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.