There's an extremely fine line for stories that are clichéd in premise to either drown in prejudice or overcome it. The adventure genre has been so overdone that its original roots feel almost lost outside the inherently obscure JRPGs of today. The original roots being—to go; to seek adventure. To witness the majesty of the unknown, to discover outlandish worlds—And ultimately, to tell it.

Grandia represents the purity and soul of adventure. It's the reason why so many opinions reinforcing everyone's love for this game are so emotionally driven. It taps into a place in your mind akin to how you feel about superheroes, giant robots and kaiju as a kid. It makes you believe there's real heroism in not just humanity, but in all life. That there's purpose in doing what you want.

This feeling may not apply to everyone, but for me and many others it was a life changing experience. That's what Grandia is. I'm not saying the storytelling is bad, but it clicks far harder for a certain type of person. It may be an overall easy game and the camera control can be little cumbersome to navigate making some maps more maze-like than intended but the feeling it gives you of going on a grand adventure is unmatched. Not to mention even if the gameplay is easy it's one of the best action battle systems I've seen in a JRPG. Very important game to me and probably will forever stand as my favourite PS1 JRPG.

Adding clever, original ideas to Chrono Trigger's on-map fights, Grandia boasts the best combat system since ATB's introduction, and in many ways feels like a natural evolution. Combat largely revolves around turn interruption, an aspect that provides strategic depth thanks in large part to an active turn order bar and enhanced by its on-map battles. Players are now encouraged to estimate factors beyond mere attack placement and resource management, from enemy distance to turn order, to time required. The combination of active decision making and quirky turn manipulating skills and status effects added layers of depth to a genre known for its passive combat. Although the game's second disc largely disposes of that style in favor of AoE spells and their use-based progression system, its ties with resource management at least kept dungeons and boss fights interesting.

Its achievements were not only mechanical, as the game injects a great dose of humor and whimsy to each of its characters, towns, and dialogue. And its plot - while not particularly innovative, is chock full of memorable moments enhanced by a largely playful, whimsical atmosphere. With this release, GameArts effectively coined a new branch of JRPG.

I adore this one.

Grandia is such a nice and cozy game with such fun characters and a nice world to explore alongside a fun battle system, It's just fantastic.

One problem I had with the game is that the levels always felt a little bit too short for my liking, but that's not to say the levels were bad or anything, just wished they were longer.
The game is also somewhat easy, but can still kick your ass when you aren't paying attention and the final boss is also pretty challenging.

Overall thoughts, I should watch Nadia: The secret of blue water

Grandia is a very solid JRPG classic that has a lot to love about it, but a few sizeable detractors to keep me from loving it.

Let's start with the good - the combat system is one of the most rewarding I've seen in a game, especially of its time. It takes the ATB fundamentals I enjoy about classic FF and adds even more depth. The characters ended up being quite fun and enjoyable as well. The story was overall simple and fairly predictable, but I don't see that as a necessarily bad thing.

What did put me off though was some of the writing and pacing. There are moments where I feel like some plot points have too much padding in-between them, and on the flipside exists moments where certain things felt like they didn't have enough time to settle or flesh out.

The music, while pleasant, was forgettable. A select few tracks stood out to me, while a lot of others feel like average anime background tracks. Despite having much better production quality in the sound department than other games of its time, the compositions themselves went in one ear and out the other for the most part, which is a shame.

Ultimately I enjoyed Grandia for what it is! I didn't love it as much as I wish I did, but it gave me a good time nonetheless. A definite recommendation for JRPG enthusiasts.

I played this game when I was 10 (it was a present on my 10th birthday back in 2000) and I've finished it a LOT over the years. On PS1, on PS3, on Vita, on Switch, and most recently on Steam. Previously it was difficult to tell what was "100% completion," though a few runs I've done everything there was to do and maxed out levels. So I'm going to set my completion date to 06 April 2021, because that was when I finally got around to 100%ing all achievements for the game on Steam.

Anyway, to this day this is my favourite game of all time. I absolutely adore it. Nothing will ever beat it. Unbelievably charming and brimming with peak 90s JRPG energy.

Review in progress:
Excellent combat system, but the lack of challenge means that it's never utilized to its full potential. Dungeons are pretty underwhelming.

The story and characters aren't anything to write home about. Why did the protagonist have to almost immediately outshine his love interest who's supposedly an experienced adventurer? Why couldn't they learn and grow from each other?The villian is also generic as hell. The voice acting is some of the worst I've ever heard. Subpar anime bullshit.

It's a shame this will never be remade. There's a great game somewhere inside.

This game perfectly embodies the spirit of adventure. The cast is loveable and full of live. They are really cool. Probalby some of my favorite cast members were Feena, Milda and Gadwin. Justin was great too but a bit anyoning in the beginning. The gameplay in this Video game is also solid. The dungeons are involed and fun to navigate through. The battle system and RPG mechanics are really fun and fluid. Pacing was really weird for me sometimes. It was sometimes too slow. The soundtrack was also really good. I would recommend this game purely for the sense of adventure it has and the charming story. I hope grandia 2 will improve and evlove the gameplay concepts that are presented in this game.