GRANDIA III

GAME PLAY

The player controls Yuki and his companions through a detailed, fully 3D world, fighting their way through obstacles using a battle system in the same style as the other Grandia games, with some slight tweaks. Throughout the game Yuki enlists the aide of various characters and creatures called the Guardians to aid him on his journey. Rather than use a world map to travel between areas in this game, the player flies in a plane to travel between locations.

COMBAT

Battles in this third installment are similar to that of the previous Grandia games, with tweaks both minor and major. It uses the same premise of system, where actions are chosen, but rather than the linear IP Gauge of the other two Grandia games, it is circular, as with the Turn Dial in Grandia Xtreme.

Icons representing all characters and enemies on the field begin an encounter on a point on the dial depending on cicumstances of combat (if either the enemy party or the player party was running away from the other prior to the encounter) and progress along the circle at their own rates. Once the icon reaches the Command point of the wheel, the game pauses to allow the player (or computer, if the icon is an enemy's) gives that character a command. The icon then continues an area of the gauge highlited in red at a rate varying by the action chosen. Spells, skills and criticals progress more slowly during this period than a combo. When the icon reaches the ACT point in the gauge, the command is carried out, and the icon is sent back to the start, where the cycle continues.

Japanese take of the battle system

Characters on the field have two standard attacks: Combos and Criticals. Combos are the normal attack, in which the character will swing/stab/shoot the enemy a number of times as per their weapon's use and any applicable skills. They do more damage overall than Criticals, whose purpose is to knock the position of an enemy on the Turn Dial backwards and into the air. If a combo is performed upon an airborne enemy, then a special Aerial attack is done, which deals considerable amounts of damage. If an enemy is defeated with an Aerial Finish, the monster may drop more valuable items.

In addition, the monsters of the game have been greatly powered up since the previous Grandia games. It was actually easier to overlevel the party members in the past games and make battles effortless. However, this Grandia takes things to a new level. Monsters will always stay consistently stronger than you throughout the game. Even if your levels are high, the monsters in any one area can give you trouble. This comes partly in from the fact that the stat growth for party members is very minimal, gaining only a possible two or three points toward each statistic. This "watered down" stat growth keeps the game challenging and keeps the player on a more defensive, strategy-oriented plan of action in battles rather than just selecting the most powerful special move or spell to finish off all the enemies effortlessly. Incidentally, the final boss is still quite capable of damaging and killing the party even at Level 99 wearing the best equipment.

Mana Eggs and Skill Books

The mana eggs are present in this game as they are in other Grandia games, though, as in the other games, the system is not entirely the same. Mana Eggs are equipped to a character to obtain bonuses to spells of certain elements. A person can also extract spells from a mana egg, destroying it in the process, or fuse two mana eggs together to create more powerful mana eggs, which can in turn be extracted to obtain more powerful spells. Spells are equipped individually to a character, and each requires a certain amount of a character's Magic points to be alloted to it, limiting the number of spells a character may equip.

Skills work in much the same manner, but with some differences: skills work on their own equipment slots, and use skill books, rather than mana eggs, to amplify a set of traits specific to skills. Most skills tend to be of the passive nature, without needing to be cast or activated. Skills are obtained through extraction from skill books, but skill books, unlike mana eggs, cannot be fused. Skills are also equipped in a manner similar to spells, though they are allotted a different set of points.

Story

Yuki, an aspiring pilot, has been building an airplane with his friend Rotts in the hopes of being the second pilot to fly across the ocean, following in the footsteps of his idol, Schmidt (though he keeps these plans a secret from his mother, Miranda). So far, he has been rewarded with little success, with nearly twenty projects which, for varying reasons, have failed to get him where he wants to be. On this final flight, he finds that his mother stowed away on his plane, and is unable to fly high enough with the extra weight.

His reprimanding of his mother is interrupted, however, by the sight of a girl in a carriage being chased by several men. Yuki decides to get involved, and swoops down, inevitably crashing into the forest. He and Miranda fight to defend the girl, who they learn to be Alfina, a Communicator, one of those who speaks with the Guardian beasts. They, in light of what had just happened, offer to escort her to the temple at Arcriff, and become more and more involved in the events surrounding the disappearance of Alfina's brother, Emelious.

Characters

Playable Characters

Yuki

Yuki is a headstrong boy who idolizes the legendary pilot Schmidt, aiming to be the second pilot to fly across the ocean, like Schmidt. He dreams of flying; the time meant to be training to become a potter has been spent instead in building many planes with varying degrees of failure. His father remains as of yet unknown. As with past Grandia protagonists, he wields a sword, uses magic fairly well (this excludes Ryudo) and learns the Sky Dragon Slash technique prominent throughout the series.

Miranda

Miranda is Yuki's mother, though Yuki refers to her by her first name. She knows her son inside and out. She is very supportive of her son, and often speaks well of him to Alfina for his benefit. She ends up accompanying Alonso on his journey to complete his personal world map. She wields two daggers in battle and has above average magic skills. Because she leaves the party quite early in the game, she does not learn any special attacks (other than the two she starts with).

Alfina de Pamela

Alfina is a softspoken girl and the next in line for the Communicators after Emelious, her brother. She seeks to find her brother, who has, for reasons unknown, abandoned his duties bitterly and disappeared. She seems to be pursued by different groups who, for varying wishes, either wish for her to halt her search or to capture her. Alfina happens to be the most emotional type of all of the characters and thus is quite similar to Elena of Grandia II. She uses a staff in battle, learns "holy light" techniques (much like Elena) and is geared towards casting spells more than actual combat.

Alonso

Alonso is a seagoer through and through, as well as a serious gambler on the side (he even lost his own ship for a time due to his choice game of chance: Arrange Dice). His goal is to personally complete his own map of the world. In battle, he wields a harpoon and has rather poor magic skills. Like Miranda, he leaves the group early in the game and therefore does not learn any special attacks other than the two he comes with.

Ulf

Ulf (Ull in the Japanese version) is an uncomplicated fellow who has lived in the Valley of Dragons for most of his life. Like the rest of his village, he has a love for food and simplicity. However, due to his parents' strict attitude he left the village behind, earning the dissent of many of the villagers. He and his dragon, Shiba, have made some acquaintance with Alonso and Schmidt. His weapon is a ball and chain which alone causes great damage. His techniques are even more powerful. As one of the typical strongmen archetypes of RPGs, he has low magic skills to balance his immense strength.

Dahna

A 23-year-old who has been the leader of her village ever since her love, Raven, mysteriously disappeared. Since then, she has grown cynical, scoffing feelings of love. Some view her as harsh and cold hearted, but those that follow her know that she is really a compassionate person. She believes that cards have an influence or reflection of life, and uses them to attack and cast magic. Much like Alfina, she prefers to cast spells more than actually fight, but the fact she can throw her cards at enemies from anywhere on the field gives her the advantage of distance. However, to balance this, she has the lowest Move rating of any character, meaning changing her position to another part of the field is difficult unless augmented with magic or equipment.

Hect

Hect is the mayor of the Terrarium - the only habitable town in the Verse Realm. To make things worse, her world is being crystallized and destroyed by a phenomenon called the Curse of Xorn. Because of this curse, she believes her world must be forgotten and thus often displays a hopeless and depressed personality. Now she spends her time severing the bonds between her world and the 'main world' by playing a mysterious (and sad) song on her violin. Hect joins the party temporarily later in the game until you get Alfina back and is in many ways the strongest character in the party. She uses a baton in battle to fight and uses it to fling energy spheres at enemies from a mid-ranged distance. Of course, her real power lies in her absurdly high MP and Magic stats (even higher than Dahna's), along with her one-of-a-kind Heaven's Gate spell. Her techniques are also quite useful and one of them will be passed on to Alfina at the near end of the game.