Given that the original Grandia for the PlayStation is one of my favorite RPGs ever, I was expecting big things of Grandia II... and it more than delivered.

First off, the story has nothing to with the original, so having played Grandia isn't required to understand this game. The story centers around Ryudo, a cocky seventeen-year-old Geohound (mercenary-types in the world of Grandia II) who'll take any job for money. Ryudo is accompanied everywhere by a mysterious talking bird named Skye, who's much like a fatherly guardian to him (though they act like they hate each other most of the time). Little does he know that the first job we see Ryudo accept is the one that will change his world forever. Ryudo takes the job to escort the "Granas Songstress" Elena (a devout but rather spoiled 17-year-old girl prone to throwing tantrums) from the Granas church in Carbo village to a nearby imposing tower for some kind of ritual. Ryudo grudgingly takes the job (with the right pay), but during the ritual something goes very wrong, and he fights his way up to the top only to find Elena engulfed in an evil, blackish cloud! They escape and return to Carbo, only to have it attacked by a gorgeous demonic bombshell in a tight outfit who flirts shamelessly with Ryudo — then whups him good in a fight. The next day, Ryudo agrees to acompany Elena to the Granas Temple across the mountains and the sea... and he's in for a hell of a trip, as he encounters a lion-man who's hunting Ryudo's brother, a wandering boyscout-ish kid named Roan (who's more than he seems), and an ancient android girl called Tio — not to mention the persistant demon Millenia, who's got more than her share of secrets. As the story progresses, in a similar fashion to Grandia, Ryudo (and everyone else) learns more about himself as well as his world as he moves onward through new lands, in the fight to keep the evil god Valmar from resurrecting.

I don't have any other Dreamcast RPGs to compare it to, but I really enjoyed the graphics in Grandia II. They're extremely clean, the character designs are wonderful, and the sprites are very well animated. The scenery is impressive too, all the towns are bright and there's plenty of eye-candy to distract you. The battle sequences are well done, though some of the spells can be a little bland to watch over and over again. Some of them are done in cell-animation, which is very smoothly integrated with the usual 3D graphics. Overall, everything's very anime styled, which might not some peoples' flavor, but which I enjoyed immensely.

The sounds are excellent. The music is, following in the footsteps of the original, widely varied from town to town and country to country — and each song fits its place very well. The battle tunes are pretty good toe-tappers, and the sounds that go with all the thwops and banging of a fight are well-done, too. I espcially enjoyed the voice-acting — I never got the feeling that any of the actors were bored, as I've gotten with some other games. The characters are well-casted, and there are more than a few voices that many will recognize from American cartoons — such as Ryudo's voice, Cam Clarke, who was Leonardo in the old "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" cartoon.

The gameplay is very smooth, the menus are simple to access and understand, and the "command wheel" from the orginal Grandia has been redone in such a way as I think should become RPG standard. The only awkward thing I found was getting used to a Dreamcast controller, but for those already familiar with these, controlling this game should be a breeze. The system by which you build up skills and magic has been altered slightly from the orginal — now you accumulate skill and magic points, and distribute them as you see fit, rather than having to build up attacks by using that attack (or its element). While it seems very different at first (if you're used to the Grandia system) it soon becomes evident exactly why they changed it, and I found several ways to abuse it later in the game when I was trying to fill out the levels of some attacks. One of the only "complaints" I could have against this ame is that it's far too easy for a veteran gamer.

The dialogue in this game is the best I have ever read (or heard) in ANY game. Not just the voice-acting, but the what they say itself. The character interactions are wonderfully believable, and Ryudo especially has some really good one-liners at the expense of the other party members. The religious zealots spout wonderfully trite nonsense about "purifying" everything, the villains boast about their power (traditonal RPG fare, delivered in impeccable fashion)... and Ryudo tells them off, in a variety of charming and comical ways. One thing that bothered me a little about this game though is the loose ends it leaves... but I can easily overlook them in light of everything else. And another thing I enjoyed was, the music CD sample that was included with the game. It doesn't have all my favorite songs, but it has some good remixes as well as a handful of other varied tunes.

Perhaps it's not everyone's cup of tea (I know a few people who hate both Grandia games), but an enjoyable jaunt as far as I'm concerned. Action, adventure, and an extremely well-handled romance that actually made me happy to watch it unfold, unlike love stories in most RPGs. And you just gotta love a game where you get attacked by body parts.

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