Grandia came out on the Sega Saturn in late 1997. It was given great reviews in the Japanese press and still ranks highly in Japanese Best RPG lists. Even US publications raved about the Japanese Saturn release. About 18 months later a port was released for the PS1, which is how many Japanese gamers, and most US gamers, came to know it, which is a shame.
Grandia mixes 2D and 3D content in largely the opposite manner as Square's output at the time. All the characters and enemies are 2D, but the navigable dungeons are 3D environments, with a rotatable camera (which locks to a set view in boss rooms).
Grandia’s story and characters are top-notch. The main protagonist is Justin, a young teenager who wants to be an adventurer, just like his late father. He’s raised by his mother who was formerly a successful pirate before settling down to raise Justin and run a cafe. He starts his adventure with his even younger friend, Sue, who lives with her aunt and uncle, both her parents having died in an unspecified manner some time prior. This rambunctious pair sets off to explore ancient ruins and dig sites and ultimately gets wrapped up in a quest to save the world. This is really the story of Justin’s coming of age, of how he learns to become a real adventurer and hero. The story also ends up being a coming of age tale about the world itself, and how history will proceed going forward, differently from the past. While there are certainly serious moments in the game, the core story for the game is more about the characters, and on the whole the game maintains a very optimistic and positive tone. It feels to me like 90s era Disney films, which were targeted to younger audiences but still grappled with serious ideas and villains and were accessible and even enjoyable to viewers of all ages.
Grandia's combat is arguably the highlight of the game, and with any RPG is where you will spend most of your time. It is like a creative mix of Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and Lunar. Grandia's combat takes place on a 3D plane where positioning is important. In order to attack, your character must run up to enemies (or move into position if using a ranged weapon). If you're too far away or enemies or party members present too much of an obstacle you can expend your movement without being able to attack. Spells and special moves have varied attack shapes, some hitting individuals, some with small to large circular blast radiuses, some attacking on a line, and some affecting the entire battlefield, so targeting and enemy clustering can be very important. One of the Defense action options allows you to move to a new spot on the battlefield so you can control your movement and positioning to keep these same characteristics in enemy attacks from being too effective. There’s an IP bar that displays when everyone will act in combat and what action they will be taking, so you can pick your targets. This is important because taking damage or status effects can delay or even push back characters on the IP bar, and in some cases do additional damage and cancel planned actions, creating lots of strategic opportunities to stun lock and even negate enemy actions at times. But beware, if you are ambushed, enemies can do this to you. On the whole, combat is pretty easy, but an ambush can result in you getting stun locked and your actions cancelled. Some ambushes can actually prove quite fatal. Fortunately, you can see enemies on the dungeon screens, so you can try to make sure you have the upper hand. Some of the early bosses are also rather challenging, but in the late game, as long as you haven’t been avoiding most battles and you’ve been working to unlock new special moves and spells, you’ll make short work of things.
Your weapon categories and spell elements level up as you use attacks and spells, unlocking new spells and special moves linked to those elements and weapon categories. And as they level up, your spells and moves also increase in execution speed on the IP bar. You also get minor stat increases with each weapon and element level on top of your regular leveling up, so there are valuable boosts to be had there, as well. The end result is that even a relatively easy battle has strategic elements because you’ll want to be trying to boost your various weapon and element levels to unlock new abilities and increase your stats. There were very few fights where I just mashed attack, even if I could have easily triumphed just by doing so.
The combat and story are ushered along by a fantastic soundtrack that’s orchestrated in places and great sound effects delivered by Skywalker Sound. There are also a few FMV CG cut scenes with 2D animated characters. Grandia was clearly designed with the Saturn in mind, because it takes advantage of the Saturn's capabilities well: great 2D sprite work and colorful 3D backdrops that are geometrically sound and run at a stable frame rate, excepting a couple long pans and moving 3D set pieces (I suspect engine limitations for the latter rather the fundamental 3D capabilities of any of the platforms the game has been released on, since those hitches persist across all ports). The Japanese voice acting is fantastic to boot.
Grandia is not a short game. I used a guide and did all the optional content and it took me 62 hours to beat. There were several spells I hadn’t unlocked for one character (spellcasting wasn’t really his forte, so it wasn’t an issue). I do advise you to look into a guide. There’s a good on-line one at
https://i-njoy.net/gd1e_top.html. The main reason is that some of the dungeons are a little mazelike, and in the late game there are a couple you have to approach a particular way because they dynamically respond to where you go and in which order. There are also some items worth having that require going out of the way and which will not at all be obvious to first-time players.
Grandia on the Saturn is awesome, but Japanese-only. It was ported to the PS1, though it didn’t arrive in the US until mid-2000. That release timing is only one of the reasons Grandia didn’t do well in the US. The other reason is that the English voice acting is atrocious. Not only that, but the localization is a bit odd in places. On the whole, the localized text is pretty good. It reads well for the most part and represents character personalities well. But mentions of alcohol were replaced with coffee, halfway through the game Justin suddenly decides “Bogus!” is an appropriate way to express his disappointment, and most of the dialogue in Zil Padon, a trading town with 3 different races of NPCs, feels stilted and awkward. I initially thought that section of the game missed a final editing pass, and perhaps it did because main character dialogue also takes a hit around that time, but coming back to Zil Padon later in the game has me thinking at least some of that awkwardness came out of an inability to figure how how to appropriately localize the tone of the town. And the next town after Zil Padon is well-localized and represents the inhabitants pretty well. If I’d had only the horrible English voice acting to accompany this text, however, I’d probably have dismissed Grandia’s story and characters right out the gate and only tolerated them if I felt compelled to stay with it. Fortunately, the recent “HD” version released by Gung Ho for PC and Switch provides the option to use Japanese voices, and the great Japanese voice acting really helps me appreciate the quality of most of the text localization a lot better. And there is a LOT of text in the game. You can talk to every villager 2 or 3 times, and sometimes the entire town’s dialogue will change after an event. And the towns are well-populated, too. A lot of attention was given to make each town feel well-realized, and the localization mostly does this justice.
So let’s talk about ports and how to play this game. The original Saturn version has a localization patch that is nearing completion but still isn’t done. For the hardcore this is probably the way to go, but it’s also the most complicated way to go. Avoid the PS1 port at all costs. In addition to the horrible voice acting, there were some other issues with the port. On the positive, it did add rumble and the ability to use the second analog stick on the Dual Shock to manipulate the camera instead of the L and R triggers. It also leaned more heavily into transparencies and added some additional minor flash to some of the spells, but the frame rate suffers more. And for some reason portions of the game were textured differently, in ways that make those areas of the game look less distinct. The PS1 port is also missing shadows in towns and dungeons and some water effects and the like. On the whole, the US PS1 port is not great. The “HD” release was based on the PS1 release and was supposed to incorporate some of the Saturn content, but it does not. It is the PS1 release with the option to toggle between Japanese or English audio and Japanese or English text. The font is redone, as are a few UI screens, but mostly the “HD” content is upscaled and filtered sprites and textures. The FMV segments look pretty good upscaled and filtered, and the world textures actually look pretty good, too, but the characters and monsters don’t fare quite as well. It basically looks like an emulated PS1 game with filtering and a few redone UI screens. This release also lacks any kinds of save states or fast-forward/speed up features. Fortunately, the game scatters around lots of save spots. Oh, and there are also a couple bugs. At two different points in the game, the wrong character portraits displayed for almost every character involved in a conversation scene. Despite all this, the “HD” release from Gung Ho is probably the best way for most people to play the game. You can read the mostly good English text and hear the Japanese voices and play the game with the analog and rumble affordances from the PS1 release. You don’t have to emulate or patch, just pick up and play. On Switch, playing handheld minimizes some of the fuzziness of the upscaling and filtering, but you have to pay $40 for this and Grandia II. On PC you can buy the 2 games separately, at $20 apiece. In my opinion, the original Grandia (and Grandia II) is a good enough game it’s worth the price, even without the extra features and attention we’ve seen in Square re-releases of Final Fantasy titles. But I can understand if someone doesn’t arrive at the same calculus.