Noonan

No threads on this one yet. Anyone planning on picking it up this week? I've never been a huge fan of the Tales games (can't really get myself to enjoy the fighting game type battles) and I need a new RPG now that I'm done with DQ:VIII. I really liked Grandia II for DC so I'll be picking up a copy later this week. I'll post up some impressions once I get into it.

Link to IGN Review:
http://ps2.ign.com/articles/687/687732p1.html

Outlaw

I am picking it up tomorrow. It looks great, the reviews have been mixed but averaging on the positive side. Plus I love the battle system in Grandia so I its worth a try for me.

Outlaw

I picked up the game on wedensday but didn't have time to play until yesterday and today. It came with a nifty blue compass that clips on to things and can hold keys and such (says Grandia III on the back with the logo, probably the preorder bonus but I didn't preorder)

The game is really good so far. The graphics are gorgeous, and the characters are nice too (I love Miranda ), and the story only just started, I read the reviews and they say its nothing special but I expected that going in.

The battle system deserves its own paragraph because it rocks!!! Grandia has the best battle system in RPGs, the gameplay was always a lot of fun, but they made it even better with Aerial combos. Now instead of just being able to cancel attacks by Critical hitting them in the attack phase zone and then getting combos, you can do aerial combos by doing combos after you critical-hit-cancel them (sometimes i've been able to do with a normal hit to initiate when they go flying), and then combo them in the air it will initiate an Aerial Combo, and on top of that your other party members can continue the chain yielding massive damage and hits. It might sound confusing but its pretty straightforward when you get the hang of it and doesn't take long at all to learn the basics. What it means though is that its a blast doing this, it even keeps track of how high you go (my record is 13.9 meters so far).

Noonan

I'm about 7 hours in and agree with the statement above. One of the best RPG battle systems out there. I wish it were in widescreen or progressive, but it still looks really good. Story is okay so far. Nothing amazing, but not bad. It feels like I'm watching an anime for some reason. My main gripe is that there isn't enough boss battles yet. There's only been about 2 or 3 so far.

toogood

Planning to pick this up tomorrow. Just need to finish up Tales of Legendia first. Grandia 2 was one of the best game on the dreamcast.

Wick

I'm not a very big RPG gamer, but I really enjoyed part 2. I played through about 75% of it. If the third is anything like it, it's definitely worth playing.

dcswirl

Grandia 2 was awesome so 3 is definitely finding it's way into my home.

tor_greg

Well duh. The character design is definately anime style. Grandia 2 even went so far as to have its FMVs be 2D anime.

Noonan

Yeah, I remember. Not may RPG's give the same type of feeling recently though.

Outlaw

That's because Grandia III's character designer is You Yoshinari, same guy who did Valkyrie Profile and Evangelion. .

toogood

$39.99 this week at Bestbuy.

Josh H

It got a very good review in EGM. 8.0, 8.5, 8.0. Mainly said it looks great and the battles are a blast. Downside was the story is not great and is cliched.

Much better review than Tales of Legendia that they didn't care for much: 5.5, 5.0, 7.5. Seemed to think the battles were too simplistic and that it was unbalanced and looked like crap.

Noonan

I'm about 11 hours into the game now. The story is just starting to pick up. The battles are still great and I just got to the point where I can make new spells. So far I'm enjoying this game as much as I rememeber liking 2 back on DC. I'll post an update once I finish the first disc.

Noonan

I just finished the first disc. I wasn't able to play for a few days. I think it took about 15 hours to get through it, and I was fighting every monster in an area before moving on. The story is still holding my interest and the spell system just got more interesting. It does look like it's going to be a bit on the short side though. Still a good game.

The Bus

Noonan

Alright, so this game has officially lost my interest. I really wanted to finish but I got to a point where I just didn't feel like playing. And now with Oblivion and Suikoden V coming out next week, I may not get around to it for a long time. I probably only have about 10 hours left too.

Baron Of Hell

hmmm why the hell did I think this was going be a action space shooter? You know like R-Type.

Noonan

Thinking of Graduis maybe?

tonyc3742

Or how about a slowplaced tactical combat game? Wait, that's Gladius.

Anyway, I'm about 12 hours in to GIII as well. I'm enjoying it. Yes, it's reputedly short, and yes it's quite linear. I haven't gotten really into the spell/skill creation yet; I think I liked the mana and skill experience points from G2 better, but the automatic skill upgrades help to balance that change.

Yuki's voiceacting and dialog is a little hokey, and I think SE/GameArts did quite a disservice by not offering subtitles as at least an option in a game this heavy on cutscenes and dialog.

It is a pretty game, and the pseudo-realtime battles are as engaging as they were in GII, and the Aerial Finish attacks are a pretty cool addition. It's a nice change of pace from 130 hours of dark dungeon crawling in the SMT games, and a nice, reasonably-short way to break up Dragon Quest VIII.

Noonan

The spell making was really needed. When I got to that point, I was getting bored with it. That made me want to play again. Now that I have all the most powerful spells, it's not enough anymore. I will finish it eventually but it doesn't look like it's going to happen any time soon.

Blitz6Speed

Just started getting back into this one. Im 7 hours into it, the battle system is awesome with the combos. Very good so far.

Outlaw

Funny that you bumped this thread, the game releases have slowed down this summer so I've been playing through the games I bought but never finished, this is one I put on hold for awhile when KHII came out but I was thinking of getting back into it.

I am stuck at a boss where its 2 bosses at the same time (technically 4 bosses since each has a weapon that attacks), the problem is they have dual attacks that do some massive damage, I try to cancel their attacks but its tough because I'm healing at the same time. I've been holding off playing it because I didn't want to level up at that time. I do want to finish this game because it is pretty good. I just have to get past this boss.....

Blitz6Speed

Is it the blue guy and the red chick? If so, i JUST past that part! Was a LONG battle, lemme tell ya. I usually cheat to run through RPG's im not super keen with, but this one is really damn fun. The only cheat i used was more cash, otherwise im playing it normally all the way through. The game doesnt give you nearly enough cash, otherwise its really balanced. The battle system and the fact that you get to pick/choose your battles has won me over bigtime. Im now 13 1/2 hours into it and lovin it. I am even enjoying the story too. Definetly glad i got back into this sucker.

Outlaw

Yup, Kornell and Violetta. I think I need to buy more spells, but I do need more gold for them. That would be my only complaint is you don't get that m uch money from enemies, but I guess you can try to increase it by doing Aerial Finish combos. I was going through the game so fast up to that point I hadn't yet experimented with the mana egg fusion and extracting spells from the books. But I was so close to beating them last time I tried, I got Kornell's HP down to where it changed colors, then they had to go and try some new attacks.

Blitz6Speed

At one point, i had Kornell finished off and violetta on her way when BAM, she regenerated kornell! That seriously pissed me off LOL, just made the whole match take so much longer. What i found helps a lot is buy LOTS of grenades. 700+ damage each time, works well!