Grandia (Saturn) Beyond Oasis (Genesis) LOTR:The Third Age (PS2)

I can't even remember if I've talked about some of these games yet.  Let's go!

In remembrance of Takeshi Miyagi, I sat down to actually play my copy of Grandia.  I must have bought it when I was a student in Japan.  I tried to start playing it at least three times and quit because my Japanese level wasn't adequate to figure out what the fuck it wanted me to do.  Of course once you get past the opening it's just a JRPG so it doesn't even matter if you understand what's going on you understand what's going on.

Somewhat simultaneously I started playing Lord of the Rings:The Third Age.  In that game you are the guys on a quest to find the guys on a quest.  Baring that you see some really cool vistas and amazing texture work.  The game looks pretty incredible at times.  Then you spend 8 hours in Moria.  You have attack and two ability types per character.  You actually raise your abilites by using them in battle.  This results in you dragging out every battle to dull casting buff spells.  There is the sinking fear in you that if you DO NOT do this you are going to get proper fucked later on.  So you drag out the battles. 

I played this game years ago might have been shortly after it's release.  I stopped playing it in protest.  You have the chance of seeing the enemy on the field and running into him to start the battle, the glowing eye of sauron growing brighter until a surprise battle starts, or just for an enemy to jump down and attack you without warning.  This whole game is a straight line in the way that FFXIII wishes it was.  You just keep moving forward fighting monsters.  Your HP/MP restores every time you level up and you collect all your gear along the way.  It's kind of cool.

Except you are stuck fighting goblins in Moria for EIGHT HOURS.

Grandia has the same sort of ability leveling system.  It is a charming enough game with Anime Characters (TM) Anime Plot (TM) and Anime Humour (TM).  If you are over the age of 15 you probably have seen absolutely everything the game shows you once before.  I'd say the voice acting in the japanese version is above the legendarily awful American voice acting but after the 3rd hour there is none.  It's really strange but up until I quit I don't think I heard another voice emit from my speakers. 

The music reminded me enough of the superior music in Grandia 2 to buy a copy though.  It's the terrible terrible PS2 version and I haven't played it yet.  But we're talking about Grandia.  Which features a supposedly great battle system which as I said above makes you extend battles as long as possible.  It's also just slightly more complex than ATB of Final Fantasy fame.  It's just complex enough that it kind of annoyed me in a way I can't articulate.

I'm going to assume the PS1 version is actually better than the Saturn version.  It  can't be worse because the Saturn version frequently has FPS in the single digits.  It also is the days of early 3D.  You have things blocking your overhead view camera because they can.  The dungeons also being really directionless and actually maze like (everywhere looks the same) with a finicky guiding arrow really really got tome.  I was happy to finally put my trails with the game to rest.  Who knows maybe I'll enjoy Grandia 2!  It could happen.  I loved it when it was my first JRPG after Final Fantasy V on SNES9X.

Weird progression there.  Our middle game in the title list Beyond Oasis is by Ancient.  Ancient is headed by Yuzo Koshiro.  That's pretty tops!  The game is a mildly Arabic zelda-clone that is hard to get excited about playing in any form.  Everything about the game bleeds competence.  "We needed to make a zelda-type game."  I think I actually like Neutopia more?  At least the Genesis/Megadrive has Crusader of Centy a pretty great Zelda clone!