortis Army requests Evann’s help for a special assignment, and when he refuses, Evann is kidnapped and forced to comply. He soon meets up with Kroitz, a colonel in the Nortis Army and a childhood rival of Evann’s, who explains the mission. Evann, and several allies from all across the world, is asked to help the army neutralize the deadly elemental disorders that are plaguing the world. He doesn’t want to help out Kroitz, but Evann soon realizes the importance of his mission and risks his life to rid the world of the disastrous elemental disorders. But after examining the ruins surrounding the disorder, Evann and his party begin to feel as if something strange is going on. They soon realize they’ve been pawns in the army’s evil scheme all along and embark on a mission to stop Kroitz from achieving ultimate power! The game features some interesting plot twists here and there, and although it’s sparingly told, I found it to be rather interesting. You spend the first part of the game neutralizing the elemental disorders, and once you’ve got that all done and you think the game is coming to a close, you find out it’s actually just begun.
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Character development is where this game is really weak. So weak, in fact, that by the time I’d finished I still only knew about half of my party’s names! Within the first few hours of the game you’ve already picked up six additional party members and you know NOTHING about them. There’s minor chatter about where they’re all from, but there’s little else about them reveled throughout the entire game. One big difference that was made over previous games in the series is that the player is allowed to choose his party and mix and match characters. This was a lot more fun than being forced to use certain party members all of the time, but regardless of who you used, they still weren’t developed. The only characters with any development at all are Kroitz and Evann, but the two of them seemed to be developed pretty well. Other than that, character development is practically non-existent, which is sad because many of the party members seem very cool.
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If you’ve played either of the previous two Grandia games, then the battle system should be pretty familiar to you. In combat you’ve got all the basics, like using items and attacking. But, you’ve got two types of attacking, such as a combo, which is a series of weak attacks, or a critical, which is a single strong attack that may cancel the enemies’ action. Each character also has unique moves that can come in very handy in combat. You unlock higher-level moves simply by performing the lower level ones, and the more you use an ability the more powerful it will become and the faster the ability will activate. Throughout the game you’ll come across skill books, which can be attached to characters to give them certain skills, such as increased defense or a higher evasion rate. The individual skills that go in these skill books must also be found, and they come in three different levels (A, B and C). Trying to find a specific ability can be kind of a pain, because you have to spend hours running around hoping that a monster will drop a specific scroll that will grant your character that ability. Each character also can wield powerful magic, which is learned by equipping mana eggs. Throughout the game you’ll find various different types of mana eggs, all of which have different spells that go along with them. By combining two mana eggs you can create a new, more powerful mana egg that has new spells and more MP. I found this method of learning magic really interesting, and there were dozens of different combinations that could be explored to create new eggs. Unfortunately, by combining two eggs together you sometimes lose the spells on the old eggs. This could be pretty annoying because to progress with your magic you would often times be forced to go a duration without certain spells. I tried to overcome this by keeping an extra of each egg around so I would always have each ability, but I soon realized that wouldn’t work because there’s a carrying capacity of 24 eggs, which seemed to be far too few when the whole point was to gather eggs together to mix and combine.
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Like the previous two Grandia games, combat was really fun in Grandia Xtreme. The cancel effect moves are a favorite of mine, and they can really alter the course of a battle. Use them wisely! The new skill and magic system for this game was pretty interesting as well, and each character becomes pretty customizable throughout the course of the game. An interesting new feature added to the game was combined skills, much like in the Chrono series. All this combined added up to a very strong and deep battle system. You’ll desperately need these abilities at your side in combat, and you’ll find yourself constantly in battle. The biggest problem with this game is that the dungeons are too long, and there are too many enemies. Every dungeon is saturated with monsters and you’ll be forced into fighting so often that making your way through each level can be difficult. Adding further to the frustration is the severe lack of save points. To put it simply, THERE AREN’T ANY!!! Yes, you heard me right. There’s not a single save point in any of the dungeons, so if you die after the constant battles then you’re forced to start back over and make the long journey back through. You’ll occasionally come across Geo Gates, which can be used to teleport back to the headquarters in Locca. There you can heal your party, buy items and save. Another annoyance in the game is the uncooperative camera. The camera seems to rotate extraordinarily slowly, so exploring can be pretty difficult. It’s also pretty easy to get ambushed by a party of monsters simply because the camera won’t turn fast enough for you to find them. In the end, there’s so many bad guys and so few saves, that I ended up running from a lot of battles just to make sure I wouldn’t die. I felt like I was playing Metal Gear Solid as I snuck around corners and went into stealth mode whenever a bad guy was near. It seemed kind of sad that a game so focused on combat required running from battles so frequently…
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The graphics in Grandia Xtreme are good, but nothing groundbreaking. Spells have nice effects, and, for the most part, the backgrounds are bright and vibrant. Compared to other recent dungeon crawlers, such as Dark Cloud, the backgrounds are magnificent, but there are several dungeons with randomly generated backgrounds that will bore you to death.
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The soundtrack was a lot like the graphics, good, but not great. There’s few really memorable tracks, but don’t be surprised if you find yourself tapping your foot to a few of the tunes. Somehow, the voice acting ended up being pretty poor. With stars like Mark Hamill, Dean Cain and Lisa Loeb in the cast, you’d wonder how things went bad, but they did. Few of the voices really seemed to fit the character, and the final boss had one of the most annoying voices I have ever heard. Even worse, Dean Cain didn’t do a very good Evann, either. Not only did the voice not seem to fit the character at all, but there were constant pauses between his lines, or even between words. In the end, the voice acting wasn’t very good, but personally I’d rather see voice acting of this quality than none at all. On the positive side, Mark Hamill did an excellent Kroitz!
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To say that Grandia Xtreme is “Xtreme” would be an understatement. Gamers will likely be pushed to the brink of insanity by the constant bombardment of monsters, but in the end Grandia’s addictive battle system helps to save the game. If you like dungeon crawlers, then this is the best currently available on the PS2, and if you’re a Grandia fan, then by all means play this game! But, long dungeons with too many monsters, and a serious lack of character development keeps Xtreme from being one of the greats. If you’re interested, the game is certainly worth your time, but if you haven’t played the previous two Grandia games, then I suggest you play those instead.
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