Grandia: In Search of
the Lost Civilization of Angelou

STORY

The story like with Lunar start off with a young kid name Justin(hero) on an adventure. This adventure will soon lead him on an epic journey across the world ( 3 world maps) in search of a lost civilization called the Angelou. During the journey, Justin will meet with different party members that will join to help him out. Unlike other rpg stories, there's none of the world is in danger and you have to go rescue it from a big bad guy right away. In fact, you don't even know who the bad guy really is untill at least 40 hrs into the game. The only so called bad guys early on in the game is a small army who is also looking for the lost Angelou civilixation. They're not really bad guys as they are more of a rival group completing against your group in search of the Angelou Civilization. Surprisingly enough, there's really a good love story in this game that will move you emotionally. No, it doesn't involve the hero. Sure the hero (Justin) has a love story but I don't really care about it cause he's an idiot.

      The quest is an easy one and very straight forward. There's no random battles on the world map for you to have to worry about. The world map consist of names of places and an arrow letting select which places you want to go to. You have to be a total nitwit if you don't know where to go next on your quest. The mazes/dungeons aren't very hard but they can become very big later on in the game. Hopefully you have a good memory or else you'll going to end up lost in those big mazes. Overrall, nothing to give you much trouble with.

Score:8/10

CHARACTERS

Like with Lunar, 90% of the party members are made up of kids. This tend to hurt the game for older players as they may find themselves not liking the way the characters behave and act in this game. Especially with the hero. He comes off looking very arrogant, obnoxious, and stupid sometimes. Let's just say he's not a very convincing hero that will help save the world in the eyes of gamers. Most of the time you just want him to die. Fortunately the supporting cast in the game is better than the hero. I find myself more intrigue with the members of the rival group than the hero's group. Mostly with Mullen and Leen though. Clearly the weakest part of the game is the cast of characters from the good guys side.

Score:7/10

SOUND

The game surprisingly has quite alot of voice acting. Most of it very good. The full affect of the voice acting won't hit this game until at least 40hrs into the game. At this point, you'll be wishing there was more of it. The only downside to the voice acting is that all the voices don't seem to match all the characters young ages. They all sound very mature. This is okay for the older characters but for the young character, it sound kind off weird at first. The music is excellent in this game. They always use the right kind of music for the right kind of situation. But then again, the music/sound is from George Lucas company so you have to expect good sound.

Score:9/10

GRAPHICS

The graphics is great in this game. It has a 3-D background with sprites. While the graphics isn't cutting edge, it is very beautiful. The thing that stand out the most is the colors in this game. The game must've used every colors possible cause it's definetly very bright and beautiful. The anime CG looks like it came out of paintings from museums. Excellently done by GameArts.

Score:9/10

GAMEPLAY

The main addictiveness comes from trying to get all the special attacks and magic in the game. Inorder to open up or learn a special attack/ magic you have to level up your skills level for a particular weapon or magic through skill experiences. There are 2 kind of experiences in this game. One is the regular experience that you get after battles and the other is skill experience. You can only get skill experiences by using a particular weapon or magic. If you don't use weapon attack or magic then you don't get skill exp. Simple enough.

Battle System: the battle system is the same as Lunar. Except instead of a side to side fight where your characters run back and forth to hit the enemies 2 or 3 times, you have a 3-D battlefield where your characters can run all over the place hitting enemies 2 to 3 times. The way you encounter the enemies is just like with Lunar. Either you run into a monster or the monster run into you. This is great cause you can explore those huge mazes without having to worry about dealings with random battles. Nothing cutting edge here or innovative.

Score:7/10

EXTRA

There are 3 bonus dungeons for you to explore. These bonus dungeons are for you to pick up great weapons and armours and fight extra bosses. Nothing more. Don't waste time leveling up here cause they give you squate for exp.

The first 2 are very easy to find. If you can't find them then you're an idiot that should never play rpgs. The third one is harder to find cause it's kind of camouflage in the background but if you look carefully you can see it.

Score:8/10

REPLAY

Is there any real good reason to play this game again other than to see the story unfold again?? Not really. The extra dungeons you can finish in your first game and there are no multiple endings and stuff. This is pretty much a one shot game.

Score:3/10

Overrally Grandia is one hell of an rpg despite the weakness in the characters. It is definetly in my top 10 favorite rpg for the playstation. Just make sure you're ready for a long journey when playing this game.

Time to Complete: at least 61hrs including the bonus dungeon. 48hrs without the bonus dungeons.

Favorite character: Leen ( almost as good as Aeris)

Coolest character: Herr Mullen (such a wussy name for a cool guy)

Character you most want to die: Justin the hero.

Weirdest moment: one of your human character is married to a cow.

Saddest moment: saying good-bye to Leen

Happiest moment : saying hello to Leen again.

Final Score:7/10