The Grandia series is part of the tradition of the great role-playing games, starting its run in 1997 until 2009, where the tracks stopped. Always developed by Game arts, now present with a dropper, and passed over the years into the hands of multiple publishers, including Sony, Ubisoft and Square Enix, today it is owned by GungHo Online Entertainment which - as the name suggests - has a good number of online games (Ragnarok Online, Puzzle & Dragons). Well, right GungHo decided to resurrect the first two chapters of the series, Grandia and Grandia II, released between 1997 and 2002, bringing them back to all screens large and small - as long as you have Nintendo Switch. The title of the revival? Grandia HD Collection, where that HD stands for a remaster operation that, we anticipate, be appreciated but a bit lazy.
Someone more attentive and who had their return at heart can immediately see that the proposed bundle has only two chapters, but the rights to Grandia III still belong to Square Enix. This, coupled with its rather stormy development, led GungHo to avoid (perhaps put off) the HD version of Grandia III.
At the time Grandia made a lot of talk about itself because of its particular combat system embellished with a story with different tones - depending on which Grandia you were facing - but always captivating. Through this review of the game, already available, we will find out if the two JRPGs have stood the test of time and if GungHo's work deserves to be supported by paying what is requested (€ 39,99).
Grandia, or of innocence
The first Grandia came out, as a good JRPG, first in Japan in 1997 on Sega Saturn and only two years later on PlayStation (and in the West). The version chosen for the Grandia HD Collection fell on that PlayStation, universally considered the worst. Some screens that can be found online confirm, in fact, the higher quality of the Sega console. The decision was most likely made due to the hardware difficulties that the Saturn presented, but GungHo was clear: working up between the two versions they wanted to revive RPGs in their definitive version. The result? Certainly the textures that make up Grandia HD are more defined and colorful, but we cannot declare the Saturn defeated across the board.
I uploads are instant: Starting the game, choosing the version and loading the game takes place within seconds, allowing you to immediately immerse yourself in the adventurous world of Grandia whenever you want. We have to deal with the graphics of the time, an RPG between 2D and 3D that perhaps did not fully exploit the original consoles but that refers to role-playing games of the past - where Grandia, according to its supporters, is it has carved out a place of honor - convincing with its light-hearted tone.
The protagonist of Grandia is Justin, a teenager with an unbridled desire to travel and become an adventurer. Son of a globetrotting dad and a mother with a pirate past, it is clear that the apple did not fall far from the tree and, as soon as the opportunity presents itself, Justin decides to leave his city to cross the sea and go to the new continent, Elencia, where it is said that you can see where the world ends. Justin's will, accompanied by his childhood friend Sue and a green-haired adventurer named Feena, intersects with those of the Garlyle Forces, a private army with its own mysterious agenda.
The boy with long red hair not only wants to verify if beyond a high wall erected to protect the world for real ends, but he also has a memento of his father, the Spirit Stone, which recalls an ancient civilization: so Justin embodies the two elements that distinguish the first Grandia, exuberance and adventure - in one word: "innocence", wanting to be a free spirit and go where the heart leads. Grandia also winks at anime and not only with the expressions in the character icons, but bringing to the stage more than a comic situation that refers to Japanese cartoons, all seasoned with a unique combat system which for many makes of Grandia… Grandia, in fact.
To put it simply, combat is one fusion between the real-time and the shift-based system. Unfortunately there is no tutorial in the game (Game Arts will do it again with Grandia II), but at the center of it all is a bar called IP Gauge, where IP stands for Initiative Point. In it, the icons of the characters and enemies move from waiting (wait) to choosing the command (act) up to the staging of what has been chosen (com). Different speeds of characters and spells will make the bar fill faster or slower and once you get to the "act" command a range of possibilities: combo, critical, magic, defense, evasion, etc. The combo allows you to unleash two attacks while the critical only one, but the latter is able to cancel the enemy attack and make him repeat the turn of the bar.
It is therefore important to always keep an eye on it to draw up an effective and rewarding strategy. In fact, if the enemy is faster or is about to launch an attack it will be the case, once you get to "com", to defend or avoid, moving to another point in the arena: the characters will move in real time both to attack or move, e Switch handles this perfectly. By exploring you can also find the so-called Mana Eggs with which to buy the magic to use in-game. Let's talk about the four elements that, like individual weapons, the more they are used the more they level up, unlocking more powerful spells.
It goes without saying that with this wealth of possibilities i fights are a little long with elaborate animations: Grandia would have really benefited from a fast forward feature, which has now become the practice for old RPGs that come back to be seen, but strangely GungHo has not implemented this possibility (we hope it will in the future); the compass that serves as a sketched map has also remained intact: moving around the lands of Elencia is not easy and the only help comes only in specific points through which it is possible to see the area from a bird's eye view. Apart from these problems, playing Grandia HD both in docked mode and (above all) in handheld mode is a pleasure, making us relive a carefree adventure thanks to the soundtrack composed by Noriyuki Iwadare, very respectable.
Grandia II, or of maturity
With Grandia II the music changes: no, not that of Iwadare (always punctual), we are talking about a change of atmosphere that relegates the innocence of Justin and Sue to the first chapter, proposing a more mature story and darker outlines. We are also on a larger console, the Sega Dreamcast (2000) and the arrival on the Sony flagship in 2002 means taking advantage of the best console hardware to move away graphically (and narratively) from the first Grandia.
There is no narrative connection with Elencia and the graphics are presented as polygonal with the consecration of 3D. Grandia II is about Ryudo, a grumpy boy accompanied by a talking bird called Skye. Ryudo is a Geohound, a mercenary who goes from job to job. One of his assignments - which will later turn out to be the most important - concerns the protection of Elena, a girl exponent of the Church of Granas, called to perform a ceremonial rite to drive away Valmar, the God of Darkness who fought hundreds of years ago, losing, against Granas, the God of Light. The ceremony goes wrong and Valmar approaches awakening; Elena is touched by the darkness, leading Ryudo to embark on a journey to purify the girl and prevent Valmar from destroying the world.
The plot of the second title signed by Game Arts therefore appears very classic with theimmortal theme of the battle of good against evil, but Hidenobu Takahashi, director of the title, takes the cold Ryudo and makes him move between the narrow corners of the Church of Granas, Elena's humanity and her strange with Millenia, transforming this second Grandia (as the first) less obvious than it appears.
Grandia II takes up the famous combat system, now properly explained, with some mechanical changes. The action bar is always the protagonist, but this time the Mana Eggs, with different spells depending on the type (Holy will give Heal, Chaos will give Burn, etc.), must be equipped by the characters, enhanced with magic coins, magical experience that you collect fight after fight and, more importantly, are swappable on the fly. This means that for example Ryudo can be the healer of the team, while in the next battle he will be able to count with more offensive spells if equipped with the Chaos Egg.
The animations are even more elaborate than in the first (read: beautiful, but long), so you feel the need for manual speeding even more and demonstrates how the work done by GungHo is essentially the same as its predecessor: apart from a graphical improvement and a clearer compass, Grandia II undergoes a "Mere" cleaning treatment but without any extras, and we are not just talking about the aforementioned fast forward, but about more obvious features such as theinability to adjust the different sounds of the game (present, however, in the Grandia II Anniversary Edition of 2015). The two titles are respectively 22 and 19 years old, many for the videogame medium, and improvements that would help the fluidity as happened with the recent Final Fantasy VIII Remastered would certainly have embellished the collection by leveraging even the most skeptical.
Finally, there are two small parentheses to open: - as in the original -, allowing you to choose between English and Japanese dubbing and subtitles in three European languages (English, French, German). The second is the question of fps: on the net we complain about the frame rate, especially in the second chapter and in portable mode. During our TV and laptop pilgrimages we did not experience frame drops and the experience has always lived up to expectations, from Justin's exuberance to Ryudo's coolness, except for moments in the second where the natural noises (the splash of water and the crackle of fire) stopped and started again , a sign of a fairly arranged loop point.
Grandia HD Collection proposes on Nintendo Switch (and soon on PC) two remarkable role-playing games, children of their time and of the consoles on which they were developed. Grandia and Grandia II, which can be seen as a child and adult due to the themes covered, innocence and maturity, have been remastered in the graphics but little else. Both take their time and would have needed a fast forward button to be repurposed in the best possible way and to be in step with the times. Without this option they end up losing some of that sensuality that is actually inherent in the adventures of Justin and Ryudo, from the fighting system that has made school up to the soundtrack composed by Noriyuki Iwadare that does not pale in front of the RPG more noble. The two Grandia convince in themselves because they have not lost a shred of charm, while the GungHo operation less - not so much for what has been achieved, but what has been chosen to leave behind.
