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After finding this game buried in the shelves of a pawn shop , I plucked it free from its dark prison. I had been on this spectacular run of classic and newer rpgs that have absolutely wowed me. Shadowrun Returns, Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest VI, Final Fantasy Tactics, Tales of Vesperia, and Ultima IV. The game i found was Grindea. I managed to go through a long, unskippable introduction before I was introduced to the protagonist Justin and his sidekick Sara. That's immediately when things started to go downhill for me.

I've only played about 2 hours of this, and already there's story and gameplay elements that bug the daylights out of me.

The gameplay problems actually aren't that bad, they're just magnified by the poor story elements. The first gameplay element that bugs me is the 2.5 D isometric element to it. Hand drawn characters now suddenly are traipsing through the primitive play station polygons, and this leads to certain problems, such as clipping into walls, enemies blinking on and off the screen, and a slow, clunky battle system.

This pales in comparison to some of the story elements. I know this was during the dark age of anime, but did it really have to be that bad? Everybody is always slapping Justin, this 12 year old boy, around. His mother, Sara, and so many of the neighbors. They tell him what an awful bastard he is, when he doesn't even really do much to deserve this treatment. No wonder he wants to flee from his hometown as fast as possible, these people abuse children for the sake of humor!

Now we move on to his sidekick, Sara. she's supposed to be the cute sidekick and the mark of common sense, which should be annoying in its own right, but instead, she's more like "feedback from a microphone next to an electromagnet" annoying. Just shut her up! Replace her with Navi from Ocarina of Time, or Fi from Skyward Sword! At least they shut up once in awhile!This is only made better by the fact that this little parasite carries with it another parasite. This cute puffy thing who honestly serves no purpose in the story other than to be cute and say its catch phrase over and over again. It had nothing whatsoever to contribute, just to "puff puff puff" in the middle of conversations.

Does this game get any better? Should I just give on this game now?

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"So, are you a fan of the Fett?"

"Nah, I'm more of a Star Wars guy."

I've never heard of this game, but I have to say that any game that tells you to grind right in its name might not be worth it.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

I am also not familiar with the game. In fact, when I google'd it all I saw was a SNES RPG parody game, so the fact it shares a title with a parody is probably not the greatest news, hah. I play RPGs for the story, so I'm usually picky about playing a game where I feel the story/characters are only going to disappoint; I'm always able to overlook gameplay for plot, but that's just me.

When I'm annoyed with a story/character/whathaveyou, though, I always try to ask myself: is there a good reason for this [---] to be annoying? Is the fact that I find it annoying part of what the game is trying to do? If the answer's yes, then I'll usually end up appreciating it down the line. Now, in your case... not so sure it satisfies that

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Currently Playing : Final Fantasy V
Most Recently Beat : Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
Favorite Game : Final Fantasy X

The newest CoNcast is up! Have a listen!

I think they mean Grandia.

It does sound like Grandia. The first two characters in that one are Justin and Sara. Grandia does get a little better (Sara's awful, but she isn't with you the entire game), but if you aren't enjoying it by the second or third dungeon it probably isn't for you. It's a slightly rare game, so nice find getting it in a pawn shop!

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
END SPOILER

For a moment I thought this was referring to the more recent game Secrets of Grindea, which is probably what Death Penalty found.

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

One key consideration is that Grandia was a well received series with several sequels and a few spinoffs before the creator just up 'n died. I haven't played any but here's my opinion nevertheless:

Research the sequels to see if those are games you'd want to play. This may help you to indicate whether or not the original stands a chance of improvement. However more importantly, since you're a story driven player, even if you'd have to suffer through the original, it might be worth completing just to give context to the next installment. Now it might not make much sense to play the sequel of a game you hate but I personally find that the first installment in a series usually teaches game creators what they can improve on, allowing the sequel to be much better than the original while retaining the same basic style. The third game will typically be a radical departure from either which can be a huge hit or a colossal miss.

If you want more series specific advice, I can't offer much but I'll do what I can. First I should say was a Dreamcast game with a Playstation 2 port. This may be a somewhat unfair comparison since it's the newest of the three but graphically speaking, games on the Dreamcast hold up much better to the standards of today than the Jaggystation or Ninblurredo 64. A few days ago the opening cutscene for Grandia II, and I think it looked pretty neat in both versions of the game.

Keep in mind that I wouldn't know if that cutscene contains spoilers for the first installment, since as I've already stated, I haven't played either. It probably doesn't matter since you're considering dropping the game but regardless, I think it's worth making several notes just in case:

The first is that while it still seems to have some slapstick elements, it seems more incidental and opens with something resembling a respectful bow. Secondly, in Grandia II, while an overhead view is retained, they changed it so that the characters are also polygonal and it looks like there might be some camera control. The graphics look more coherent than the original Grandia's and maybe you'll see less of that annoying clipping.

This post has been edited by Tonepoet on 22nd April 2015 05:31

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Role reversal at its finest.

FYI Grandia II is coming (back) to PC, via Steam and possibly other distributors.

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )