Game Arts

Often Imitated, Never Duplicated

HIGH Starts off very Monster Hunter-ish.

LOW Quickly succumbs to shallow design and tedium.

WTF Who thought locking the player in ambush killboxes was good design?

The Best Escort Mission that Ever was

HIGH Completing the game without skipping any levels.

LOW The stages in area15 can be soul-crushingly difficult.

WTF why is using the water power so finicky?

No, the title isn't a reference to the PS1 game Azure Dreams by Konami. Rather, it's a reference to the beautifully rendered skies in Grandia III.

Calling Lunar Legend a port is at least somewhat misleading. This recent edition of the game features the same story (roughly), but also adds in a few new wrinkles in hopes of getting the hardcore fans of the series to shell out the cash for yet another version. In this regard, Ubi Soft is only partially successful—the new material seems more an afterthought than anything, and the changes that were made to make the game fit on a standard cartridge format are almost sure to displease the longtime fans of the game.

According to ESRB, this game contains: Mild Violence

According to ESRB, this game contains: Mild Language, Mild Violence

When referring to an 'RPG'-style videogame, the game in question is usually a game made in Japan for consoles. The structure of the game is generally that of a group of adventurers traveling through lands, killing monsters and collecting treasure using largely non-reaction based gameplay while an epic story unfolds. Unlike the pen-and-paper Role Playing Games that the genre is named for, videogame RPGs are generally fairly linear in the sense of plot, with the player having little or no control over the actions of the characters.

After forcing myself to sit through Final Fantasy VIII and The Legend Of Dragoon, I appreciate any game or developer that does away with prerendered 2D backgrounds. Though not always as pretty, 3D graphics like those found in the game add a level of interactivity—and dare I say realism—that the aforementioned titles were missing.

Grandia II isn't a landmark game by any means, but it comes pretty close to being an amazing role-playing game done in the traditional style. It looks great, has solid gameplay, great characters and a well-written story, but it's basically as straight-forward a role-playing game as you're likely to find.