Grandia - The New World

Pirate’s Island

Last time on Grandia, a very nice moment with Justin and Feena was ruined by Justin being an idiot after meeting a pretty girl in peril. It was extremely obvious the girl was luring Justin into a trap, to anyone except Justin, apparently. In any case, the location to explore now was called the Pirate’s Island.

The island part was all the way at the end though. I’m not sure what I was walking on most of my time in the area, but I’m guessing it was sand, or maybe magical sea foam or something. In any case, it was a maze of white, floaty, sandy stuff with a lot of twists, turns and dead ends.

Grandia - Pirate's Island

That’s a really weird beach if you ask me.

I did my best to explore all of it before finally getting to the island in the center  but there’s still a strong possibility I missed something. What I’m worried the most is that I somehow missed a mana egg somewhere. I also think I’ve spent far too much time grinding in the past, because the enemies here weren’t giving a lot of experience in any category.

Eventually, I got tired of walking in circles and got to the island at the center  Apparently, the pretty girl in peril has a bunch of identical siblings, because identically looking pretty girls seemed to be the islands only population. They managed to convince Justin to get inside the cave and “beat the pirates” and then the obvious thing finally happened. The cave contained the monster behind the illusion – a giant angler fish with a lure in the shape of a pretty girl.

Grandia - Pirate's Island

A trap! Who knew!?

The boss took a while to beat, since I only had two people in my party, but it wasn’t hard in any sense of the word. I have to say, though, it’s a very creative-looking boss. Enemy design is one of Grandia’s strengths.

The Virgin Forest

The island sank and I soon landed on the shore of the new continent, or a new part of the old continent, to be more precise, since the sea was described as “The Inner Sea” earlier in the game. Just as with the island, the Virgin Forest contained enemies that gave me very little experience, so I actually tried avoiding some battles. Of course, I ended up just getting ambushed because of it, so the exploration probably took longer than it should have.

Grandia - Land Slug

New enemies and a new battle theme!

I soon met up with Guido, the talking rabbit I already met in Dight, so he used the opportunity to relieve me of some of my money by offering shelter and bed and then asking for payment after it was all done.
Again, I took some time exploring, but I didn’t find any mana eggs. At this point, I’m almost certain I missed at least one in one of the last few areas, because it’s been a couple of hours since I’ve last seen one.

Eventually, I got to the third area of the forest, where I met a new playable character and one of the final four party member – Rapp. Now, I think I already mentioned Rapp in one of these posts, but I also think I called him Ralph or something like that, so I apologize for that. I’m pretty sure I also said that Rapp doesn’t start with any magical elements, but it turns out I was wrong – he starts with the Fire skill already learned. It’s at a very low level, but this still means I need one less mana egg than I thought I would.

Grandia - Rapp

Rapp is involved in a sort of a “lost boys” situation.

Rapp uses daggers, swords and ranged weapons, so Sue’s Bow book will boost his strength quite a bit. He also has a lot of ranged skills, so I guess that’s supposed to be his focus in the game. Of course, I still want to teach him all the spells and other weapon skills, provided there’s enough mana eggs left in the game by now.

Anyway, Rapp leads a gang of kids and he thought Justin and Feena were bad guys so he trapped them in a pit. Soon after their encounter, though, one of his “apprentices” gets attacked by a monster, so I get the chance to prove Justin’s good intentions. Rapp invites Justin and Feena to his village and soon after takes them to the Petrified Forest, the next area.

Grandia - Tower of Doom

Next up – The Tower of Doom

Apparently, a tower was built next to Rapp’s old village, by some people looking a lot like Justin (i.e. humans). Right after the tower was built, the village somehow got turned to stone, which is how the Petrified Forest came to be. The survivors built the village of Cafu and Rapp promised himself to destroy the tower sometime in the future. When Justin saw what happened to Rapp’s old village and his family, he immediately offered to help Rapp destroy the village, so this takes us to our next area.

Oh, and I finally found a mana egg at the Petrified Forest. I think Rapp will learn Earth or Wind next.

Last time on Grandia, I got seriously stuck. The EBOOT I’m using on my PSP turned out bugged, so it kept freezing at the Twin Towers animated cut scene. I tried using the PSP Go Pause Game feature to go around it, but it wouldn’t work. Well, I managed to navigate around it anyway, albeit in a very unconventional way.

How to Transfer saves from PSP to ePSXe?

You see, I have a PC and I’m no stranger to emulation. I dusted off my copy of ePSXe, updated it and got an ISO of Grandia with the same ID as the one I have on my PSP – SCUS94457. I know, I know, technically, this is piracy, but I paid 50€ for the German version of Grandia about 15 years ago, and that amount of money is around 8% of my current income, so sue me.

I’m kidding. Please don’t sue me. It’s totally a legal backup.

PSP Go Save Game

The two VMP files are the actual memory cards.

Anyway , I got the ISO, err, backup and loaded it up on ePSXe. I made sure the two memory card files in the memcard subfolder of ePSXe were created and then I connected my PSP Go to the PC. I found the original saves in PSP/SAVEDATA/SCUS94457 on my PSP Go and copied them to my PC.

MemCardRex - Save Transfer

Copying from the PSP Go to the ePSXe memory card is as simple as copying a file.

Then I got an awesome piece of software – MemCardRex. This tools allows you to edit different PS1 save formats, copy save slots from one memory card to another and even create new memory card files. It can edit and save a large amount of formats and read a few more. I loaded up my PSP Go save files in one tab and my ePSXe memory card file in the other and copied the Grandia saves.  I was now able to continue my game on the ePSXe, so that’s what I did.

The Game

I got past the Twin Towers, since the dungeon ended as soon as the cut scene was over. What followed was the saddest part of the game and the second saddest moment in my gaming career, second only to the scene from Final Fantasy VII. The game was hinting that Sue was getting more and more exhausted since the End of The World, possibly even sooner, but it finally happened. She collapsed at the village of Dight.

Grandia - Sue Collapsed

I didn’t notice the hints on my first playthrough.

Justin needed a teleportation orb from the nearby Mysterious Vanishing Hill to get over the inner sea, though, so Sue did her usual grown up thing and sent him on his way. The Mysterious Vanishing Hill was a relatively short area, made even shorter with ePSXe’s ability to fast forward through battles by disabling the FPS limiter. I fought the two bosses there, got the orb and went back to Sue.

She decided to leave adventuring to Justin until she gets older. It’s hard to describe this, but it was a very touching scene and in the end, Justin decided to use the orb to help Sue get back to Parm. This means Sue wont be learning any more spells and I’m one awesome character short. On the game side, I got Sue’s skill books, so not all of it will be wasted, but story-wise, it was still a very sad moment.

Grandia - Sue's Farewell

Right in the feeler!

Since teleportation was out of the question, I needed a boat. Luckily, Gadwin had one, so he told me to meet him back at his house when we’re ready to leave. Getting there was a bit annoying, since the area was full of low-level enemies I couldn’t avoid.

I got to Gadwin and then it was revealed I’m gonna lose another awesome character. Gadwin challenged Justin to a duel and this time, I won. He taught me his secret Dragon Move and then said it’s time for him to go on his own Journey. Again, I got his skill books, but I still lost an awesome character.

Grandia - Justin beats Gadwin

Both battles are rigged, but it’s still a cool part of the game.

I went back to Dight and boarded Gadwin ship. Again, the game offered some touching moments during the voyage and Justin actually got serious for a bit, before a pretty girl ran into their boat, called Justin “her hero” and asked him to save her island from pirates. That’s where I stopped playing.

Grandia - Feena Disappointed

Justin really knows how to kill the magic.

Half way through, though, I transferred my save back to the PSP, because I prefer a bug and stutter free experience, which apparently, ePSXe is unable to offer, even after all these years.

How to transfer saves from PC to the PSP

Sadly, MemCardRex can’t save to the PSP memory card format, only read from it. In order to transfer my saves there, I had to go with a different route. I downloaded the CWCheats plugin for my PSP Go. There are different versions of the plugin out there, but not all of them work on the PSP Go, so I had to find the right one. This plugin basically allows for hex cheats in PSP and POPS games, but it can also replace entire memory cards on the fly and it also allows ePSXe save file imports.

In order to get to that point, I had to rename my ePSXe save file to the GAME_IDE-#.mcr format, which ended up being:

[code]SCUS_94457-0.mcr[/code]

I renamed it to that and then copied the file to the seplugins/cwcheat/mc folder on my PSP. Then I made sure the plugin was working and I loaded up Grandia. Once I was at the title menu, I pushed and held Select for a few seconds, which caused the cwcheat menu to appear. From there, I was able to import the ePSXe save from the Manage Memory Cards menu. If the file doesn’t appear for you, make sure you named it correctly. It needs to be named after the game ID, which you can also read from the cwcheat menu while the game is running.

Anyway, I got past the freezing bug at Twin Towers and now I’m able to keep playing my game on the PSP Go.

Grandia - Map

As I said, my next location were the Lama Mountains, where coincidentally,  I believe I got another mana egg or two, unless I remember it incorrectly. The area was a bit lengthy and It took me even longer to get through it due to not playing through all of it in one go, but eventually, I got to the other side, to Gumbo Village, which has one of the funniest parts in the story.

Grandia - Party

Wind is the first element for Sue, but it probably won’t be the only one.

As we walk in, everyone runs away from Justin and Feena, thinking they’re a couple. For some reason, that’s a big no-no in Gumbo Village. Eventually, we get to the mayor and Justin volunteers both Feena and himself to be “the heroic couple” of legends because hey, it’s fun and the villagers seem to like the idea. Soon after, it turns out that the thing that makes the couple heroic is that they’re going to be sacrificed to the dragon living at the local volcano. The dragon is somehow stopping the volcano from working properly, causing the usually nice and warm Gumbo Village to get called. Since a couple needs to be sacrificed for some unexplained reason, everyone denies even liking anyone else, which is why the villagers are acting crazy.

Grandia - Catapult

You know it’s a big catapult when you have time for a talk in the air.

Anyway, Justin and Feena sort of find this out when it’s already too late, and they get catapulted into the volcano. This got me into the next area, where I soon regrouped with Sue and Gadwin and then spent the next hour or two, or three, exploring it and getting all the items. Again, it would and should have been faster, but I’ve played it sporadically and in short bursts, so I was forced to keep retracing my steps. Eventually, I got some nice accessories, one of which gives me an extra swing with my regular attack and eventually got to the boss. The dragon was easy to deal with and before I knew it, I was back at Gumbo Village.

Grandia - Dragon

The dragon was an easy fight, just like all of the others.

Justin and Feena had a nice moment and then it was time to go to the next area – The Twin Towers. The Twin Towers are ancient ruins located beyond the nearby mountains. Since the mountains were poisonous (I’m guessing the volcano has something to do with that, I had to go by boat. As soon as I got there, it was obvious the Garyle forces where already there. I explored the outer area and managed to get into the inner area thanks to Justin saying they’re local guides hired by the army.

Eventually, I got to the central chamber, where Justin and Gadwin had a clash with Mullen (and failed), before Leen, Feena, Mullen and Justin managed to somehow activate a teleporter pad and got transfered underground into the ruins. Justin got paired with Leen, while Feena was stuck with Mullen. For the most part, the underground area was simple and I would have gone past it by now, if it weren’t for a serious problem.

Grandia - Mullen

Mullen seems sort of decent here.

The game freezes at the end of the Twin Towers. This, in all likelihood,  has something to do with it being a eboot conversion of the regular PlayStation game, but I tried all I could think off with no luck. I’m stuck at the moment where Justin and Leen activate one of those communication crystals. Liete says “Welcome” and is just about to say “he who carries the spirit stone” when everything just stops. I tried pausing my game (PSP Go) and reloading that state, but it didn’t help. I tried changing my ISO driver – nothing.

Grandia - Twin Towers Freeze

The game freezes a few seconds after this.

 

I’m afraid there will be no more Grandia on the PSP for me. All is not lost, though. I did some research and I think it’s possible to transfer a PSP save to a PC emulator, so I’ll try to load up ePSXe in a couple of days and finish the game that way. For now, I have to pick another game to play on the PSP. I think I might go for something that isn’t a JRPG this time, but I can’t make any promises. That is my favorite console genre, after all.

 

Grandia - The End of the World

Sadly, I didn’t get a chance to play on my PSP too much, so Grandia was played very little since the last time I wrote about it. I did advance the game a bit, but not too much. However, I also got through a pretty big game event.

Most of my time in the game was spent going back and forth through the forest around the village of Luc. The forest was extremely disorienting and I never got the time to finish it in one sitting, so I kept forgetting where I was and where I needed to go when I got back to the game. Since enemies reset if you leave the area completely, and this happened several times, I ended up basically repeating most of the forest more than once. Eventually, though, I got through it and finally reached the End of the World.

Now, this is a huge wall, with many floors, but it wasn’t really to complex. There was a short break half way to the top, where the group had a nice talk, but eventually, they got to the top realized Justin’s guess was true – it wasn’t really the end of the world. There was plenty to see beyond. Then Sue promptly got picked up by a machine and got thrown off the edge to the jungle bellow. Justin and Feena got thrown soon after.

Grandia - The End of the World

Guess what happens five seconds later?

On the other side, I got control over Justin and Feena and needed to find Sue. The area was pretty big and divided into three or four smaller areas, so I spent a long time exploring, making sure to find all the important stuff. About half way through, I got to a house shaped like a wish, with some soup cooking in a cauldron outside. Sue’s shoe was nearby, so the two jumped to conclusions. Once a large man approached and said “he ate it all”, Justin attacked. The big man was Gadwin, Knight of Dight and a brand new and extremely cool playable character. Of course, he just ate soup and didn’t do anything bad to Sue. She was resting inside his house. Now at this point, the game decided to show me how strong Gadwin really is, so Justin isn’t able to do any damage at all to him. I don’t even get a zero, the hit’s just seem to be deflected. This drags on for about a minute, at which point Gadwin uses his Dragon King Slice and Justin get’s hit for 9999 damage. This is sort of important for later, so if you’re regularly reading this, try to remember it.

Grandia - Gadwin

Remember, kids. Gadwin is really strong.

Soon enough, I had all four characters under my control and I could continue exploring the jungle, on my way to Dight Village. Exploring the place thoroughly was well worth it, since the jungle contained two fresh mana eggs, as well as some other less important items. Eventually, I got to the village, where our next quest was about to begin.

Rain was about to start pouring, which normally wouldn’t be an issue, except this was poisonous, deadly rain. In order to stop the rain from doing the damage, two heroes needed to go to Typhoon Tower and retrieve a special spear from it. Gadwin would, naturally, be the first one, so Justin volunteered to be the other one. This got us to our next dungeon, but before I went there, I decided to use those mana eggs. Gadwin already knew two elements – fire and earth. Additionally, his other two elements were disabled, so he wasn’t able to learn them. Because of this and the fact that I’m 99% sure I didn’t miss any of the mana eggs yet, I decided to finally spend one and teach Sue an element – wind.

After I bought the spell and spent most of my money on fresh gear, I went to the tower. The outside area was simple to navigate through, but also extremely large, so it took me a while to explore all of it. When I got inside, it was suddenly the other way around. The inside of the tower was small, but I had to constantly go back and forth, hitting various switches and opening new passages. Eventually, I got to the top floor, where I had to fight the king of the enemies I fought throughout the area – some strange bird people. Of course, he turned into a multi-headed dragon before I fought him, just to make it a bit more interesting.

Grandia - Typhoon

The tower falls, but everyone is safe.

I defeated the boss and entered the chamber behind the throne room, where Gadwin revealed the catch with the quest. There are two doors. One of them leads to the spear, while the other kills whoever goes through. This is why two heroes are needed – so that one can continue if the other one falls. Gadwin decided to go first, but he’s to big so he can’t fit through the door (remember, this is mostly a kid’s game). This means Justin needs to do it, so he asks Feena to choose for him. Feena picks the door of the Stars (I’m not sure if this is the same in every game) and Justin goes through. It’s the right choice, so he takes the spear, but the tower ends up collapsing on top of him anyway. Luckily, his spirit stone transports him to safety and the village is safe.

Grandia - Spell Store

To spend, or to save. Tough choice.

Next target? The ruins far to the south. Right now, I’m in the village of Dight, trying to decide if I should spend the two mana eggs I have (I got another one at the tower) on Sue, or If I should save them for later. I’m pretty sure Liete and some random thief character are my final two characters, and I’m pretty sure that Liete starts with all the elements already learned, but I’m not sure about the other guy, and I’m not sure how many eggs I can still get before the game ends. I’ll probably spend them, but I might change my mind before my next chance to play the game.

Quite a lot has happened since the last time I wrote about my play through, but honestly, I’m getting kind of tired of just retelling the story of the game in these articles. I’ve done this with all three of the Final Fantasy games as well as the Witcher, but I’d like to write more about the mechanics and other gameplay elements instead. This is why I’ll try to only shortly focus on the story in Grandia from now on.

 

The Story from New Parm to the village of Luc

So since last time, Justin got on the ship to the new continent. On the ship, he found out Sue followed him and snuck on board, so they were forced to work as sailors for the duration of the trip. Soon, they met Feena, a third playable character, who was already an adventurer. The three of them went on board of a ghost ship and defeated the boss there before finally reaching New Parm.

Grandia - Squid Boss

The boss of the ghost ship was actually a giant squid.

In New Parm, Justin got extremely disappointed with the local Adventurer’s Guild, which turned out to be just a glorified tourist agency. The president of the guild also kidnapped Feena and tried to force her into marrying him, so there was that to. Sue and Justin rescued Feena and the three of them went to explore the nearby ruins where they talked to Liete again.

Grandia - World Map

Before Dom Ruins, you need to get through Rangle Mountains. You can find two mana eggs here, so between area’s go back to New Parm.

Returning from the ruins, they found a wounded kid with ah horns and a tail. The Garyle military, including Mullen, Leen and the three teenage girl generals were after the kid, so they imprisoned everyone. Thanks to some help from Leen, the group and the kid, named Ren, managed to escape and went to Ren’s home at Luc Village.

Grandia - Meeting Ren

Geez, Sue! Is it all about the looks for you?

The Garyle army followed and tried to steal a sacred statue, which turned out to be a huge spirit stone. It broke, but the army took half of it. Also, Leen turned out to be Feena’s sister! Right now, I’m heading for the End of the World, a huge wall which no one managed to climb yet. I guess I’ll be the first to do it.

Grandia - Leen and Feena

The game actually was hinting Leen is Feena’s sister. I noticed it this time, on my second play through.

The Game

Initially, I tried to train my skills intelligently, so I could get new, useful moves as soon as possible. Eventually, I realized there isn’t much point to this, because the game modifies the various formulas for experience gain so you can’t get to far ahead in any one skill or spell, and it’s extremely easy to catch up with skills you neglected for a while.

Grandia - Dom Ruins Save Point

Further down the path from here, there’s a line of stone head traps where you can boost your water magic easily.

This didn’t stop me from overtraining completely, though. At Don ruins, there is an area with traps that do damage to everyone in the party right next to a save point. Basically, I was able to use my healing spells in the field until I ran out of mana and then just go back to the save point to recover. I did this until everyone’s water magic was at level 5 or higher. By that point, the process became so slow I just didn’t feel like grinding anymore. Still, this gave me access to Slumber, All Heal and provided some very welcome stat boosts. The extra mana points will especially be useful.

Mana Eggs

Speaking of magic, I haven’t really said anything about how it works. Justin and Sue don’t start with any magic before they meet Feena, who starts with a the fire skill available. From then on, I can find items called mana eggs in various places of the world, as long as I explore everything thoroughly. Each mana egg can then be used at a shop to teach one skill to a character. There’s a limited amount of eggs, so I’m not sure if there’s enough for everyone to learn all four magic skills, so I decided to use the eggs on the characters who will stick with me until the end of the game first.

Grandia - Liete

Liete moves the story forward in the early game.

I guess I forgot about that. Grandia is a game with a relatively large number of characters, but you never really assemble your party in any way. Instead, old characters leave and new join at various points in the story. As I said, I’m not sure if I can get enough eggs to teach all the skills to all of them, so for now, I’ll be teaching the two who will be staying with me until the end – Justin and Feena.  Right now, Justin has already learned all four and Feena only lacks the Earth skill. I think I managed to get all the eggs I could to this point. I got:

  • One from the ghost ship boss
  • One in the sewers beneath New Parm
  • One on Merril Road
  • Two in Rangle Mountains (one in each sub-area)
  • One in Dom Ruins

I’m a bit worried I missed an egg in the Misty Forest, but I tried to explore everything, so I’m hoping I didn’t. In any case, that means I got a total of six eggs up to and including the village of Luc. Since the party can hold four characters, and I know Feena started with the Fire skill already available, this means I need at most fifteen total. I’m also 90% sure one of the final characters starts with plenty of skills learned, so the total number is probably even smaller.

When I played the game as a kid, I’ve definitely missed a bunch of eggs so I was also missing a lot of skills at the end, so I’ll do what I can to stop this from happening again.

The Skills and Spells

I like how the various moves you can do in battle don’t follow the usual mold as much as most other games do.  There’s no “Fire 1/2/3” in this one. There are stronger and weaker fire spells, but they differ in name, look, mechanics, basically everything other than the element. There are also combination such as fire + wind (thunder), water + wind (ice), etc.

Each character gets several weapon skills and four possible magical skills. Using any of the moves related to the skill provides some experience in that skill. Once 100 experience is collected, the character gains a skill level. To unlock moves you need a amount of levels in a certain combination of skills.

Grandia - Tremor

Tremor is the earliest earth spell that allows you to do damage while improving your skill.

In addition to this, each skill gain provides different stat bonuses, so you can actually specialize your characters to a degree. For instance, if I focus on axes and earth magic with Justin, he’ll do a lot more damage with the extra strength he gains. On the other hand, fire and sword skills will increase his wit. It’s quite a fun system, but for now, I’ve been using the “gotta catch ’em all” approach of using all the skills equally so I could get more moves sooner.

The Difficulty

Honestly, the game is really easy now. Part of it is probably due to abusing the trap mechanic at Dom ruins and part due to exploring everything, which made me get a lot of experience and money, which I then used to buy fresh equipment at every shop. Part of it also because I’m really still at the start of the game. The overall story isn’t really known yet and for now, the goals the game provides are very immediate – “go to the next area to learn more”.

Grandia - The Locker Room

The greatest moment of the three commanders.

Mostly, it’s because I have a better grasp of the mechanics now than what I had as a kid. Back then,  I was running away from monsters, getting ambushed, wasting mana eggs and focusing on the wrong skills. Now, I understand how to slow down enemies, cancel their attacks, move away from potential damage and just use all the skills at my disposal far more effectively. Thanks to this, several bosses I fought up to this point didn’t get a chance to hurt me even once.

After I got distracted by Crash Bandicoot (in a really good way), it was finally time to start up Grandia. This is one of my favorite PlayStation RPGs, after the Final Fantasy series. Actually, I’d probably put it above Final Fantasy VIII in many areas.

Grandia - Title Screen

Every time I see this screen, I can hear the music in my head.

Grandia was originally released on the Sega Saturn, I believe, which I never owned or even saw in real life. It got re-released on the PlayStation two years later, and one year later, I bought it. Since I bought all of my PlayStation games in Germany, this one was in German to. However, the voice acting remained English throughout most of the game, with the exception of the animated sequences.

Voice acting?

Yup, this game had voice acting. It was one of the rare PlayStation JRPGs that had it. It wasn’t very good voice acting, but I didn’t know better back then so I loved every word of it. These days, I still love it, but mostly for nostalgia’s sake.

The Beginning

The game starts in Parm, a town on the shore of the old continent. The main protagonist Justin and his little friend Sue are playing with some kids. Well, they’re dueling, actually. The kid, called Gantz, issued a challenge to Justin – to find four legendary treasures. If Justin fails to do this before dusk, Sue will have to  marry Gantz, which she doesn’t like at all.

Grandia - Justin Getting Hit

If he lived in the modern times of the real world, Justin would probably be a nerd.

I basically had to scour through the city to try to find the four items, but there was no real time limit.  Sue got the apron (Legendary Armor) and then the two of them got the iron pot and the pot lid (Warrior’s Helm and the Shield of Light). After a while, I also got the wooden sword (Spirit Sword).

Obviously, these are kids we’re talking about here, which is something I love about the game – it does not take itself seriously even for a moment. Another thing I love is the coffee joke. Apparently, in the world of Grandia, coffee is what alcohol is in the real world, and more. Kids hate the stuff and “only adults can appreciate the taste of it”. If you drink too much of it, you get drunk or something. There are people who constantly drink to much, people who drink in secret, etc. Coffee is bad, basically.

Marma Road

After the events in Parm, Justin went to visit the local museum, where the curator gave him back his spirit stone. The spirit stone is something Justin’s dad left him, so he gave it to the curator so he could test it. He didn’t discover anything other than that the stone is harder than diamond.

After a short talk, the curator gave Justin and Sue a pass to a local archaeological dig at the Sult Ruins. To get there, I had to walk the Marna road.  Before that, though,  it was time for dinner with mom.

Meal Time

This is another great thing about the game. At the end of each day, or when the party is supposed to take a break, determined by the story, everyone gathers around the table or the camp fire and talks about the day. It really adds charm to the game.

Grandia - Meal Time

Whenever it’s time to take a break, everyone sits to have a meal together.

Anyway, I got to Marna road and explored the area entirely. I didn’t find much, other than some gold and herbs, but I gained a few levels, which means I finally did some battling. The great things just keep coming, so here’s another one.

No Random Battles

Yup. There are no random battles in Grandia. Monsters do randomly appear on the map, but you see them at all times, so you decide when to attack and when to avoid them. Of course, if you keep avoiding them, you’ll probably end up ambushed, but it’s still your choice. If you’re good, you can even ambush them.

Grandia - Rah Rah Cheer

The Rah-Rah Cheer has voice acting to, same as almost every other move. Also, the Rah-Rah Cheer is awesome.

There’s also movement and placement in battle, which sort of reminds me of Chrono Trigger from the SNES era. Depending on your placement and the placement of enemies, it absolutely matters which actions you pick. You can hit multiple enemies at once, avoid getting hit yourself, or even counter or cancel an enemies attack.

Marna Road Explored

Eventually, I explored the entire area and gained a level or two. Mostly I’ve been fighting bugs, spiders and some sort of centipede enemy. While doing this, I refreshed my memory about the various moves and mechanics available. I got to the Sult Ruins and saved my game.