Grandia II (Switch)

Wow, that art... is rather special.

Since I've already played the first game I had to give the second game a go. It was a good game, several improvements from the first game. Basic story is that you play as Ryudo, a geohound that travels around. A geohound is just another name for mercenary I guess. You get an assignment to protect a songstress from a small church of Granas to the Tower of Valmar, Valmar being the god of darkness that opposes the god of light, Granas. By performing a ceremony they keep the seal on the destroyed god so that he can't be reborn. But the ceremony fails this year and the songstress Elana gets possessed by the wings of Valmar, which takes the form in Millenia. Basically at night with a large moon Millenia takes over. Ryudo is tasked with taking Elena to the St. Heim Papal state and meet with Pope Zera that is the only one that would know what to do. He can't do much but sends us on a quest to find the Granasaber, the weapon which pierced Valmar in the battle between light and dark. 

On the way we encountered the kid Roan and Mareg, a lionman looking for Melfice, the brother of Ryudo that apparently killed some people and Ryudo promise to help Mareg. You end up in the kingdom of Cyrum where Roan is the prince. The king tried to open some Gates of Darkness that was hidden beneath the castle and apparently the people of Cyrum are descendants of the people of Darkness that fought for Valmar in the past. Melfice kills the king and Roan has to stay as king so you are joined by an automata named Tio that Mareg takes under his wing teaching her about what it means to be human and have a heart. They travel across the sea, first to Ryudo's hometown island where it is revealed that 3 years ago Melfice was possessed by the horns of Valmar when he was forced to kill his fiancé that was the songstress keeping seal intact on the shrine on the island, that also failed. Ryudo was blamed together with his brother for the incident and he ran away. And now he's back and fight Melfice again, killing him, but in doing so is also possessed by the Horns. Elena breaks down and summons Melenia that up till now have devoured all other parts of Valmar that we encountered, but this time she hesitates and instead seals it away in Ryudo since travelling together made her love him. 

Anyway, we get off the island to Maregs homeisland where he tells the elder he succeed in his mission killing Melfice (who I assume killed people in the village) and they go to get the Granasaber in the middle of a desert on the island. Turns out that the Granasaber is a big spaceship. They enter it and go back to the S:t Heim Papal state, where the knights have begun slaughtering people. Inside the cathedral Pope Zera killed the other bishops and priests and it is revealed Zera sent Elena on the quest to gather all parts of Valmar in order to make himself the reincarnation of Valmar due to loosing hope in humanity since they are filled with Darkness, and during the battle of Light and Darkness Granas actually died meaning there is no god of light. So Zera take Elena to the Moon, and you follow in the Granasaber. On the moon you rescue Elena, but Millenia is separated from Elena and used to fuel Zera's turn into Valmar. Escaping they are hunted by monsters so Mareg sacrifices himself to allow the others to escape on the Granasaber.

Crashing back on the planet they go to Cyrum and join with Roan again and go to the mausoleum of the royal family that is some sort of memory bank. Apparently the seal was just something to help along the creation of Valmar so Ryudo volonters to fuse completely with the horns to be able to fight of Valmar Zera. Really the game lost me at this point since suddenly it's all talks about the human heart and such. You get a new granasaber that you actually can use and enters Valmar Zera. After a battle with the core Millenia emerges from Elena and they are two separate people... what? Tio and Roan are left behind trying to hold the monsters so it's Ryudo, Elena and Millenia. A boss rush mode and then fighting of Valmar Zera. Everyone escapes, the game fast-forward a year when Roan travels around the world meeting Tio as a nurse, placing a medal at Maregs grave in his village, Elena is a travelling minstrel, Millenia is a teacher and Ryudo disappeared, burying the granasaber, the end.

First made for the Dreamcast it was one of the two notable RPG:s for that system, the other being Skies of Arcadia. And they look a bit alike. Hero is blue, the body seems built the same way and such. Skies of Arcadia is better though. First off, game is only 30 hours long. Nice time, but the last 2-3 hours still felt like padding a bit since you had Zera right there on the moon, why did we have to return to earth, do another dungeon? The heart thing in the end felt a bit tacked on actually. Music is great, a lot of reused material from the first game and the "love" theme is a reworked intro theme from the first game... and the credit theme. Voice acting is superior (and also the sound mixing). Cam Clarke is Ryudo and is great. Graphics are nice, I think all enemies besides bosses is just 3D-characters of enemies from the first game (and some bosses is actually also from the first game). Problem is the CG cutscenes and 2D animated ones that looks really grimey and with a weird shades. Probably needed to be more polished for better effect... also, no subtitles for those. Sound mixing is better so I hear what they say, but still. Gameplay changes are really nice, instead of everyone having their separate magic they instead equip eggs that you level up with magic points from battles. Good, no more grinding magic to be able to use the better spells. You also get books with attributes that you can equip and level up so that's fine. Overall, liked the game. Maybe a bit short in 30 hours and really nothing in side content, not even side dungeons like in the first game. Story not as good as 1, might prefer replaying that again over this, but still fine. Another problem is that I have a bit of problem with Ryudo in the beginning of the game sibce he is just a sarcastic ass to everyone. He changes a bit a long the way, but this is another reason why I like Justin better and also why Skies of Arcadia is better, Vyse always was nice to people, except enemies.

Grandia (Switch)

Time for a rematch in HD!

Been 5 years since I finished Grandia for the first time so with the HD collection for the Switch I got it again and played through the first game again. Didn't take 60 hours but more akin to 50 hours this time and it thankfully wasn't 1 year between starting up and finish it this time. And what I wrote 5 years ago is still as true this time around. Knowing the mechanics of the skills also meant I actually got the water skills (and all the other) up to decent levels that made it rather easy. Especially when I found a acid river that I could deplete the HP of all characters and then just heal to get everyone above level 10. Also knowing what to level up, who was gonna leave and then redistribute the left over levels made it much easier. Also having a page on gamefaqs so I didn't miss the mana eggs made it easier to get the magic to every character fast enough. 

Storywise, still as fun. Really like the optimistic tone, but I still would say Skies of Arcadia is better since Vyse isn't stupid compared to Justin. What I don't like and it's the same problem I wrote about last time and that is that the Garlyle forces ain't that bad. They make excavations to find historical knowledge and they mostly act with the civilians, even though some officers where fond of torture and harassing civilian kids interested in adventure. And then of course they kept the people away from the fact about the end of the world... and also from their civilian sponsors that founded the forces in the first place. Alright, there might be some problems there, but still. And then we have Baal. How did he become the bad guy? Was he infected by Gaia and turned evil? Was he always that way? Why did he marry a humanoid and got a really decent son or was that part of the evil plan? Cause otherwise it's just humans sucks.

Finally, voice acting still terrible. Justin, Feena and Sue is alright, but my god, Mullen really needs to emote better. The ending part of the game with him trying to convey failure to protect Leen or anything else is just laughable. Baal when he hams it up as a villain is rather decent, but also speaks to softly. Also, it wasn't as much speaking dialogue as I thought. Should probably be grateful with what we have. Also, I don't know if it's hardware or the game, but the joycons really acted up. The left one needed to reconnect several times as if it lost signal and often I had to push around the left stick since it seemed to lock up in a direction. As noted, don't know if hardware or something with the game programming. But I have taken some precautions by getting a pro controller so we can see later on. Especially in games like Resident Evil 4-6 with all the action.