Grandia 2 was a great game. I've only played it for dreamcast but I hear the ports suck. All refrences to grandia 2 in this reveiw apply only to the DC version. Well anyway, for the dreamcast it had good graphics, a delightfully dark story, and hands down the best turn based battle system ever. Now why do they have to ruin the series' good name with this garbage? Well thats too harsh, it isn't garbage, just mediocre, but it doesn't live up to Grandia standards. This instalment focus's heavely on the combat and level up systems. Unfortunatly not much has changed from earlier episodes except for the ability to create new mana eggs by through fusion. In grandia two we had the story and attitude to go with the great battles and complex skill/magic system. The two facets complemented each other wonderfully. Now without a story grandia xtreme feels like only half of a game. The story is just enough to put the action in context but unfortunatly it doesn't do a good job of it. The cutscenes are horrible and painful to watch. The environments and characters have no charm and the visual design seems to be a step downward from the last game. The voice acting is also horrendous, despite the celebrity talent. It sounds like they recorded it wiith a yak-bak. The actual gameplay is good enough to rise the game above the toilets rim, but just barely. The dungeons have their clever moments and the battle system is of course great. But the lack the charm of the games precurser. It only uses the outer shell of what makes grandia great, but it just doesn't have the same spirit. I give it a 5.5/10
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