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Well, lets see. First of all, Happy Rama-Nerd! Thats
right, its the Nerd season of Holiness. First of all, at the
beginning of the season, Spiderman came out on DVD, followed
shortly thereafter by Star Wars Episode II on DVD. On the
same day, Lord Of the Rings Special Edition came out (much
better than the theatrical cut.) Then on Friday that week, Harry
Potter II arrived at theaters (for those who like that). Then later
for extra grins, the new Bond movie came out (Which, by the
way, isnt as good as the past few movies. The new one is too
far fetched for my liking.) Then, in the beginning of December,
we have Star Trek: Nemesis coming out, followed by a week or
so later, we have Sidras Crack. (Err, I mean Lord of the Rings:
The Two Towers). Yes, it truly is the most Nerdiest time of the
yeeeeaaarrrrr! [insert tune to "Its The Most Wonderful Time of
the Year"]. On second thought, scratch that. [insert tune to
"Enter Sandman" (much better.)]
Small note on Metal Dungeon. Metal Dungeon is a game being
released on X-Box. They sent me some cool stuff on their
game. Unfortunately, all I got that was really useful was a trailer
for it. Otherwise I just had lots of random shots saved to
Adobe Photoshop files. They did offer to send me a demo for
the game, but I dont have a Debugger console for X-Box, and
they wouldnt send me one of those. But in short, the game is an
RPG that is supposed to take place in a genetic laboratory thing,
where all the mutated things have taken over the hidden fortified
facility. The game looks to have fairly mediocre graphics, and
an uninspired combat system, although it does have modern
stuffs, like guns and explosives, and stuff. Other that, the only
other notable aspect of the game is that it has randomly
generated dungeon floors, which makes the game sound like its
going to be a more standard RPG version of the original Diablo.
Personally, I dont think its going to be that spectacular, but
they sent me free stuff, so everyone with an X-Box should at
least go rent it when it comes out.
Now for my review, Grandia II. Grandia II is for Playstation 2.
The game is your basic RPG with its own twist on the combat
system. Ummm... thats all I have to say. I normally dont care
that much for RPGs, so I tend to rate them down. I just
wanted something mindless to play last week, and started
Grandia II, and then all of the sudden its like a week before my
article is due, so being the good little CT staffer that I am, I write
up an article and turn it in. Just read the review. (Editors note:
This is pure bullshit. Zack was dragging his heels like everyone
else, in usual CT staffer fashion I got the article the day AFTER
the CT was due to go up.)
Plot. Plotwise, Grandia II (henceforth just referred to as
Grandia) is VERY unspectacular. The game is set up working
towards destroying the Dark Lord (read: Satan), as he was
defeated long ago, and locked behind seals, but now he is free
and is pulling himself back together. (He was chopped up.)
Anyway, you get involved with what basically passes for the
Catholic Church. In summation though, the plot is exactingly
linear. Fight way through hills into town, find out town is cursed,
or have some other problem, fight way through dungeon, kill
end-boss, fight way to next town, repeat. No reason to return
to previous towns. Its not *quite* as bad as it sounds, the plot
is building towards a final showdown, etc., but there are no side
quests or anything else.
Graphics. Graphics are also unspectacular. Its eerily close to
Final Fantasy VII graphics, from what I played. The characters
have eyes, but no faces, and there are only like 2 or 3 variations
of spell graphics (in other words, the same animation for
completely different spells), and after a while, all but the shortest
ones are very boring and irritating. The game doesnt even have
cinemas. Its all in-game graphics with text boxes.
Sound. Sound is also unspectacular. A few sound effects,
sometimes some uninspired music in the background, but mostly
just silence. There are some actual spoken dialogue sections,
and the dubbing isnt *too* terrible, but overall, the sound job is
like an afterthought; 10 minute job before it goes to the publisher.
Gameplay. The actual game system is one of the few semi-
redeeming parts. Basically, characters just have maybe 6
different stats: Strength, speed, agility, mental, etc. Characters
also have a small selection (3-4) of power skills. Otherwise, all
magic and skills come in modular packages. When you defeat a
foe, you get experience, skill coins, and magic coins.
Experience goes directly to characters and levels up their stats
as they gain levels. As for the skill and magic coins, you use
them to level up skills and magic. You can spend x number of
skill coins, and level up one of the main characters special
attacks. Or, you can use them on skill books you have found.
A skill book has a list of about 6 skills. These skills generally
range over things like +X to speed, strength, etc, or +X% magic
damage, and a few other odds and ends. Each skill increase
you buy increases whatever X is. Then, you can "equip" any
character with the skill. Generally my fighters get +hit points and
+strength, and my mages get +magic points, and +magic
damage. You get the idea. Magic is also modular. You get
items called eggs. An egg has about 15 theme spells, like fire or
holy. You level up the spells individually, then equip whomever
with an egg. So you can take your mage, and switch her out
from healing spells to fire spells as a modular package, or do
what I do, and give my weak magical characters the healing
spells, and my mage the combat magic. If the mage dies, trade
out my next strongest characters egg for her egg, and then I still
have access to the same spells, though they will do less damage
because of the second characters lower magic stat. Now we
come to the combat system. Combat is kinda cool. There is a
real-time meter for when people get to move. you chose their
action, at the command point on the bar, then when their icon
moves to the action, they do it. Some actions take longer to
initiate than others. Also the actions are position based.
Combat takes place in a small square area. If you tell a
character to attack something on the far side of the screen, they
have to run across the screen to attack. Meanwhile, the action
bar thing is still counting down, so while you are running to do
the finishing blow on a bad guy, even though, you started first,
the bad guy may get to chose an action and complete it before
your character finished running across the screen. However, to
balance things, you do have a quick attack that "cancels" an
enemy action between the time they choose it and the time it
happens. If you hit them then, it cancels their move, and sends
their initiative icon almost back to the beginning of the bar. So
combat isnt so blindly attack-attack-attack like in a lot of
RPGs, because you have to time things. You may have to hold
off on a powerful spell to go cancel some bad guy from
attacking you before the spell would be complete. This whole
description is probably somewhat confusing, but trust me: This
combat system is one of the best I have ever seen for an RPG. I
actually like it, and I generally find combat in RPGs very boring
and rote-predictable.
Difficulty. The game, unfortunately, is very easy too. Only one
standard difficulty level that I know of, and Im 9 hours in, and I
havent even come very close to having a character die on me.
Even the bosses are fairly easy.
Replay. As linear as the plot, and as easy as the difficulty is,
Id say that this game is very definitely an extended rental, and
not to be bought. Worth playing through once, but no hidden
stuff to find or anything else that Im aware of.
Niftyness. Combat system gets points. The cool devil chick
the goodie-goodie nun turns into gets bonus points. Also a few
Star Wars references, and some cutting wit in the dialogue gets
points, but nothing else does.
Overall. The game is linear, and the sound sucks. The story
line is OK, and the combat system is innovative. Overall though,
if you want something mindless (i.e. like to play RPGs, and you
are bored, go rent the game and try to beat it in a weekend. Its
at least 9 hours long, because thats how far Ive gotten.)
Final Ratings:
| Plot | 6.9 |
| Graphics | 6.5 |
| Sound | 5.0 |
| Gameplay | 8.5 |
| Difficulty | 6.3 |
| Replay | 6.0 |
| Niftyness | 7.2 |
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| Overall | 6.62857 |
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