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Episode 2: Grandia
105 Plays2 years ago
Listen in as Turnbased Tangents covers the Game Arts classic JRPG Grandia. Check out the first JRPG that Turnbased Tangents officially covered in 2022 (Sorry in advance for some of the scuffed audio). Note that Poly and Kj both own the PS1 version but played the Switch remaster in the HD collection.
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Transcript
Episode Introduction and Audience Engagement
00:00:00
Speaker
Okay, so yeah, let's officially start this since we've already went on a bit of a tangent there. Thank you everybody in chat for being here. We appreciate it. Again, just a quick reminder, we will be reading in our heads and every now and then taking what you guys are saying in chat to build into what we're saying. But yes, this is a start.
Grandia 1: Remaster vs Original
00:00:24
Speaker
And yeah, so we played KJ and I over the last month.
00:00:29
Speaker
uh off stream so not on stream we were playing the game uh by game arts uh grandia one so the very very first one for playstation one uh we both were playing the remastered version of this game um but uh i think we both own the ps1 yeah you own ps1 grant oh no you don't actually own ps1 grandia that's one
00:00:52
Speaker
So I, I own BS. And I played like some of this back when I was growing up. So a very long time ago. And like,
00:01:06
Speaker
I don't remember very much of it. I remembered one segment and then KJ laughed at me because it's the end of disc one that I remembered. And that's the only thing I remembered, the entire thing that I played this game. I only remembered the end of disc one and nothing else of the game really, except for I knew one of the characters that was going to join the party fairly early on. So that was like, that was the only thing that I remember.
Plot Overview and Tone Shift
00:01:31
Speaker
And KJ never played it at all.
00:01:33
Speaker
Oh, so I actually did play it. I played it a little bit. When I bought the collection, I played like the first 20, 30 minutes. So like the game starts and you're using the main character, Justin, and he's like talking about how he wants to be an adventurer. And it's like, super lighthearted to this game.
00:01:52
Speaker
Um, it's like super lighthearted and it's just like a kid that this kid Justin and his friend who's like always by his side kind of just trying to explore and they're like playing this game with another person in the town that they're in where they're like collecting these different things and it's like the mighty shield and it's a, it's a, uh, like trashcan lid and stuff like that. So it, it starts off super, super lighthearted, super fun, like nothing really.
00:02:22
Speaker
nothing really serious and then you start going off on these adventures and like you go off on this adventure and it's like oh now you're starting to sort of see some of the the plot unravel because it's like there's this specific guy who's like part of the he's like head of like the military forces and he's
00:02:43
Speaker
Trying to uncover something about this like ancient civilization and stuff like that, but they're still super vague like they don't really give you much and it isn't until later on in the game where you start to see like Because Justin was given by his father like this stone
00:03:00
Speaker
It's like a stone that was passed down to him through his father. It's mysterious, but it keeps getting them into these areas that are tied to the ancient civilization.
00:03:16
Speaker
and then you start to realize like okay this is starting to get get starting to give you like a this is the chosen one kind of feel and like he's gonna be sort of tied into this evil plot or some in some way shape or form so it starts to have a little bit more of a darker tone eventually because it's like
00:03:35
Speaker
really they're trying to uncover the ancient civilization to try to like take over the world kind of thing. And so you start to get more of that, especially later on into disc one and disc two, like you start to really see that. And over the course of time through disc one, you're getting a lot of, you're starting to go to a lot of different areas where like, well, there's one town that's like completely turned to stone.
00:03:57
Speaker
there's like town that's like basically dealing with like sort of like an acid rain type thing like there's all different kinds of things like there's one place where they're worried about this volcano like there's so many different things that are tied to this and it's like huh okay you're starting to kind of see even though Justin's like I just want to go on adventures like I'm super excited there's sort of another piece to it where it's like there's this underlying dark tone that's happening and eventually Justin and the party just kind of get sucked into it
00:04:28
Speaker
Yeah. And they separate it almost exactly by discs. So like disc one is very lighthearted and kind of like, I wanted to be in a fun drawer.
Character Ages and Development
00:04:40
Speaker
And I'm really cutesy and like a lot of like silly jokes of very like, like you could tell the main character is quite young. I think he's 15.
00:04:50
Speaker
um something like that he's like just like newly teenager kind of age and and his like main companion friend is like 10 uh i would probably guess like 10 or 12 or something like that like he's 14 he's 14 and he's okay so he's 14 and she's like
00:05:12
Speaker
Sue is eight, okay, okay. And that's why she's so annoying. We could get into characters after Polly's done talking about the plot, but. Yeah, yeah, we've got to talk about characters because there's so much stuff that happens with them. But anyway, so yeah, so you got these cutesy young, and then I'm like, I want to be an adventurer. And it's really cute because it reminds me of Pokemon a little bit. You know how Ash Ketchum wanted to be a Pokemon master as a kid, and going through all his journey? That's what it kind of reminded me of.
00:05:40
Speaker
So like disc one is super lighthearted and then all of a sudden like the end of disc two are the end of disc one beginning of disc two shit gets heavy and like all of a sudden like the plot goes from like i'm on an adventure to i'm saving the world and it gets really dark and there's like while there's still like lighthearted stuff that happens it's way more focused on like the over plot that they kept being very vague about in disc one and then they're they're sort of like
00:06:07
Speaker
painting this pathway to like uncovering a lot of like plot development of some of the characters and stuff and it gets pretty pretty like grim and dark and and you can like I like because you could kind of see the main character age a little
00:06:23
Speaker
So, you know, he's like super happy. He still makes kind of like the odd dumb comment. But for the most part, you can see that like all of a sudden he's like, nah, I got to do this thing. And I need to I need to save the world. I need to do this. And there's nothing more important than this. And like he matured a little bit. A little bit. But not by a whole lot. I don't know that he matured a little bit.
00:06:50
Speaker
Because okay, so there is it this is this is spoilers. I'm sorry like he knew when when Fina got captured like They at that point they knew that the the Spirit Stone was like a big deal, right? Yeah, he's still and I'm pretty sure you get you got to this part
00:07:10
Speaker
was like, oh, I'm going to give the Spirit Stone to try to save Fina. That's not like, that's like your sacrifice. You're, you're basically saying, Hey, I'm sacrificing the world for this one person. Like who eventually, like, it's one of those situations where if the world's gone, like,
00:07:32
Speaker
That's not really- I mean, that's fair. I guess he kind of matures in that, like, I guess the maturity that I see is more of like how he treats Fina. Okay. I think that might be the maturity that I saw. Cause you're right. Cause he's still kind of was like, eh, rest of the world. I mean, fair cause Fina is best girl, but we'll talk about that. Oh my goodness.
00:08:00
Speaker
And that's something that you will see a lot of in this game if you play it of Justin being dumb. Like just straight up you're like screaming at the console being like, why are you so dumb? Why are you not catching these things? What is wrong with you? And then entirely forgetting he's 14.
00:08:21
Speaker
And I'm sure as like, you know, young adolescent feeds or whatever, we were probably not the most mentally matured either. Whereas Fina is like 18 or something like that. She's 17 or 18. She's older than Justin. I wonder if it says it in the manual. I have the wiki up so I can open that too. She's 15.
00:08:47
Speaker
Oh, she's 15. She's 15. Yeah. Really? I thought they were like leading her as like this adult, but she's only literally a year older. Okay. Okay. Come on now. Like, why was she so like emotionally matured? Well, we figured. So, Fina's backstory, she was part of what they called like the Adventurer Society. So she was going on these adventures consistently.
Character Dynamics and Party Changes
00:09:09
Speaker
That's true. She also had her twin sister, Lean, who was like,
00:09:12
Speaker
part who joined the uh join the army like the um the military forces and was like working very closely with where effectively was the main bad guy's son um and so like she kind of had some different experiences um
00:09:32
Speaker
Like she wasn't just sort of stuck in that one town like Justin was, right? Like she was, I mean, even when she was first introduced into the party, it was like she was on the ship with them. And it was like, she really just didn't even wanna deal with Justin and Sue. She was like, oh, I'm just going to, I'm just gonna deal with, I'm just gonna do this myself. So she had an opinion and kind of went with it from that.
00:10:02
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. And like, and like, like, I kind of agree with that piece on the nice thing about grandia what attracted me to it is like, literally, it was just really lighthearted and fun. And especially disk one like this to gets kind of heavy and bored to the like the typical JRPG plot line that you get where you're like going to save the world and stuff like that, which
00:10:21
Speaker
Which is very common, and it's not necessarily a bad thing because, I mean, it's a trope that works, right? So it's not like they did anything bad with it or whatever. But it was really kind of fun that the entire disc one was just a super lighthearted thing. And, you know, there's like a lot of funny scenes. There's a lot of like cringy characters I think we both equally hated.
00:10:46
Speaker
And he was so bad. He was just like, I'm going to kidnap and then marry her. I'm like, dude, no, like now that I know she's 15, it's even creepier to me. It's even creepier to me.
00:11:06
Speaker
that this like old guy is like really obsessed with it. It was just weird. And so, so, but there's a lot of like lighthearted stuff and among the like couple little curgy things, it was just this thing. And then disc two got really, really heavy. And that's kind of the synopsis of the game. It's a two disc game. And it's very obvious when you get to disc two, I didn't think it would be so obvious. Very obvious that you are a disc two territory. It almost looks like it ends the game.
00:11:35
Speaker
And then you start this too. Like it's like a very like ending kind of cutscene thing of Disc 1 where you're like sailing off into the sunset. Yep. And then it like grades to Disc 2. I also really wish we weren't talking about the ages of the characters because that makes things feel weird. Yeah. Honestly they don't talk about the ages in the game. Even the twins and the
00:12:02
Speaker
Connell is definitely significantly older.
00:12:06
Speaker
Yeah, and we won't talk about the ages because they don't mention age in game. They don't mention age in game. They don't mention it in the manual. And we'll just not talk about that because that'll get a little bit sad. But that is also very stereotypical like old anime, old video game mentality where a lot of games kind of mature out of that. And even with the Grandia series, Grandia 2 definitely matures out of that because the characters are much older.
00:12:36
Speaker
um so uh they they kind of they kind of grow out of that like typical 90s early 2000s anime tropes which a lot of JRPGs suffered from as well um putting the characters really young and then having like really adult situations happen and stuff like that so um
00:12:54
Speaker
let's talk about some other characters because i think yeah yeah so so now that we've gotten a brief overview uh how can we talk about the characters do you want to talk about your favorite your particular favorite and then i'll say my favorite and then we'll talk about the rest we've talked about justin and we've talked about fina yeah i want to talk about rap rap was actually like he was like he was what i needed in this game like he just
00:13:17
Speaker
He did not care. Like, he just comes in and he's just like, eh, Justin's too short. I'm just going to shorten your name to just. And I'm just like, Oh my goodness. Like, this is, this is the kind of, as the game started to get darker, I was like, this is the kind of character that you need.
00:13:36
Speaker
Like he just, he just had this mindset of like, Hey, I'm like, he was loyal and just did not care at all. It was great. Like he just, he was like the, the like comic relief of, of later game because it was, it definitely just lightened the mood a bit. Um, and it was great because again, another spoiler coming.
00:14:02
Speaker
At the end of, at the end of disc one, there's a big event where you lose some characters and like, you're basically just running around with two characters and it's like, oh, this isn't great. And then you get wrapped and it's like, all right, it's good. We're good, wrapped in a party. Everything is good. Like we have a solid party now. So, yeah. And you got it right at the start of disc two, which is great. Yes. Whereas like, Oh my goodness. I, my least favorite character.
00:14:31
Speaker
having to deal with Sue for so long. Oh my goodness. Sue drove me nothing. It makes sense. Like she's a kid, like really, really young kid. So, oh my, she just, she just drove me insane. I just couldn't. I was like, okay, you need to stop complaining. You are so
00:14:53
Speaker
like, oh, it just drove me nuts. It drove me nuts. I think having Sue there at the very beginning wasn't so bad. But you're right. And the worst of the Sue arc, and we're going to talk a little bit of spoilery because Sue is a kind of a spoilery topic. So just adds up everybody.
00:15:11
Speaker
But with Sue, her whole arc is just, she's this young kid traveling with you and is just not equipped to be traveling because she's so little. And their whole plot with her is that at the very end of Disc 1, they're like, oh, she can't travel with you anymore because she's too little. And then they send her away. And it's like, why did you go an entire half a game?
00:15:32
Speaker
before getting rid of this small child who definitely is not being able to keep up with everybody. Like literally half the game you were with this character and you're building her up and you're leveling her up and she seems like a permanent character which is very frustrating. And that's the worst part about this.
00:15:48
Speaker
is like, so unlike some games, Grandia does a good job of sort of at least giving you something. At least giving you something when characters leave the party, right? So they give you like a third of the experience that they've they've gained for like different weapons and stuff. But like, it doesn't make up for the whole disc one of this character. You have the character for the entire disc one.
00:16:15
Speaker
And you have a character for the entirety of Disc 1, and there's magic system. The magic system is like, you have to teach them magic based on items. So you don't get those items back. So all the investment that you put into that character, all you get back is a third of the experience.
00:16:36
Speaker
Which I hated. And it was only Sue they really did that with because at least with the other characters that join your party, it's very obvious they're going to leave because they're such a higher level than the rest of your party. And they can't learn magic. And they can't learn magic. Yeah. So it was very obvious they weren't going to be there where Sue, it was not at all.
00:16:59
Speaker
It was Gadwin, um, Milda? Milda and Guido. Yeah. So, and Gadwin already had magic.
00:17:10
Speaker
and the other two couldn't learn magic. Yeah, but you couldn't teach Gadwin any more magic. And he was like, he comes to be your party as level 30 when you're like level 15. So it's very obvious this character is not sticking around, but with Sue, you get her from the very start and you're with her for an entire duration of the game.
Magic System and Character Customization
00:17:30
Speaker
And it's not even like a plot segment that like,
00:17:34
Speaker
I'm not gonna spoil Final Fantasy 7, but like other games have done where it's like very crucial to the story that they're gone. There's no, it's not crucial to the story at all, but Sue is there or not there. So you're leveling this character, it's not obvious that she's going to leave. And then at the end of Disc 1, she's poof gone. And it's like, and the reason why she left, Enno can attest to, because I was yelling at my TV screen.
00:18:03
Speaker
Because I didn't remember why she left I remember that she left and I had it in my brain that she had like
00:18:10
Speaker
It was a more serious reason, but as a kid, I guess when I saw like her collapse out of fatigue, my brain was just like, Oh no, this person, you know, you know what I mean? I was thinking something entirely different. So that's what I remembered, even though it wasn't accurate. And I was just like, wait, wait, this is the reason cause she's too little. She's been traveling half the world and now she's suddenly too little. Oh my God. It was so bad.
00:18:35
Speaker
And it is a good point. So with the magic thing, there are enough items to teach Sue and all of the other permanent members all the magic. But if you're going in this as a first playthrough and you're playing blind, the likelihood that you're going to get all of those, especially because there are some of those items in
00:18:55
Speaker
The secret dungeons so the likelihood that you're gonna get all of those magic items is Not as like not very likely if you're playing a blind play through so yeah, I mean it makes it very obvious where the optional dungeons are and
00:19:12
Speaker
But it's also very much like, oh, I have to go to this segment. And it's easily missed in a sense that you'd be like, oh, I could just do this later. And you continue on with the plot. And then you miss a lot of stuff in there. And KJ did one optional dungeon. And I saved it right before the optional dungeon so that I could do it at some point, because I was trying really hard to get to the end of the game and beat it, which got fairly close. I just got a smidge. I needed another two hours, I think, of the game.
00:19:43
Speaker
Okay, listen. But I was super, super close. And it's funny because I'm at 32, or no, I'm at 33 hours of game time. So I'm very, very in line with how long you took to beat the game. My estimation of four would have put you right where I was. Like it took me about 37 hours to beat it.
00:20:02
Speaker
And you did an optional dungeon, whereas I kind of like, I, right at the beginning of the game, um, I will talk about it when we get into the gameplay aspect of things, but right at the beginning of the game, I was like running around and actually killing things. Cause I was actually finding it incredibly satisfying and we'll explain why, but yeah. So.
00:20:19
Speaker
I got I got really, really close. But yeah, I was screaming at the TV over Sue. So mad at that. I'm so mad at the reason for it. Like it was I think it was more than like you have this character. Like if they would have done that after like the first couple of dungeons you did and they're like, hey, this kid is too young. They need to go home.
00:20:38
Speaker
which they alluded to right at the beginning of the game remember where you went on the ship alone and she wasn't supposed to come and she tags along so I'm like okay this little child is gonna be with me for the entire game okay like this is the way it's gonna go um and the only reason I didn't put too much emphasis into suit is because I did remember that you lose her
00:21:00
Speaker
she was the first character i'm sorry she was the first character i had no idea i had no clue and the thing was i was like okay i had i had justin learning certain magic i had been a learning certain magic and i was like she was just going to be my me like she's just gonna have all the magic and
00:21:20
Speaker
Yeah, then I lost Sue and I was just like, well, I lost my high level magic. I love my high level cure, like cure spells. That was the big thing. It was like Sue was so far with the cure spells that I was like, oh, this sucks. But luckily, because they give you like, they give you certain things that they're, they were called like,
00:21:40
Speaker
Sue's crayons or something like that was the experience item and you would like give the experience item to other characters and they'd get a third of the experience for those specific things so I gave her I gave all of the magic stuff that Sue had to Fina and I was like, okay Well, it looks like Fina is gonna be because Justin just dealt too much damage like I definitely I we can talk about it after but I definitely took a very lunar one approach to To this game in a lot of situations
00:22:09
Speaker
Which is kind of funny because I was a little bit more versatile with Justin and I kind of got kicked in the pants later on when we talk about gameplay. I'm going to let you know because KJ doesn't actually know this because I've kept this a secret until this podcast. I think we play Justin very differently and I kind of wish I played it like KJ's. It was a bit of a struggle sometimes.
00:22:32
Speaker
Final boss for me, Justin was doing like 1200 damage. Justin was doing work at the end of the game. But yeah, on the same note of characters, how did you feel about all of the extra characters? So we had Gagwin, we had Mildo, we had Guido, and then I guess the last character, I think that we should leave hidden, just in case people do this actually in the game. We'll just refer to the last character as the last character.
00:23:00
Speaker
Yeah, so we're gonna say the last character and there will be a part like near the end of the podcast will be very much spoilery talking about the ending, which we will include the last character in that segment. But for now, we're gonna leave this as a mystery. But yeah, so Gadwin, Milda, and Gudas. So I liked Gadwin, but you knew right away when Gadwin joined the party,
00:23:23
Speaker
that he was going to leave at some point. So he was very OP, like his damage, he was doing like three or four hundred damage a hit. Whereas Justin's like, oh, whack, a hundred. And then God would come to it with like, like four hundred damage each hit. And so so you have you have him. And then he came in with some magic, but you couldn't teach him magic. And he was like 15 levels higher than you were, basically.
00:23:48
Speaker
So it was very, very obvious he was not going to stick around, which I like. I don't mind if you're going to pull in and out the party thing. If you make it very obvious, they're not going to stick around. Or it's a very crucial plot point why they don't reveal it, why they're not around like they did with Final Fantasy seven and other JRPG games where it's like very crucial to the plot, why they're not there anymore. But with with this one, like it was annoying with Sue, but with like Gadwin, Milda and Guido,
00:24:23
Speaker
Godwin was great. I liked his personality. I like how he has this like man to man like he kept talking about man to man promises with Justin and it's like a father talking to his son. He was like the father figure trope, but they just pushed it so hard. Like they pushed that so hard and they were just like, he's basically like,
00:24:40
Speaker
It was very obvious that they weren't going to stick around.
00:24:49
Speaker
Justin's father figure, like older brother, like, and to the point where they even, I don't know if you unlocked this, did you, did you unlock Gadwin's attack for Justin? Yeah, cause you, yeah. Oh, it's so good. The dragon, like the, oh my goodness. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got that. It was so good. Yeah, I spanned that move. And like, he was able to, he basically, Justin ends up getting, of Gadwin's like,
00:25:17
Speaker
uh like best move before he like right as he leaves the party as a way to and and that's that's one of the things you have a lot of party splits and a lot of characters leaving which i hate personally i hate party splits i hate sort of the
00:25:49
Speaker
Yeah, you lose Gadwin and you lose Sue, but then you get all of the experience that they had, or a third of the experience they had to be able to distribute to, at the time, Justin and Fina. And also, you get Gadwin's attack if you have things leveled up appropriately. So then it's like, okay, I'm still able to somewhat mirror some of Gadwin's damage output. So I thought that was pretty cool.
00:25:54
Speaker
Take your character to the party spot.
00:26:13
Speaker
Yeah. And I liked how Gadwin came into the story kind of like a father figure to Justin because you talk, you hear right at the storyline bits of Justin of how he's with his mom, but he didn't really know his dad because his dad was an adventurer and kind of went off on things. And I'm assuming it was kind of hinting that his dad wasn't with them anymore. Like he went on an adventure, never returned. So it's a classic like child, young sort of aspect of being like, he did. Like he did.
00:26:42
Speaker
it gave me hunter hunter vibes like i i saw a lot of gon and and yeah you know what that's a great comparison yeah there's a lot of go the naiveness the kind of dumbness at times is very very gone from hunter x hunter for anybody who uh knows uh that anime so like
00:27:05
Speaker
I liked Gavin cause he was like a father figure. I knew right away he wasn't going to be there for a thing. And because I was already doing like crazy leveling, I actually got some of experience from him with his like weapons and his magic and stuff like that, that I, cause I was playing around
Gameplay Mechanics and Strategy
00:27:20
Speaker
leveling them up. So I gave the books to Justin and that unlocked for me, his big super ability that he teaches Justin. So I was like, Hey, this is a win win for me.
00:27:31
Speaker
So it worked out well because I didn't level a certain element until later on in the game where KJ was like, oh, I picked this one for Justin. And I was like, damn it, that would have been smart. I did not do that. So Gavin gives me like those two element books plus like the same weapons as Justin uses. So I took those, I put them on Justin and then suddenly Justin unlocked his move. And I thought that was really like kind of cool plot line.
00:28:01
Speaker
Yeah, it lined up really well with that. I basically unlocked it right away. Of course you did, because you leveled up the right magic. Well the thing was, all I did was, those were the only three things Justin had. For the longest time, I ran through with Sword, Fire, Earth on Justin. And that was Justin throughout the entire, almost the entirety of it. Justin was so good.
00:28:27
Speaker
And then there were some, so Fina has some, I don't know if it's locked behind story, but Fina has some ridiculous magic spells. And like, oh my goodness, there's, I don't know if you unlocked this, Polly, but there is, this is another spoiler.
00:28:46
Speaker
Nina has a magic, like some magic that she can stop time. So she stops the bar and she moves basically for two full turns where nobody else moves, including your characters. It is so broken. Like I got it for the final boss. And I was just like, so you mean that I can stop time and then
00:29:10
Speaker
like heal everybody and then buff justin and then like do it again and just keep so that's why i ran through like the final boss i ran through and it was like yeah justin's at like level five attack power and just like soloing the boss
00:29:27
Speaker
It was awesome. I haven't unlocked that one. I locked her like big or shattering fire spell, where it's like all day. The world ends. Yeah, I have. Okay, so that's gonna get into a little bit more of something that I really dislike. And this will be a tangent. You can just put the tangent counter, increment the tangent counter now. But you can unlock magic before you can even use it. So like, for me, I was just like, wait a second. So I only have
00:29:57
Speaker
16 MP or I never actually get to use that because like my fina ended with like 27 MP and that spell cost 33 I was just like are you serious like what am I supposed to do with this I can't use this spell oh it was it was frustrating because like I wanted to see this stuff was like oh this looks like it's gonna be it's called like the world ends or something like that I'm super broken like I want to use this and I just couldn't
00:30:23
Speaker
Yeah, and I think with the magic system in the game with the characters and stuff like that, they didn't assume you would because it's definitely geared for kids and it's definitely geared towards a younger audience. I think they very much went into it thinking you wouldn't figure it out to abuse the magic leveling.
00:30:43
Speaker
And whereas me and KJ figured it out right away, KJ found out that if you like heal people with the magic at a save point, rather than using the save point to heal, you level up their healing magic faster because you could do it. It's the only element you can do outside of battle that you can level up magic wise. And so KJ had like max healing like really early on for a character he loses. So he was very
00:31:10
Speaker
No, no, no. At that point, I was good. I was healing. So that was sort of like the transition point because what happened was I got to the secret dungeon or one of the first secret dungeons and I was like, oh, I'm going to do this one. And I decided instead of trying to just have one person be healing, I was actually going to try to like spread out the healing. So there's like different traps in dungeons and things. And I just kept spamming like this one spike trap in the secret dungeon.
00:31:40
Speaker
to get everybody to be super low HP, and then heal, and then go to the save point, replenish my magic, and then do it all over again. And that actually really helped me get through that secret dungeon because I wasn't dependent on Sue to heal. At that point, I had unlocked the group magic for Sue, Fina, and Justin. So I was able to basically say, okay, I can do this. And I think
00:32:09
Speaker
I think I had had Gadwin in the party. It might have been Milda. No, Gadwin wasn't. It was after I lost too. Yeah, I think I did that with Justin and Fina because I think I had Rap and Milda at that point.
00:32:21
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Cause cause Milda joins in early on after you get rap too. Cause you get rap and then you get Milda shortly after that. So you're back to a team before. And again, they made Milda very obvious that she wasn't going to stay permanent. Like she just like comes into the scene and it's like screaming at you and then attacks like rapid knocks him out. And then you have to fight her. It's hilarious. She's just like this big like Bronnie, like female character. And I laughed really hard.
00:32:52
Speaker
It's like a bull. Literally a big chibi looking bull. Like little beady eyes, big round head, big round body is her husband. This cute, like cutesy looking bull, which I was dying so hard. And I'm spanning KJ with screenshots as I'm freaking out over this plot line. And then he's like, I'm so happy that you got here.
00:33:15
Speaker
laugh at it it was so good but this is mill this is this is what she looks like like look at her like she's like warrior buff super tall like super strong like like crazy strong lady and her hubby is this cute like round bull and it's so funny like her hubby doesn't even look humanoid he looks like a bull standing on two legs yeah it was
00:33:44
Speaker
There were definitely some things in this game that are just like, they're just silly. Like, I'm just like, this is just, this is just funny. Like, this isn't, this is, this is there to make me laugh. It's not there to be even remotely serious. Yeah. And it gets kind of serious in the plot later on, but it's still kind of really lighthearted. Like there's a scene, uh, or for like, so like the last character. So we've talked about all the characters except for like the second last one you get, which is Guido. Oh yeah. Yeah.
00:34:18
Speaker
Why don't you take this one? Because this character was just kind of like neutral to me. They didn't really- Yeah, KJ was neutral on this. As soon as Kuito starts popping up into the plot line, immediately I'm like, this is Jar Jar Binks. This is literally the Jar Jar Binks of freaking Grandia. And not even being that big of a Star Wars fan, I can appreciate the reference to that because he talks to them like this.
00:34:38
Speaker
So, KJ saw my spam of this because it was very...
00:34:47
Speaker
And we talk like a dilla. And I'm like, it's charger fix. And I'm so bad at this point, because I'm like, I don't want charger fix at my party. But they kept eluding that he because he keeps reoccurring, like popping up into your storyline, but he's not like in your party yet. And I'm like, Oh, because he was the only he was the only party member that joined at a level that was close to your party, except the last character and rap.
00:35:17
Speaker
Yeah, the only giveaway that he wasn't going to stay for me was that he couldn't learn or teach magic. As soon as he couldn't have that, I'm like, even though he joined at a very similar level, I was like, Oh no, I'm going to lose this guy too. Great. Cause it's the charger pigs that I don't want him here for very long. Cause he died.
00:35:33
Speaker
Like it is that and he's very condescending He's cute which is the worst just because he says okay I have to show the picture because I was not expecting this when I saw the character list of this game In this manual, but like he is the cute little rabbit there. So he's this rabbit character this this one over here to the left of my figure and
00:35:58
Speaker
Um, so he's this cute little rabbit character who's adorable. And I was like, Oh, I'm going to love him. Cause he's going to be like the little, like Sue's little, uh, puffy that, that sits with her, uh, kind of like the mascot of grandia. And I'm like, Oh, so we lose Sue, we lose the mascot and we gain a new mascot, the bunny. It's not going to be so bad, right?
00:36:21
Speaker
He was so annoying and hot, like Jar Jar Bix, and he refers to himself in the third person. And I'm just like, why did you ruin this cute buddy character for me?
00:36:38
Speaker
Oh my god, Matthew, I can't believe that you're a JoJo fan. Please, please. I can believe that. Matt likes, Matt likes characters that are typically, Matt likes to show love to characters that typically aren't, that don't get love. I respect it. Oh my god. So yeah, so that was the, the, the
00:37:00
Speaker
second last. We won't talk about the last last character, which I freaking adore, but we won't talk about it until like when we talk about the ending spoiler stuff. So those are the characters that you have. You have like Justin made characters kind of dub, but like it's very sweet that he's like, woo, let's like go on adventures. I want to be an adventurer. And he's very like, you know, like he's a fun kind of main character, but like,
00:37:25
Speaker
KJ loved Rap, Rap was his boy, and then Fina was mine. Like, as soon as Fina joins the party, and she's this very strong, independent female character, which was kind of rare back then to be put in the games, there's very few of them. Like, Valkyrie Profile is another example where they had that. Even Reina and Star Ocean 2, I mean, Enix was pretty good at doing good female characters.
00:37:50
Speaker
But like it was still very rare back in like the super Nintendo PS one area of having these like really strong females who can hold their own and they don't necessarily need the main guy to protect them or save them. They're kind of like equal companions, which is actually kind of rare back then. So seeing Fina and seeing her powerful, she was like an adventure before him and she's like really holds her own. And while she starts to develop a connection with Justin, it's more like they're a team.
00:38:20
Speaker
and later on there's a few like saving back and forth between the two of them but for the most part they're like again like he saves her she saves him like it's still a very like 50-50 thing which I loved about it so Fina if she if she just wasn't in such a skimpy outfit I would be all over cosplaying her she was like my favorite character in the game
00:38:44
Speaker
until a character comes in later who I also loved but like she was the best like she was just super spirited and always like and she she leaned like at first she was kind of like a little bit more pessimistic but Justin's like hope and positivity rubbed off on her more
00:39:02
Speaker
And so she became way more like positive and like, you know, like, yeah, things are going to work out. Things are going to go good. You know, rather than looking at it going like, I don't know. I don't think this is going to work. And being like super hesitant. She was a little bit, a little bit more like he influenced her in a good way, which was great to see that like the two characters and she influenced him in a great way and progressed and motivated him to keep going kind of thing. So.
00:39:30
Speaker
They worked really well as a dynamic. KJ knows. I was screaming at the game since the very beginning, being like, if these two do not get together, I'm going to be so angry because they hinted at it so much. But it was so adorable their development. It was very, very like. I'm just trying my best not to give any spoilers because I did finish the game and I don't want to
00:39:57
Speaker
I don't want to spoil things. I know, I know there's now, there's definitely people in the chat that are playing the game right now and I don't want to spoil, I don't want to spoil too much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're, we're, we're trying, uh, Jack also welcomed him, by the way, Jack though, uh, we're trying really hard to save the super spoiler for the very end. And we'll, we'll, I'm like, KJ like, because he actually beat it. I didn't get to beat it yet. And I told him I was fine with it because I'm going to still beat it, by the way, I'm still going to beat this game. I'm actually even going to go and play the two optional dungeons too. Cause I'm very curious of what they are.
00:40:26
Speaker
Um, but like I said, like the very last bit, we'll talk about a spoiler spoiler character and like, like kind of like super spoilers, but you, you still might get a little bit spoiled, but like, hopefully it won't be too bad. There's, there's actually three secret dungeons. Um, there's two that are like really close to each other. And the other one's more like a room. Okay.
00:40:53
Speaker
Yeah, so that's kind of the thing. And that actually is a good point. We could hold off, let you beat the game, or the next podcast we can open with the ending, if you want to do it that way too. We can try to go from there, because I'll remember the ending and everything.
00:41:08
Speaker
That might be an idea because that might be an idea if we ever get to the point where either one of us haven't beaten it. We could always have the beginning of the last or the next podcast being the wrap up of the last one just to tie everything together because we're going to cut the videos together. I like that. I like that because I also I feel I would feel bad spoiling things.
00:41:28
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Cause I was super close. I feel like the next game we do, I will be pretty well in sync with play. So yeah, I think we'll be fine. I think we got this.
00:41:40
Speaker
And I think I'll be able to beat it in a couple of days before the next game comes in. So like, I'm, I'm, I feel like I'm super close. You're right. I'm only a few hours left, like four or five hours. I could probably, and then we'll do it. So, so that's a great point. We'll save the ending discussion. So the, the, the end of the game slash the big spoiler for the next podcast. Uh, I'd like that. I like that idea.
00:42:03
Speaker
Uh, that way we're not like super sick. So that gives everybody who are still maybe playing it another month before we reveal it. And then you could just like skip the first 10 minutes of our podcast on Twitch, like just muted and then go into the next game. If you're too, too, like worry, we don't want to do that.
00:42:19
Speaker
Um, but, um, yeah, so, so those are the characters. Um, I, I instantly was just not a fan of, but, but rap, I agree with KJ rap, maybe laugh. So rap has this line about talking about cure it. Like, okay. So Fida is starts to get serious in this too. And it starts to get worried because like plot starting to pick up at everything and she's getting really concerned about things and she's worried and stuff. And.
00:42:44
Speaker
And you could tell that even though Justin's lightheartedness is still there, she's got too much heavy thoughts on her brain to really be able to get the happy-go-lucky that she was. So she's got this expression on. And so rap turns to her and is like, are you like...
00:43:03
Speaker
constipated or something? Like, did you know that you could cure constipation by like shaving your head and like wrap, like smacking your ass?
00:43:15
Speaker
three times, and then you cure constipation. And I'm like, what is this comment? I'm like, why? Why is this? He's just ridiculous. He also just like, tells it how it is. There's actually a screenshot of it.
00:43:34
Speaker
I can't show it because it's a little bit of a spoiler because it has a character in it. But there's a point in the game where Justin's just like, okay, I give up. I suck. I can't do anything with this. And Rap's just like, you are the biggest idiot I've had the misfortune of knowing. And then just leaves. And I'm just like, you know what? That's the kind of thing that needed to be said right there. Just tell him, Rap.
00:43:55
Speaker
Oh yeah rap is a very like brutally honest kind of person and he's like super down to earth and he's such a different character than any of the characters you had run into yet. So you had like Sue who was clinging to Justin and is very young and child me like Justin and like in that voice I'm not kidding and then you have Fina who's like strong and dependent you got Justin who's a little dumb and like just very
00:44:17
Speaker
uh like head in the clouds kind of guy and then you have godwin who comes in like a father figure so then you get rap who rap just fights you right away it's just like let's just showdown let's just fight and like and and then it's just very like this these these funny little bits where he's like brutally odd as
00:44:39
Speaker
And he's like, he just tells it as it is. And I revealed a scene to KJ. KJ didn't even see that when you later on in the game, you could go back to this village and talk to this character and rap is just so mean to this character. And like me, because this character's in love with somebody and he's just like super mean about it. Like, okay, we get it. And he like leaves the room. He's like, I'm tired of this.
00:45:06
Speaker
And I'm like, oh my God, Rap, you are a mood. You know how when you get into like movies and games where they're like doing like the mushy, mushy, kissy, kissy, lovey, lovey stuff and you're like, okay, I just want to kill things. Please continue on with this plot line. Rap like literally personified that in a scene and I died and I sent it to KJ and he's like, that's my boy. He's like, yep, yep.
00:45:27
Speaker
so so he was fantastic and So he does that constipation line and then milda is like no you you relieve constipation by 1500 push-ups He's like, how does doing push-ups relieve constipation? She's like, how does shaving your head and they're like squabbling? Well, like Justin if either like we're trying to be serious guys We're trying to go to save the world and they're like wobbling on this like weird homemade remedy to save like save you from Constipation and they're just like, oh my god. It was ridiculous
00:45:59
Speaker
There's so many moments in this game that I just burst out laughing at and rap was involved in a lot of them because he's just very like serious stuff like that but also just like
00:46:11
Speaker
It just, it had that dumb humor, but like in a way that it was entertaining. Like it was just, it was super like charming. So, um, so the characters for the most part were great. It's just having Sue be in your entire party for discipline. And then.
00:46:28
Speaker
Not. And it never eluding that she was going to go was frustrating. And the reason she goes is very frustrating. And then after that, it's very obvious. So it's kind of like they learned by that point. But you get rap, which is a much better third party member, in my opinion. He's a lot of fun.
00:46:48
Speaker
Um, and, and yeah, so those are, those are the characters. Do we want to talk a little bit about the gameplay though? Cause that's, I think this game shines with the game play a little bit. I do. I agree with that. Um, yeah, I think gameplay and then there's also just like things that are in, that are like not necessarily gameplay things, but like there's pieces of the game that I would say.
00:47:12
Speaker
we can start a touch on too, like just kind of like overworld and different things like that. So yeah, I mean, we can dive into it for sure. Yeah. You want to start? You want to start? Yeah, sure. So I really like the gameplay of this game. I absolutely loved the way, like I love the learning magic system. I love that you couldn't just get all the magic. I love that you had to kind of go through.
00:47:37
Speaker
And like, I really enjoyed the fact that they split things up the way they did. So every element and weapon type has a level.
Navigation Challenges and Solutions
00:47:50
Speaker
and they don't force you to kind of level up certain things but everything you unlock different moves as you sort of diversify your levels of different different things so you can decide like hey i'm just gonna go all sword all bow all staff or whatever for the for three different characters but then
00:48:12
Speaker
like you're gonna miss out on some skills so for me personally like i went through with justin and at first i was trying to sort of do everything uh separately and then i did the secret dungeon got a broken sword and i was like okay i'm using swords with justin from here on out like you're basically all that happened between that and then the levels that i got from gadwin i was like yeah i'm just gonna do it that way
00:48:33
Speaker
but like it's cool because you can actually see as you unlock different uh magic you can each each character has a certain weapon that they are um that they can certain weapons they can use like certain weapon types so like Justin can use I think swords, staffs, and axes and so he has abilities for those specific um those specific
00:49:00
Speaker
weapons and then as you teach him magic he gets other abilities that he can learn. So I thought that was really cool. I do feel like that does make things a little grindy sometimes because in order to get certain
00:49:15
Speaker
In order to get certain abilities and get certain magic, you have to continue to use them because that gives you experience. That said, there are some ways around that with the healing magic and stuff like that. Also, some of the abilities, they're in-battle buffs. You can actually get yourself into a point where you can just do a bunch of buffs to make your party super defensive and then just use the other buffs to actually gain magic without having to do damage like a weak enemy.
00:49:43
Speaker
That was kind of interesting. What else?
00:49:48
Speaker
The, in terms of like the out of battle gameplay, I mean, the game is pretty linear. That's one thing I was like, okay, this is just something to note. Um, the compass system and the camera angle was something I really hated. Uh, they don't give you maps as Holly alluded to earlier. So there's no like world map or mini map or anything like that. You just have a compass and the compass is supposed to point you to the direction of the next story.
00:50:17
Speaker
but the idea is like in theory it's great in theory that compass is great but in practice it's not super effective so there are times when you just get lost because the compass is you think that it's guiding you one way and really it's not
00:50:33
Speaker
So that was kind of weird. Another thing that I thought was cool was the fact that this is both good and bad. There was no multi-target system for magic. There was either single target, there was a ranged attack, or it hit everybody. And so I thought that was kind of cool, but it took me a bit to get adjusted to. And I didn't love that because it was like, OK, with the range attacks, because of how sort of free-flowing
00:51:03
Speaker
the actual battlefield is, it's like you can miss characters, yeah you can miss enemies if you're just like casting magic and trying to hit everybody, especially because it doesn't show you, like I think it would have been better if they showed you a range and it was like more on a grid sort of, just so you had some idea and it wasn't just like kind of shoot from the hip.
00:51:28
Speaker
Other than that, I think I really liked the action bar. Like I thought that was cool. I thought the ability to like, can like certain attacks being able to cancel out enemies attacks and that happening to you as well, I thought was really cool. Cause the way it works is there's like a bar on the bottom. And then as soon as you hit the very start of the action portion of it, then you can like pick your action.
00:51:53
Speaker
And then depending on what action you choose and like your action stat, you actually will cast that spell or do that action faster. So somebody like Rap, for example, had a lot, he was very fast because he was like basically a ninja. So he, it was like if you casted a thing with him, it was almost immediate that he was kind of fast. So I thought that was really cool. Let's see.
00:52:21
Speaker
What else? What other things? Oh, and then yes, one other thing. The weapons and magic contributing to actual skills. I think that's what made things really cool. So it was like, if you had earth magic, for example, every time you leveled up, it will, every time you leveled up earth magic, it would contribute to your strength and your HP. I thought that was something that while
00:52:47
Speaker
Like, again, can be super grindy. I thought it was a cool way to sort of incentivize using magic. Like, because for a while with like, I wasn't using magic at all. And then I was like, I should probably do this because that will get me to the point where I'm getting more stats. And that was the case with weapons as well. But I thought the fact that magic contributed to it was also pretty cool. Other gameplay things.
00:53:14
Speaker
I think that's just about it. I think for gameplay, I think that's it. I think one, yeah. The other thing that I was thinking about was like the hints at the save point, but that's not really gameplay per se, but I thought that was pretty cool. That's just like a mechanic of the- Yeah, it's like a mechanic that's in the game, yeah.
00:53:30
Speaker
Yeah, I fully agree with all of that. I like the thing. And it was really, really cool too, that you could, if you go into your like move set, if you had certain magic and stuff like that, it would tell you how much you had to level up to unlock something, but it wouldn't tell you what it was. So I found that like really cool because you'd like, like you were leveling up your sword and you're leveling up like water or something like for that. And then I learned this like crazy ice mood with Justin or whatever, where he's like ice slash kind of thing. And he like stabs the ground and freezes everything. It just looks really cool.
00:54:00
Speaker
So like you don't know what you're going to get, but it's really cool because it's this mystery of like, whoo, what's going to unlock? And then certain characters unlocked different magic abilities than others, which I didn't realize. So like I was leveling up, for example, Earth on Fina, because I saw with Godwin, he had a defense loss ability where he can like negate the defense of a character.
00:54:27
Speaker
But Fida doesn't learn that. Even though she level up the Earth, she learns different things. So I was like, okay. And so I had to like level up Rap with that because Rap ended up being more of a buff, debuff kind of character, which I didn't realize until I started leveling him up in Earth. And you get enough like mana eggs and stuff like that to teach everybody magic so everybody could get like the different spells and stuff. So you could kind of coordinate that. But like,
00:54:57
Speaker
with KJ and how he played, he made a comment. He's like, oh, I put earth on Justin because of the strength stat bonus. And I was like, well, that would have been smart. My Justin had like the wind. Just my Justin had wind and fire for the longest time. But none of my characters had wind for a long time.
00:55:20
Speaker
Yeah. And see, I, and then suddenly Justin was like learning like electricity moves. And I was like, Oh, this is cool. And like doing, he learns a move called Thor's hammer. He like, like electrifies his sword and like, Oh, it's super cool. So like, I was, I was somewhat happy that, but I made the mistake of putting healing on Justin instead of the earth. Earth was the last thing that ended up on Justin.
00:55:48
Speaker
his strength wasn't as high as I wanted it to be, but his like magic abilities were what saved me in the game. Is that like his like literal like Thor's hammer did like 1200 damage to a boss recently. And I was like, okay, I'll take it. And like, and so I made suit was the healer. So when Sue left, I was frustrated. So then I had rap and, and, you know, with the water elements,
00:56:16
Speaker
Rap doesn't learn a heal all and I was really sad about it and I'm like why do I keep wasting my time on these games? So Justin was the only one with a heal all but he's my tank and I was attacking with him all the time so like I didn't have time so I used a lot of items let's just
00:56:32
Speaker
But it was really cool that you could customize your characters how you wanted. And me, even though KJ and I played the exact same game, we did it differently in terms of what we leveled up, what magic we put on people, and like who we like referenced in that and stuff like that.
00:56:49
Speaker
It ended up being that even though we were playing the exact same game, we went down it a little differently, which I thought was really cool with a gameplay mechanic. Cause usually with JRPGs, they're a little bit more linear on their mechanical stuff. And so like you end up kind of playing it very similar to everybody.
00:57:05
Speaker
else but this one you can play it differently with like different magics that you want to like you can make Justin a healer if you want it you can make Justin like a tank you can make him an attacker you can make him more of a magic heavy person it's up to you on how you like level things up and you grind and stuff which is really really cool um and like
00:57:29
Speaker
I liked that aspect of it. But yeah, as KJ alluded to, one of my biggest pet fees of this game was the compass instead of a minimap. And that's because they tell you the compass is always pointing to the plot direction. But when you go to a dungeon, it's very weavy. And so and it's just pointing in this random direction. And I'm like, Oh, it doesn't reset. So the end of a dungeon.
00:57:55
Speaker
it still points to the end of the dungeon even though there's no fast travel back or anything. You have to just remember the way back. Exactly, which was really frustrating. I realized why they did it is to put a more element where you go back and you kill all the enemies you missed or you level up and it's trying to get you to grind a little bit without making it like super grindy feeling.
00:58:17
Speaker
But it actually kind of frustrated me at some points when you had beat a boss and then now you have to go all the way back through the dungeons you just went through to get out to get to the next sequence. There was no teleportation. There was no like warping to the end of the dungeon. There was no retreat, which I, which in Golden Sun I really like because they have a retreat button. Whereas like once you complete it, you could literally hit retreat your magical ability and you end up back at the beginning of the dungeon. You can leave.
00:58:43
Speaker
They didn't have that in Grandia. So it was and especially with no mini map, sometimes it's really hard to remember going backwards to get out because you went a certain way to get in to the boss. And now you have to remember that. But going backwards, it's like it switches your camera angles. So now that you're facing that direction of leaving. But so now you have to remember everything to weave backwards. And when I realized I was super behind and I was trying to catch up this week to try to beat it this week for this podcast.
00:59:12
Speaker
I told KJ I cheated a little bit and that's I brought up somebody had made mini maps of the different dungeons. So I brought those up so that I could just look at the mini map really quickly to navigate back out of the dungeon. So I didn't have to like constantly fumble my way back through because I was finding that frustrating.
00:59:35
Speaker
like mini-map would have been such a big quality of life upgrade of the game because I think I understand the premise of the compass I just wish it would have moved and re-centered and like actually like when you got to the end of the dungeon and beat the boss then the compass would change to the next thing like it would have been a little bit more like okay this compass is actually useful
00:59:58
Speaker
And that's actually what made me stop playing originally. The compass drew me insane. And then like the spinning camera angles can kind of like overwhelm you a little bit, especially for a PS1 game, because it can kind of like, I realized they did that so that you, there was a lot of the times where things were blocking view, so you had to spin the camera to be able to see. But like,
01:00:19
Speaker
It was a little bit much and it was a little bit like, whoa, okay, I spin. There was no subtly moving the camera or a slow motion. It was just fast or nothing. And you're just like, okay, this is a little bit hard to get used to. And, oh, the RPG is making a struggle. Yeah.
01:00:39
Speaker
now you're completely right like there are rpg games where they don't have like a mini map and stuff like that and i understand it but i've i think with the rotating camera and the fact when you went into a boss and you came back out it was switched the orientation i think that's what threw me off a lot to try to backtrack through where other ones that i've found did that so like
01:01:00
Speaker
But the leveling system was great. The magic system was really cool. And then I finally figured out what the stars below each spell was. And that's the speed of which you will summon the spell. So as you level that up and you get it to max, you're doing your spells instantaneous, which is so helpful with healing.
01:01:21
Speaker
It's so helpful with healing. And I'm pretty sure they level up based on your level of your magic. Yeah, they level up based on your magic level and how many times you use them. So if you're using them more in battle, they'll level up quicker. And, or if you're leveling up just the magic in general, they'll also level up, which is, which is kind of nice, especially with moves because by like where I am right now, just before the end of like the end of game, like a whole sequence of stuff.
01:01:46
Speaker
Justin is spamming like his like really powerful attack moves instantaneous. So it makes bosses easier. It's so great. Yeah, I think that actually kind of broke broke things for me because he's so fast.
01:02:01
Speaker
Oh yeah, Rap summons magic already fast. So when you master things, I had him mastered with defense up, defense loss, and attack up. So he's like attack uping Justin so quickly, and then getting his turn back before the boss goes. We played this game so differently, it's wild. Because I never, like, Rap was specifically damaged for me.
01:02:23
Speaker
He has fire at level 8, and he's got earth at level 2. But other than that, Rap just... I just spam... If it's a group of enemies, I'm spamming his AOE attacks. If it's just one enemy, I'm just spamming his one... I think it's called Missile or something like that. That one attack, and he's doing 6, 7, 800 damage.
01:02:46
Speaker
Yeah, that's so wild. And I made him an entire buffer. So he was my debuff buffer and then he would attack. So he was like my second attacker once he like buffed everybody and debuffed. And then Fina was like both because she could actually make a heel all because of Justin being my heel all when he's my attacker.
01:03:07
Speaker
So once I got heal all for her, um, she was kind of like the magic person. And so she was trying to stunning them with the magic, whatever healing and that, but yeah, having rap as it, cause he has all the buffer debuffs. He's like got poison spells he can learn. He's got like, uh, he can make your movement faster. He can make your, the enemy slower. Like it was like super.
01:03:30
Speaker
He was definitely designed to be like both an attacker and a debuff buffer, which is really, really cool. And it's so funny that me and KJ went the entire opposite level. He was like, KJ is like attacker and he was a debuff buffer for me.
01:03:47
Speaker
That's hilarious. And again, that just means the gameplay is great. Like that we had two very different, like it's still a very linear game and the plot wise and stuff is going to stay the same. But for the gameplay being that different, it also opens up that replayability of like, oh, what if I would have done this character like this?
01:04:10
Speaker
I'd go back of replaying the game and making them like a healer or making them a buffer and stuff like that and seeing how the difficulty level had changed based on that. Which offers that little bit of replay value without being like just kind of the same thing again and again and again. So I have a question for you guys. You played other games in the series. Are they all similar with the leveling system and like the mana eggs and stuff like that?
01:04:39
Speaker
So the Mana Eggs is definitely a Grandia trope. The Mana Eggs and stuff like that are in all of them, I believe. And they have similar stuff. I think Grandia 2 really improves it, though. And really, Grandia 2 is my personal favorite out of the series. And I feel like they've really learned from Grandia 1. And then they're like, OK.
01:05:01
Speaker
This is a great idea. Let's perfect it. And they've perfected it, which was really interesting. And then Grandia III, I didn't get too far into it, but it looked like it was having a similar thing. So I feel like their battle systems and their mechanics stay very similar. It's just they like improve it a little bit more streamlined and everything and improving certain mechanics and stuff like that of it. But yeah, Grandia II has a very similar.
01:05:25
Speaker
Um, similar thing to it. Some things change, but it's, it's, uh, and it's very much. Brandia one, what I like better than grandia two and other series is grandia one, you can customize the characters a little bit more, uh, grandia two, they're very more or less what they are. Oh, this is, this is a mage. This is a swordsman. This is a shield. Like they're a little bit more obvious.
01:05:54
Speaker
with that and how they have like set classes almost. Yeah, almost. Yeah. So they kind of go with the more like JRPG kind of streamline of that because technically Grandia 2 was on the Dreamcast. So it was like it was very close to Grandia 1 releasing kind of idea. So it's more of a in between PlayStation 1 and 2 game than a PlayStation 2 game because it came out on the Dreamcast.
01:06:21
Speaker
Um, which I feel like is the better version of the game personally. Um, but yeah, they, they, they made a little thing, whereas grandi won, they made you be able to customize a little bit better. And like, we just had, we both played at the same time and had very different runs of our characters.
01:06:38
Speaker
Uh, grandia two, probably you won't have that. Um, but similar, like similar things. There's other things that I like it better. And, uh, but yeah, so apparently grandia one really had like, uh, an idea and it's almost like grandia two. They were like, I don't think people like that idea. So let's make it a little bit more. I think, but it's like playing grandia one. Now I'm like, Oh, I wish that was in like other grandia games. I think that would have been.
01:07:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair. That's very fair. Like, I think that's, that's a huge, that's sort of a huge thing. It's like having that sort of customizability and being able to control, being able to control things in a way that you don't get forced down a certain path with the characters is awesome. Yeah, I think that's one thing that Grandia 1 did better than Grandia 2.
01:07:31
Speaker
So I know there's a couple of different releases of this game, yeah. So I know there's the Sega Saturn version, there's the PS1 version, and then there's the Switch. I'm actually not super versed in the differences between them.
01:07:46
Speaker
Yeah, we didn't play them on different things, and when I originally played it, like I have the PlayStation 1 version, but I don't, because I played this as a kid, like I've had this game for a really long time, and I've played this one as a kid, and then we, because we rented it, and then I bought it a few years later when I was a little bit older and I had the money.
01:08:06
Speaker
um and added it to my collection but i hadn't gone back and like replayed it so i don't really know the differences between like the remaster and grandia 1 and the sega saturn versions uh whereas grandia 2 i played that on dreamcast and played a beat it on dreamcast and then played it beat it on ps2 so i know the differences and it plays a little bit more smoothly on the dreamcast and there's a little less of artifacting issues and stuff like that so um
01:08:35
Speaker
Grandi, I think, was more designed to be on Sega systems. So maybe the Sega Saturn version of this game might play, quote unquote, the most smoothest. But I think the remaster did. I think like there wasn't anything inherently like issuey with the remaster I found anyway. I don't have any problems with it either.
01:08:55
Speaker
So I think the remaster is a good version of it for anybody who wants to play Grandia. I think getting the remaster version of it is still a solid version. But I don't know the Saiga Saturn, and I'd have to replay the PS11 to see if there was any significant changes. I know they changed a few of the wording things.
01:09:24
Speaker
Yeah. The thing is out of version was, um, was Japan only. So, okay. I think of that and like fan translations. Yeah. So there we go. So that, that is something that like, we wouldn't even be able to like really compare unless we get a fan translation. Yeah. But, uh, but yeah, so, so, uh, we talked about gameplay characters. Um, what did you think about the soundtrack?
Soundtrack and Emotional Impact
01:09:52
Speaker
Oh, I love the soundtrack. Actually, one song in particular, it's the Disc 2 battle theme. The Disc 2 battle theme hits so well. Like, oh my goodness, the Disc 2 battle theme is fantastic. Agreed. I'm gonna agree with you on that one. As soon as you hear it on Disc 2 that the battle theme changed, I got so hyped.
01:10:17
Speaker
Yeah, that was, that was definitely like my favorite, my favorite thing in the entire soundtrack. But it was, it was definitely, I think they did a good job of like, oh, this is the music for the tone of the different things. So like, if you're in a more adventury, happy tone in the game, like generally speaking, I think the, um,
01:10:43
Speaker
the soundtracks are pretty good. When you're in a cave or in a jungle area, they really do a good job of making sure that the soundtrack complements that. And I thought that was really cool.
01:10:58
Speaker
Yeah, like you can hear the birds in the jungle in the soundtrack. You can hear the waves when you're in that one town where you're by the ocean and stuff like that. You can hear the waves hitting the thing. Those little things just tie you into the world and immerse you more, even though the voice acting was a little bit more sparring. The fact that it had voice acting at all blew my mind for a PlayStation 1 Sega Saturn game.
01:11:23
Speaker
Like the fact that it had any voice acting was shocking. Like some PlayStation 1 games do it. A lot of them don't. Like Final Fantasy 7, for example, has no voice acting in it. So like the fact that they put that in there and every now and then they had these voices and stuff like that was nice. And in the battle you were hearing the voices a lot.
01:11:42
Speaker
um and everything which is kind of cool each character has like their they have like a handful of phrases for the things that they're potentially potentially uh doing so yeah and they're not saying the same thing over and over again sometimes it cycles and stuff even with the moves like you know like
01:11:58
Speaker
you know, Nina's got different lines, Justin's got different lines for different moves, and it's like, at least it's not as repetitive that way, which is kind of nice. And yeah, and the OST like blended really well in that. So like, the disc one had way more happier, lighter music because it's more happier, lighter topic.
01:12:17
Speaker
And then when you sit in this too, even the battle system is more like, okay, this is getting more intense. It's getting more like, oh my goodness, shit has happened. And you're just like, wow. They timed that so well where they made it way more like.
01:12:32
Speaker
fully, like more serious music in the second disc and more lighthearted music in the first one. Like even like their theme, like their character themes, like Justin's and Sue's and stuff like that are very like really cutesy and upbeat. And then when you're like hearing stuff or whatever in the second disc, you're like, okay. And the battle system is one of the ones that changed where it was such a noticeable tone difference.
01:12:56
Speaker
where it's like, oh, and the other one, it's like, oh, there's a boss going on. And then and then in like the friggin just two, it's like, oh, there's a boss happening. Yeah, I've got dark, you know, and there's like more emotional music playing. Like there's more like sad moments and just to stuff like that, like it's sad tone and everything. So they have like more sad music in it. Oh, it's just they think that the OST so well, like the music was fitted so well.
01:13:25
Speaker
On that same note, I think their use of the cutscenes in the game kind of also helped to contribute to that. I think you start to see different cutscenes in the game that really sort of push that emotion, regardless of what it is. Yeah, it definitely, that was... I think sort of the...
01:13:50
Speaker
Like the OST, the cutscenes, the voice acting, that stuff really does well. Really, really does well there with pushing the feeling of the game.
01:14:08
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So like it. Yeah, like the OSD did such a good like I didn't look up the composer, but I'm definitely going to look it up because I think it's going to be a soundtrack I download. So because I think it's going to go into my rotation now because it's it's really, really good.
01:14:27
Speaker
It definitely is. For those art streams I do, I'm going to throw in the Grandia OSD there. It's really good. And that's something that I really liked across all the Grandia games, is they do really, really good with the music. For the OST and Grandia 1, I think it's just as powerful as the OST and Grandia 2. And Grandia 3, one of the things I remembered I really enjoyed was the music. I didn't get very, very far in the game, but what I heard of the music, it was really, really good.
01:14:56
Speaker
So you want to hear something funny? But the music for Grande was written by the same composer for the Lunar series. Okay. That may I love Lunar soundtrack. So that makes so much. I don't know what the difference
01:15:19
Speaker
Maybe, maybe they like tweak the, the music for grant you one or something like that. But that makes sense because lunar also came out for Sega originally. So, um, so that makes a lot of sense that it's the civil. Oh, that's hilarious. I didn't even make that, that connection, but you know what, grandi is like an anime style, like JRPG. It's got little anime elements like lunar does. And you know what? Like that makes a heck of a lot of sense. Like.
01:15:47
Speaker
I didn't know that confirmed. That's hilarious. That's great though, because I love the Ludar series. Yeah, it's kind of wild. It's kind of wild to think about. I didn't make that connection either. I didn't even think about it. I was just like, oh, this is great. I enjoy this. Yeah, a little mind blowing. But yeah, one thing to lead into. So we talked about the soundtrack. Now I want to talk a little bit about the cut scenes.
01:16:11
Speaker
I think they should have gone one way or another. So there's not very many cutscenes in this game, but for the very few that there are, they tried a couple times to put anime 2D characters with very obvious 3D backgrounds.
01:16:29
Speaker
And it's such a disconnect that I'm like, either go all in with the anime like Lunar did, where all their cutscenes was anime, which was animated, animated, anime style, which is great. Lean into that. You've got the character profiles as anime already. You can do that. And it still flows really well as a game.
01:16:47
Speaker
well but grandia was like but we're we're a 3d game so they tried to do their cutscenes in 3d and then sometimes every now and then they throw in the 2d anime in front of it and it just looks really disconnected and it's like one of the only things of this that i didn't like was was like they're so infrequent so it's not like it's not gonna pull you out of the the experience it was just we're talking about stuff in the game and this is getting kind of nitpicky but like
01:17:15
Speaker
the cutscenes the few that they do have like they're trying to blend that 3d with 2d but they're not at a stage development wise back then that they could have done that very well it's not like an aqua path or something like that where they can
01:17:30
Speaker
where they blend that really, really well because they didn't have the technology and stuff. It was just, I wish they would have just leaned into the anime. They had the anime profiles and they all change depending on what the character's feeling. And there's like, Fina's got like 30 different expressions that she cycles through, which is great. When they're talking, they have like this little anime picture above their dialogue and it changes depending on how they're feeling. Which is awesome.
01:17:55
Speaker
which is great. So it's like all they had to do for the little cutscenes they had, which probably would have taken a lot less graphical intensity for the discs, was just make them little cute little anime cutscenes. Even if they kept them as infrequent as they did, like just it just felt like they were trying to do like two things and mush them together. And it just it just didn't come off quite quite connected. It's so funny because like
01:18:24
Speaker
I noticed it, but I didn't care. Like I said, I'm getting nitpicky. It's very tiny because there's very few cut scenes. I think there's like four I run into. There weren't a ton. Yeah. So it was just a tiny little bit. When they had them, they were effective in my opinion.
01:18:41
Speaker
Yeah, they got it across mainly. I have some other nitpicky things that are, you actually haven't run into them yet. You haven't run into them yet, but I have some other nitpicky things. Yeah, go for it. Without spoiling, like, there are some, like, the power of friendship moments, and that hurt me. It just, I couldn't, I was like, no, why? Like, don't do this to me.
01:19:06
Speaker
don't do this to me like this game like they just went like light-hearted too serious to we're gonna get through this with the power of friendship and I'm like no don't like why why is this a thing um so something and I mean it makes sense like it's it's a it's a it's an RPG from the 90s like I kind of can expect something like that um the other thing there are parts of the end game
01:19:36
Speaker
that are just not actually hard for any reason. And one thing I wanted to note was this really annoying, stupid memory puzzle room. Oh, it drove me nuts. I was so mad. Oh, no. You had said something about a puzzle room, and I don't think I've gotten there yet. No, you're not there yet. It annoyed me so much. I was just like, oh, this is a...
01:20:05
Speaker
This is definitely an area and it's like, you have to just remember some things and it's just
Endgame Challenges and Inventory Management
01:20:10
Speaker
not great. Like, so that was definitely something I was like, eh, let's, let's, let's not do this. And then lastly, actually the inventory system. I didn't think about y'all. You, you said that you used a lot of items. So like, because you used items, you probably didn't have as much problem as I did, but like I didn't use items in this game until
01:20:36
Speaker
probably healing items or anything until very, very late game. When you start getting party splits, when they start taking people out of the party. Okay. You had an inventory stocked of items that you constantly had to throw in your stash? That I had to throw in the stash or throw away because it's like, if I find a mana egg and I don't have the ability to hold it, then I'm just...
01:21:05
Speaker
stuck. That's the thing. I was, so I wasn't using them. That was the thing. But I wasn't using them very much as much as I should have been. They give you a lot of like damage items and things like that. That is really not needed.
01:21:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's so like, so you get those and then you start getting like a lot of like move enhancing items that can only be used to battle and stuff like that where I really didn't need any of this stuff until disk to the only thing I used before disk to was healing items on the very rare occasion.
01:21:40
Speaker
because I had Sue as a healer, right? So it wasn't until they took Sue away that like, I was like, Oh no. So there's a gap where I was using a lot of items and I didn't find the inventory management system as like, so it's like, it was very much wanting me to use items, but not giving you a reason to use them.
01:21:59
Speaker
Yeah, so I ended up being very difficult because each character. So so what we're talking about inventory managed this every character can hold up to 12 items in their inventory at a time. And depending on how many characters you have in the party, you might have 24 slots, 36 slots, 12 slots or 48 because it's 12 per character. And so that's one thing about Golden Sun that I get frustrated with, too. But at least with Golden Sun, I found a more use of the items very early on.
01:22:28
Speaker
where as like where as grandia there's no reason to use a lot of the items in the first disc like enemies are not as long as you're going through and you're fighting a few enemies each dungeon you're not super underleveled you really need them even for boss fights you don't really need to worry especially if you teach somebody with like as soon as you teach somebody with healing magic it's like
01:22:51
Speaker
You very, very rarely need those things. And then you're not getting the, like, up in your attack power by two items and stuff like that until just two anyway. So it's like, they're like the few little things that you get, like the damaging items. I was like, I was doing more damage with Justin, like just smacking them with a sword than a bomb going off and doing 50 damage would have done.
01:23:12
Speaker
So I'm just like, I wasn't using them and stuff like that. So it was very like, I constantly had to keep going back to the stash and dumping or discarding. I discarded items a lot. Anytime I got like explosion stuff, I just discarded it because you get enough money in the game too, that I didn't need the feeling, the need to sell really ever, except for maybe used weapons. And then even then they had a trade system where you'd buy a new weapon and you could go to trade where it's like, it would like minus off the difference. I thought that was really cool. And I wish I had games.
01:23:42
Speaker
It's actually really, really, really, really nice. That was a quality of life upgrade. I think more JRPG should do where you go into your inventory and rather than just having to like equip a new character that go back into your inventory and sell it, that you could be like trade and that where you, you buy it for the difference between the, the selling the item and it gets rid of the items so that you don't have to get back into your inventory. It's just a nice little something that like something like golden sun had like.
01:24:11
Speaker
When you buy an item, it's like, oh, who is this for? You say it's for this person. It's like, do you want to equip it? And do you want to sell us this other thing? Like, that's actually something Camelot games are really good at. Because I know I'm pretty sure that... Did Shining Force have that? Shining Force made it that. I'm not remembering now, but I thought it did.
01:24:35
Speaker
Yeah, and Skizzy makes a great point. A lot of JRPGs suffer from the ability of making you use items and you just hoard all the items and then you get to the end of the game and go, oh, I've got like 50 megalixers and I've never used these kind of idea. But at least the difference with those is they're not taking out like, so you get in a lot of games, you get a huge inventory bag. Like you can hold like hundreds of items so that if you're not using them, it's not such a big deal.
01:25:05
Speaker
but with grandia you can only hold at a time a maximum of 48 items so you need to be a little bit more strategic especially when you get further in late game stuff that when you're starting to actually use certain things a little bit more like the move enhancing stuff I love the little like the little fruit that you could get that ups attack power by two so handy I love those things um and so like I was using them a little bit more late game but like
01:25:30
Speaker
so i had to be more strategic with the 12 spots each person had now i understand that's more realistic because like how is somebody carrying like a hundred potions and everything on them and stuff i get it where but it's just it was just oh it was brutal sometimes with the stats you mean your backpack doesn't have a never ending like never ending space in it
01:25:51
Speaker
Yeah, with a game that has magic in it, you would think that they'd have like your immediate items that you can use a battle and then your other items that you can access through like a magical bag. Something like that would have been better. Like even if they were like, we don't want you to have like a ton of items because it makes the game stupid easy.
01:26:11
Speaker
that you can use a battle still have at the 12 that you can use a battle but allow me to like switch on the fly and not have to keep going back to a save point with a stash because not all save points had a stash beside them they only started doing that late game like yeah like you'd have to go to an inn and use the stash system there like it's like please yeah that's that was one of my yeah the inventory system definitely was rough um
01:26:40
Speaker
Or at least give us more you need to use items or, but again, that's a JRPG thing. Like that, that skinny is absolutely right with that one. And that's a great point. It's not a lot of JRPGs, especially early on. Uh, don't give you any real incentive to use items or very great need to use items. Or you keep thinking, Oh, the end boss, or there's going to be a boss coming up that you need those items for. And then you beat the game and you're like.
01:27:08
Speaker
The only items I really felt like I needed to use were like the things that were like stat buffs, stat buff items. So it was like life buff or defense up or attack up. Those are very, very handy, especially for boss fights. I gave every single one of them to Justin.
01:27:26
Speaker
I have awful, awful, awful main character bias. And Justin got every single buff that I found. Well, that's why I had Rap be a buffer because I was like, I could give. So I gave Fida the other items to buff Justin. And then I had Rap also buffing Justin. So Justin was end up like level five in like two turns. Interesting. Okay.
01:27:51
Speaker
Yeah. So that's, that's what I did. And then once Justin was fully buffed and he was going to go attack and be superhero, uh, the other two characters, I, I would either buffer a wrap or I would just leave them and just having them do their special moves that already hit him. Oh, I want to talk about the, we have to talk about the ending at some point. Oh yeah. The, the start of the next podcast, we are taking like 20 minutes of that start. And we were talking about the end of the game because I will have this beaten probably by the end of this day or tomorrow.
01:28:21
Speaker
the so the there is like
01:28:26
Speaker
There's a string of bosses, and there's one boss. There's one boss that is so much more difficult than the final boss. I wanted to talk about that boss, and it's funny because Mystery is one of my usual viewers and a member of my community. He actually was like, hey, when you get to the end, I want to talk to you about a boss. And that boss was the hardest boss in the game by far.
01:28:55
Speaker
Um, I'm sure there's harder bosses in the secret dungeons, although one of the secret dungeons wasn't too bad. Um, I will say there was a difficulty spike, which is really cool with the secret boss that I fought. But like, I assume the other two, like that, that's exciting. Like you have, you have some extra stuff you can do. Um, one thing I didn't like.
01:29:18
Speaker
I didn't like that once you beat the game, there is no like, it's just done. You go back like they read, you can reload, but you reload your save from your last save before you beat the game. And they don't like carry anything over or anything like that.
01:29:36
Speaker
That was kind of, I was like, eh. And I think- Yeah, I think we're a little bit spoiled with RPG games like Star Ocean and stuff like that, where they have multiple endings, so they let you do that. But like the new game plus sort of segment of it. Whereas like a lot of the older ones, they were just like over. Like when your Final Fantasy games were like that, grandiose like that. Lunar wasn't, Lunar did do the, where you could save after, I think.
01:30:05
Speaker
they were it was like you could save after but you couldn't do anything else I'm talking about like okay like for example I know Tales of Arise does this and that's again it's a new game obviously but Tales of Arise is like after you beat the game you can like basically go back and do the extra stuff
01:30:25
Speaker
so it's like it's basically like a save acknowledging that you beat the game but you can still go back and do extra stuff if you load up your save. Oh I see what you're saying okay yeah kind of like the Star Ocean series have that too where like Star Ocean wanted to because they have like an optional dungeon they want you to go and do so they have that too where you can like load it up and go back and do those things but you have the game cleared
01:30:46
Speaker
okay okay yeah so see see i think that it would have definitely benefited from something like that because it does have optional dungeons that's that's something that it was really shocked to see that grandia had i wasn't expecting it to have and it had and you're right it does have three because it is alluding to the third one now where i am in the game
01:31:03
Speaker
So it's, it's talking about there is like, like I'm coming up to where the, um, so it's kinda like hinting at it a little bit through NPC dialogue. So yeah, so there are like three, like two actual things. And then like, uh, like you said, like a room kind of idea.
01:31:21
Speaker
And so, like, yeah, I think it would have had like that little extra little bit so that you could go back, but instead of doing like what I'm doing where I'm saving it just before where those areas are so that I can go and do them after I beat the game or if I ever want to play around in the optional dungeons.
01:31:39
Speaker
But did you want to talk a little bit about the one optional judging you did? Cause you got one. Yeah, it was, it was interesting. Um, so I went into two of the optional engines, one of them, I explored like the first floor and then I was like, Oh, this seems like it's going to be a real dungeon. I don't want to do this right now. Like I'm on, I'm on a time crunch. So then I went to the other one and it was like, it was basically just a haunted house. And like,
01:32:05
Speaker
I effectively, there was like some haunted sword that I had to, had to get. Um, but it's like a couple of floors and it wasn't really, it didn't really feel like a dungeon. There were some cool items and the boss was actually really, really tough. Um, because the boss had lightning and lightning magic and I had not experienced that yet. So the magic and the way that the magic work, it has pretty big range. So.
01:32:35
Speaker
the strats for it. And this is something they don't do. I wish they would talk about this a little bit more because like the save points had hints, which was cool because they were like they were gameplay related hints or like hints that made grandiess. Like they explained the things that are like grandiess specific. One of the things I didn't like
01:32:55
Speaker
was that they didn't really talk about how you can move characters around. So there's a defend option that you can do, where you can basically choose to stay in place and defend to get less damage, or you can do evade. I didn't know you could do that. You never had to defend before.
01:33:21
Speaker
Exactly. So this boss was giving me a run for my money and I was like, okay, I need to figure out a way to break up my party because it was the case that- And you can do that in defending?
01:33:35
Speaker
So Defend allows you to do evasion. In evasion, you can pick a spot on as long as your character can move to that spot. Like if you move too far away, I'm guessing like they'll get stopped in the middle of it. But if your movement is high enough, which actually is the one I was playing through, I really valued movement. So I actually sacrifice some defense on like certain shoes.
01:34:00
Speaker
to have as much movement as I could. So I was able to basically say, OK, instead of having everybody group up, I'm going to actually form a square around this boss. And then they had a move that did target everyone, but all of their other moves were targeting a group close together, range attacks instead of all team attacks. And then one move they had was just a super powerful move that just hit one person.
01:34:28
Speaker
So I basically separated my team so that way I can have my healer healing and then like.
01:34:38
Speaker
my AOE attack, my range, my DPS from rap, and then have Justin and Milda sort of in close on the boss. And that was actually how I beat the boss. Oh, geez. See, that's blowing my mind. So I didn't realize you could do that. And I had been cursing. Again, I should have read the manual. Literally, it's probably explained. Oh, yeah, the manual.
01:35:01
Speaker
The manual is going to actually say it, but this is my theme, Holly, just thinking she could like brute force figure things out. And don't read the instructions of bad at that, especially for RPG games. And so I so there's a move you get later on called how NATO
01:35:21
Speaker
where it attacks you and your party, but it doesn't actually damage your party, it just separates your party. So I had found I've been using that move to get out of AOE attacks by separating my party, and I could have just broken it.
Learning New Strategies Late Game
01:35:37
Speaker
okay yeah there was another like there were a couple of different options that you could do like um one of the cool things you can do is like you can defend on if you don't think you're gonna like so if an enemy is like really close to being able to uh
01:35:53
Speaker
is really close to being able to attack you. If you, if you go into, there's like a, it's an hourglass, I think, or no, no, no, a magnifying glass. If you can go on the magnifying glass, you can actually, I think it's called look, you can actually see who they're going to be targeting.
01:36:09
Speaker
And then if you aren't gonna be able to like interrupt their attack soon enough, you can defend that way they don't interrupt your attack, you don't lose a turn and take the full damage. So there's definitely some cool stuff. I'm pulling it up now to get the exacts. But yeah, I'm pretty sure it was called, I'm pretty sure it was called look and look will actually like on the bottom bar, it'll highlight the square of the person that you're actually
01:36:36
Speaker
um that is going to be targeted and if it's everybody then we'll target everyone but you can actually you can defend that way it doesn't put you in a spot where you're kind of just like hey what's going on so i thought that was pretty cool that would have been so much
01:36:52
Speaker
Look at KJ actually learning gameplay mechanics and then there's probably the fake girl gamer here in this like just brute forcing it trying to figure it out as she goes and yeah so there's a move called how NATO that's what I kept using to like break up my party is that I just said this tornado it would damage the enemy it would smack all my party members in opposite directions and I'm like okay there we go now I'm not in AOE rage anymore
01:37:18
Speaker
And it's like, yeah, very, and it makes a great point, the artist versus the engineer. I guess you can say that. Yeah. I'm trying to get to a certain, like, I'm trying to get to a battle so I can actually show it. But like, yeah, it was it was the case where you could
01:37:36
Speaker
You, yeah, it's like look and defend. Look, definitely, yeah, I'm not allowed out. But look lets you see who's gonna be targeted, and then you can either defend, or you can, again, if you defend and wanna move characters around, it'll basically pick a different point on the map, or you can scroll through the points that are on the map. Okay, okay. You know what, that might help me for my last five hours of games. But it might, honestly,
01:38:06
Speaker
Probably not, but I think it would have been more helpful earlier in this too, slash earlier in the game. At this point, like everything does. There's only one boss I died to though. So this, like the big guy. Okay. So when we're going, when you're going through like the underground ruins and just before the big plot reveal of Fina happens, um,
01:38:29
Speaker
You're you fight this boss who has a boomerang and axe and then the guy all as separate enemies you can attack.
01:38:38
Speaker
I died to that a couple of times. Like he, he wiped me with his, like, he would smack me with the axe, throw the boomerang and it hit everybody because everybody was clustered. And so I did a little bit of leveling, got that Halnado move, which is funny because I just literally spontaneously got it. I was not trying for it because I, I didn't know that was what would unlock, got that with Fina and then went back into that boss that I just kept separating them. So the axe would only hit one character at a time.
01:39:06
Speaker
And I ended up beating it because I didn't have to worry about heal all. And I'm just like, because Justin was my only heal all at that point. Fina didn't even have a heal all at that point. And I had very little items that could heal all because they stopped selling them and I forgot which towns to buy them in. So I was just like, I don't remember where they heal all. I don't sorry anymore. And so
01:39:30
Speaker
Yeah. And then because you have to, like, in order for me to go back out to buy items, I had to backtrack all the way through the dungeon. So I was like, no way. I'm just going to level a little bit and see that I ended up beating that boss finally. But that was the only one I've ever struggled with. I went twice once was actually, this was probably the worst. I didn't realize it was on the wall, on the big wall, like at the end of the world.
01:40:00
Speaker
I there's there was a treasure chest. And there were like these four bird things flying around the treasure chest. And they flipped my party. And it was it was at the time the party was just it was Justin, Tina, and Sue. And they clipped the party. I wasn't healed. And they ambushed me I just didn't get a chance to attack.
01:40:25
Speaker
and that's the that's the first time I wipe in this game and then um you know I wiped I wiped a few times I wiped three times because I also wiped to the uh the secret boss I wiped to the secret boss I had no idea how to beat him like it took me a couple of tries to beat him um that was yeah that was that was the one I was like oh my goodness but in terms of actual gameplay I don't think I wiped any other time
01:40:52
Speaker
That's fair. Yeah, I didn't wipe to any regular enemies, but I was also like healing all the time After that with every single battle. I was like because I wanted to level it up. So I'm just like this So as soon as you got the magic spell for healing I was like just a vehicle
01:41:09
Speaker
Something we didn't talk about a little bit was part of the gameplay mechanics. I liked how your party follows you and doesn't just disappear inside you, which I always found a little bit weird with RPG games where like they go like it's just your character running around the screen.
Party Mechanics and Encounter System
01:41:24
Speaker
I like that they had a trail, but that also meant that if the enemies, oh my God, when you I was so frustrating.
01:41:31
Speaker
When you're like trying to run around an enemy because you're like, okay, I've fought a million of these. I'm already like, I don't want to fight this thing. You're trying to run away, but your last party member in little, little train just taps them. And it's ambush because it's the back of your party. And I'm like, yeah, I get ambushed so much. If they touch the back of any party member, it's an ambush, which doesn't make sense. Like I don't like that facing them and they'll hit Fina on the side and it's
01:42:02
Speaker
So it's like anytime you're like trying it because you it's not a RPG where like you run around and it's a random encounter you actually see the enemies on the screen but they make it like a lot of the times really hard to avoid them I guess on purpose but like and then it's just sometimes when you're just like to a point where you're like I'm too OP I'm one-shotting these creatures I just want to run away
01:42:24
Speaker
Like run around them and I'm like just hitting me at the tail end then they get an ambush and suddenly I'm like half HP before I start I'm like, oh The worst part was in the forest were Gadwin's houses like that was the worst part because you lose Sue and then you fight Gadwin and Then it's just you and Fina
01:42:48
Speaker
And from that point on, it's like, okay, now I'm backtracking. It's just me and Fina. We've, we've already sent Sue off. We just lost Gaglin and I have to leave. Oh, and we had to fight a boss. Just the two of us too. Yep. Like you, you end up having to fight a boss, which is you and Fina and you're like, okay, this just screws up my entire strategy. Like I don't have any healing magic and neither did Justin. So I'm like,
01:43:12
Speaker
I got lucky that I gave Fina healing magic but my problem was Justin and actually Sue and Justin had all my resurrection potions and that boss targets Justin specifically. Like the boss at the end of this one. So I actually started that with Fina because Justin just kept like
01:43:34
Speaker
just gonna keep getting pulled in and keep getting attacked I was like once he dies he's dead so I just I did as much damage with him as I could and then I just sat there with Thena in the back just casting magic and healing her magic and then casting magic because oh smart did you have any resurrection items because I was down only one each
01:43:53
Speaker
my resurrection items were all on Justin and Sue. So when Sue left the party, they put them all into my bag instead of your hat. I forgot to grab them because I was too busy worried about leveling Justin and Sue up, or Justin and Fina with Sue's and Gadwin's experience stuff. So I didn't have the potions and then only Justin had them. So when Justin died, I was like, well,
01:44:24
Speaker
It looks like I'm soloing this with Vina. And that actually happened to me another time. The hardest, the boss that I said was the hardest boss I thought I had to fight.
01:44:33
Speaker
That boss, I ended up so alone with Justin at the end, because it was like, it's, oh, you're gonna, when you get to that fight, oh my goodness. It's like the big bad guy. He's not the- Okay, okay. Yeah, when you get to the big bad guy, let me know, because I would love to watch you do that fight, because that fight is, that fight was miserable.
01:44:56
Speaker
I'll switch to my PC and I will like stream it in Discord for you. I was like, this fight sucks. Like there. Oh my goodness. It was, it was, it was rough. I did it first try. Justin had like a hundred HP left and it was a struggle. I used so many resurrections and it was bad.
01:45:16
Speaker
It was real bad. You know what tomorrow night, I could do that. Like I could stream in the discord the last bit of grandia one and like, you'll probably be the only one watching because nobody will watch spoilers. That's true. Last bit that I need to do. Whenever you play it, let me know. I will definitely.
01:45:37
Speaker
You can see how my rap is my buffer. I can also show you like how I did everything because I do have a save right before the end. But yeah, I mean it was it was fun. It just yeah that definitely that definitely made me sweat. But at least it was like the like almost end or end boss that you did that on. That makes sense that it would be at least a struggle.
01:46:03
Speaker
this is definitely one of those games that like has a lot of bosses at the end of the game kind of like a gauntlet but like the hardest that they don't go in the right order in terms of difficulty that's what I'll say they okay all right see I found Final Fantasy 8 did the same thing for me
01:46:28
Speaker
certain bosses I found way, way, way, way, way harder than the last bit of it. That throws me off sometimes because you fight these bosses and stuff like that and you're expecting the hardest one to be at the very end but the hardest one was somewhere in the middle.
01:46:47
Speaker
Yeah, I also think it's like just how we play and stuff like that too. Maybe other people found the end boss harder. Who knows but like, I feel like maybe really surprised. There is the star ocean to add boss.
01:47:03
Speaker
that I never thought would be like it's a struggle but I never thought it was a struggle thing until I saw you do a first playthrough of it and you went in and completely blind and didn't want any hints or whatever so you missed certain characters that would have made that a little bit more you missed your other DPS more or less and so like and then watching you go through that and watching the struggle I was like
01:47:25
Speaker
Wow, he is hard. He is so hard. And I was like, cause I, I would beat him like by the third try or whatever. But I had two DBSs, so that made sense. Yeah. It's fun. Like one way it's fun when you get that really challenging boss. I'm just really shocked to hear the grandiose one is not the very end one. Like you'll see, you'll see like it's yeah, it's weird. It's really weird.
01:47:54
Speaker
Good to know. I laughed really hard at Peach's comment and I had to be very very like careful not to super laugh but like yeah that's cool. Oh my goodness.
01:48:04
Speaker
But yeah, sometimes it's a thing. But yeah, so we've talked about the plot a little bit.
Overall Game Rating and Art Appreciation
01:48:13
Speaker
We didn't go too heavy into the plot just because of spoilers and stuff. But we talked about the plot, the overarching plot. We talked about the characters. We've talked about gameplay, story, OST, cut scenes, all that sort of stuff. So your overall, what would be your overall
01:48:32
Speaker
Rating of grandia one and what would you record? Like what would be your recommendation for for people if they you think they would like it or not? Say it's I would give it like an eight points 8.5 8.6 8.7 somewhere on there. I thought it was really good I thought it was it was I love the customizability of characters. I love the
01:48:56
Speaker
I do really enjoy the system, like the battle systems and things. I think it's really unique. I think it's different. It's very, very different. It's not your traditional just like, I attack, you attack, I attack, you attack kind of battle system. I thought the OST was phenomenal. I thought in terms of a game that's linear,
01:49:20
Speaker
they did it well. I think that like it definitely the party splits definitely slowed the game down a little bit for me. That's something I would have been would have been better off without like and I think I don't think you're I still don't think you're like fairly compensated for characters.
01:49:36
Speaker
being removed from the party. But I think the pacing was still pretty good. I was worried when it was like, oh, we're going to go to the end of the world. And then you got over the wall. I was like, is this game going to be too short? And then it started to really drag on a little bit. And I was like, oh, disc one is really long. Is this game going to be like a Tales game?
01:50:04
Speaker
I was like, when is disc one finally going to end? But they actually wrapped everything up really nicely. And I think once you start to have your consistent party of Justin Feener wrap in disc two, things start to be a lot more fluid, and it stops feeling as slow. And then you get to a point where there's more party splits, and it's like, OK. It starts to slow down a little bit and feel a little bit more daunting. But overall, I think it was a great game.
01:50:31
Speaker
I think it's funny because it gives me, it very much gives me skies of Arcadia vibe. Like in the sense that it kind of does a very similar thing. Like you go on and it's like the premise of skies of Arcadia is like, Hey, you, you can tell like there's this evil like army empire, but like, and they have their motives and you're at first, it's just like the main character advice. He's like, yo, I'm just, I want to be a sky pirate. Like I want to do these things.
01:50:58
Speaker
and he's very, very, him and Justin are very similar. Like anybody that loves, what I would say is anyone that loves Grandia 1 or Skye's Arcadia should play the opposite because I think you would really enjoy the other ones. And there is, the systems are different, but I think in terms of like story wise, there's very similar things. And by the end of both of them, you're kind of trying to save the world from evil maniacs. So it's like, they give a very similar feel
01:51:28
Speaker
But yeah, I thought this game was really, really solid. I think small things that could be tweaked, again, camera angle compass, inventory system, and then the party splits kind of slowing things down.
01:51:45
Speaker
Yeah. Like, uh, I, I agree with you. I think, I think mine would be like, I haven't beaten it yet. So this might change because I haven't seen like the ending itself, but it felt like disc one was a game and just to almost, especially with like Sue being in your party for like pretty well, the entire disc one and then leaving towards like the very, very end. And then you're like sailing off into the sunset. It very much felt like disc one was one game and disc two is like, like the sequel to it almost.
01:52:14
Speaker
And then, like, I definitely think the party splits, like you said, were not when Sue is removed, you do not get back what you should have. I can understand with Godwin, Milda and Guido because they're not in your party very long. So them being like one third and you're getting like a level for their book. OK, whatever. That's fine because they weren't there very long. But Sue was there for an entire half of the game.
01:52:41
Speaker
And like, I thought you should have got a one for one pretty well with her. So like you get the magic abilities. If you're going to remove her and not have removed or something, you should have got like a one for one. And like, so by the end of disc one, like I liked the game. I was like around a 7.5 feeling of it and stuff like that. I liked the mechanics, stuff like that. But I was, I was upset with the whole like suit thing. I think she had been removed out of the party sooner or you've given more for it. Cause I was messaging you and I'm just like,
01:53:11
Speaker
This is all I get. This is all I get. And I was so upset. You were live when I happened to me. And I was just like, this is ridiculous. I just lost. I was streaming Golden Sun. And I remember you being outraged about it. But then I was like, I wasn't there yet. So I didn't remember. And that's why I kept telling it. I was like, I think there's something you get. But then I didn't realize at how little you got back. I thought you got a one for one for it.
01:53:38
Speaker
So and then you like conclude with Justin and Vina or whatever they sail off into the sunset to the to the end of the world kind of thing into the water and then it's like disc one is over and then it loads up disc two and you've like landed on shore blah blah blah blah but it's like and then it starts again and it's it's a little bit darker tone but then you get your permanent party member which is rap
01:54:02
Speaker
Um, and then the fourth one I've never really like, I just like, since the beginning of the game, you kind of had three party members and a fourth kind of came in and then left. I always suspect the fourth one never being permanent. So I'm just like, okay, it's just to help a little bit with the gameplay, a little bit with the battles and stuff and the boss battles to give you that fourth extra character. It was kind of like items and stuff like that on them. So I'm like, all right, whatever. And so by that point, so
01:54:30
Speaker
This too, I ended up enjoying more because I was like really more into it. I was more like custom to things. Sue was already long gone. I didn't have any expectation of losing rap at any point, even though like he falls down like, I don't know, three cliffs and you're just like, okay, bye.
01:54:50
Speaker
And like party splits, right? There's a lot of party splits. And so I was like, oh no, he's coming back. It's fine. They didn't do a big sequence of him. He's going to come back. He'll just dust himself off and be like, yo, I'm back. And it's like, you know, fighty mentality. So I'm like, all right, that's fine.
01:55:07
Speaker
And so I liked it more. So by where I am in the game, and I haven't beaten it yet, I'd actually be up to the eights. So like I'd be an eight in there, depending on how the ending goes, it'd probably be an eight by five by the end. So it's funny how like I had a sequence where I was more like around the seven, I would give it a seven at the beginning for disc one, but then disc two,
01:55:28
Speaker
everything just kind of flowed better and I understood the pacing a bit better and I just like everything has been going really well in this too uh not for the characters but for this for me uh and enjoying everything um I definitely would go with um uh like an eight right now and depending on the eight ending if the ending is really good and I really like the ending it'd definitely be an 8.5 for me and that's not I didn't even get to do any of the optional stuff yet so
01:55:58
Speaker
But yeah, overall, overall this game, it's like I would highly recommend it to people who like the older JRPG. If you are a fan of JRPGs and the Super Nintendo, PlayStation, and PlayStation 2 era, I think you'd really like this game. Also, one thing we didn't talk about that I wanted to mention is the art. I really like the pixel art of the characters.
01:56:23
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely, definitely like that. But I also really, really enjoyed the anime cut scenes with the facial expressions because it was done in pixel graphics with like kind of a 3D pseudo background, which is fine. I like that because Star Ocean did the same thing. So I like that kind of look. But then
01:56:44
Speaker
they did like when they're talking they have these like little anime portraits that cycle through depending on how they're feeling and it just it made it more immersive where pixel sprites rather than like little emote reactions like star ocean does you can't really have that same
01:57:04
Speaker
Like, like almost like really like seeing that they're crying. In Pixel sprites, it's really hard to see like they're actually crying and their emotion and stuff. So the little portraits I thought really brought that in and something Star Ocean, the remake of it or the remaster of it for the PSP did was do that. Their dialogs changed to having anime portraits.
01:57:24
Speaker
just like grandia has. So it's a little bit more immersive that way because you get kind of like pulled into the character a little bit more. I really like the art of this one. Like I like the pixel graphics were really charming. I like the anime look to it. Like the anime of the character designs and stuff like that. Like I really like the art of it. I'm not sure if it really mattered one way or another to you, KJ, but I thought it was just really charming.
01:57:52
Speaker
I don't know. I had a nice scarf. I think it was one of those things like, again. It looked like other ones. Yeah. It didn't feel like, I didn't look at it and say, oh, I've seen this before. That was my big thing. And that's usually for me as long as it looks unique enough, I'm OK with it. I'm not going to analyze it a ton. But again, that's the artist in you versus the engineer in me.
01:58:21
Speaker
That's really what that comes down to but yeah, honestly, I think that like Yeah, the pic the the pixels like the pixel art it was like, oh, this is unique This is cool and I can see like is that the anime pictures and everything what stuff like that? Like I enjoy having those because you do especially if they do show emotion in that like, I don't know I love the sweet protein games and those games have like the pixel like the The character portraits and stuff like that
01:58:52
Speaker
the first departure are so that also had that so yeah it was the remake of the Star Wars show one so like they added that stuff in which is exactly
01:59:01
Speaker
I like that a lot and honestly I showed KJ this. There was a scene where like you're like chucked through the sky and like Fina is upright so her portrait is upright and then Justin is like flying upside down so his portrait is upside down and I laughed really hard at that tidy detail because it's like that was so clever.
01:59:22
Speaker
that i was just dying because he's like angry but he's like upside down because he's upside down on the screen and i thought that was such a clever little like they did so many little things like that were like where it's like okay i noticed what you did and i like that like it had the game is full of that uh is there any other moments you could think of playing grandiose where they had these like little moments in it where you're like okay that's hilarious
01:59:47
Speaker
Like the Mildred and her husband being the bull. I died. I lost. And she's like, darling. And she like jumps in his arms and they're kissing. And I'm like, oh.
01:59:59
Speaker
she said so what killed me about that is she kept talking about darlin and i'm like okay that's just what she's no that is his actual name darlin darlin and darlin the three wise men but they look like giant bulls and like chibi bulls so like round features with big eyes like full on bull like yeah that was
02:00:26
Speaker
And again, the game just has that sort of goofy charm throughout the entirety of it. Regardless of how serious things are, it still has that charm and it's still like, oh, this is adorable. This is something that, even though it's super, it starts to get dark, it's like, oh, this is dark, but you can also see
02:00:50
Speaker
that there's some other things in here that are like bringing up. But that's what her husband looks like. He's a giant bull and he's and he's chibi. And he's like, look at him. That's her hubby. And she kept referring to him as Darlin. But that's literally his name. There's Darlin, Darlin and Dorlin. And it's like, OK, but yeah.
02:01:17
Speaker
Since we were talking about that specific scene, I remember the screenshot I sent you and I went, literally my caption to KJ when I got to that was like, what the fuck is this game? Yep.
02:01:28
Speaker
And there's so there are definitely moments of that. It's like, what is going on? Like, what is the constipation discussion? Like, when you sometimes when you like conclude like a little story bit, you can like have a dinner before you sleep at the end. And you could converse with your party members. And I found there was a lot of like little bit of dialogue in there that just kind of were like,
02:01:50
Speaker
it was just little bits in there were just like, okay, because you learn a little bit about Justin's dad, and his mom was like a pirate. And his dad was an adventurer. And that's how they met is that he ended up on her pirate ship. And like, you're just like, Oh, and it's like, you kind of you don't think about it. But like, that's effectively how Justin and Tina end up meeting.
02:02:16
Speaker
Yeah, kind of. Yeah, you want to pick up the ship and having to deal with the ghost ship. Yeah, that's wild. I didn't even think about that.
02:02:29
Speaker
Yeah, so like it is one of those like situations where I'm just like, there's little bits of pieces, right? So they throw it into like the, and that's kind of something that you would have over supper. You would share like little like dialogue bits and stuff like that over supper and you're eating your meal and then you go to sleep for the night and you start your next day. And like, I liked that aspect, even though like
02:02:52
Speaker
eating food like one thing I thought was strange and I don't know if you ever figured out why they said this but some of the items they would say heal your party member 40 but bitter do you know if that ever mattered like there's bitter tasty yummy I think those were just like I thought that they were just like
02:03:10
Speaker
describing it, describing the, like they just wanted you to know the quality of it. I don't actually know. I always kept thinking it would allude to something where it like made you, made your character move faster or something like that, but it never alluded to that stuff. And then they kept having the supper meals where you would have the discussions and I thought, is eating a meal like gonna like raise your attack power or something? But it never had anything like that. And I felt like that was like slight miss opportunity.
02:03:39
Speaker
Because it had the description in there. They could have just like literally but but again, these are super tiny little things. It's a Incredibly charming game. It has a lot of these like little moments where you're just like oh my god and like I know we'll test cuz I just constantly be like
02:03:57
Speaker
at the like that's literally what I must have said that a million times during this game play because there's just those little bits like that like her and her husband that I thought was a nickname she's like oh she's just calling him darling because that's her darling and it's no name
02:04:12
Speaker
and he's a giant bull and he's cutesy and I'm like oh and then and then she's like oh I can't leave with your party because last time I left darlin like wasted away to nothing he's skinny and then literally raps like that's skinny and I was like yeah it's wild don't say that you don't like rap was just like super savage about it yeah rap doesn't care it's great
02:04:43
Speaker
Like, um, so, so Mighty Merlin is mentioning that if the characters had a preferred taste, it would heal them more. I never actually paid attention. Yeah. I never paid attention to that. I would just like.
02:04:57
Speaker
I also didn't really use items much. Yeah, same. Up until I lost Sue and I didn't have a healer anymore because I didn't have Fina with any healing magic. I was using items a little bit more then until you got Rap and then I gave Fina because I was like, okay, I'm not getting a healer back. So I got Rap in and I felt him more of like a buff or debuff kind of character and another attacker. So I was just like, okay, I'll make Fina the healer.
02:05:23
Speaker
uh but Justin had because I wanted the ice moves that you could learn it looked like like as soon as I taught him water I was like oh but I kept getting healing and I was just like Justin no you're my attacker not my healer you had to like you had to uh mix uh water and wind that's how you got the ice move because I didn't actually do it much but I did get some
02:05:47
Speaker
spells with Fina doing water and wind together. Yeah, because you didn't use wind very much, right, in your gameplay? I only used wind with Fina, and it was later game. So later game, I ended up unlocking lightning and some of the ice spells because I was using Fina. But you also, the party splits will sometimes take Fina out of the party. So that actually ended up being slightly problematic at some points, too.
02:06:19
Speaker
Yeah, when you're Justin Solo there for a little bit, I was just like, and we're going to run away from the enemies. And every time I hit an enemy, I do his ultimate magic move and then just keep going. Like, just wipe the back, keep going, just run away. But when you're just Justin, it's so much easier to dodge enemies. Holy crap. I was running away from them.
02:06:40
Speaker
Like oh, yeah so much easier when you're just just Justin to do that because they have the trail of characters, right? And that's something granny a two does I can't remember if granny a three does it but granny a two has the trail of characters I do believe if I'm remembering correctly it has been a while since I played granny a two think they had the trailer characters and
02:06:59
Speaker
Um, but they didn't have it as, as quite as like you would get ambushed every time your last party member of the party would get hit. So, um, but yeah, being just Justin and running around things was like so much easier to dodge, like moves and stuff like that. But, uh, but yeah, so yeah, all in all, I honestly, um, I really liked this game. I'm glad that we picked this one first.
02:07:25
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think it's a good one because I think it was a good pace. If I just didn't get so busy with that con and just had an extra day or two or just an extra day, it looks like all I needed was one extra day and I would have moved.
02:07:39
Speaker
but we'll do it after and we'll attack it to the start of the- It'll be fine. But KJ here beat it Monday or something and he's like, what do I play now? Because we want to try to play these games that we do for the podcast around the same time. We want to at least try to start.
02:08:01
Speaker
Anyway, it wasn't out yet. Yeah, and the one we're doing next, which we'll announce in just a little bit, it's not out yet, or it wasn't out yet. So it was like, so KJ had this timeframe of like a little less than a week of where he beat Grandia off stream. We can't start our next podcast game yet, because it hadn't been out.
02:08:25
Speaker
And then he was playing Valkyrie Profile on stream, so he can't really do that off stream. So he's like in the same between like, what do I play? I didn't end up making progress in anything. But I was like, I'm going to start this. And then I would turn it on and be like, I don't really want to play this. But I was like, I'm going to start this. And then I'm like, actually, I don't want to play this either.
02:08:46
Speaker
Like there were just so many things that i told myself i was gonna play and then i didn't and i basically just wait like it was nice it was good that i had like interviews and stuff so that kind of took up some of the time and like i streamed Wednesday thursday i had interviews on friday so really it was like
02:09:03
Speaker
Tuesday rolled around and I was like, all right, like when I beat this on Tuesday, I was like, I don't know what to play, but it ended up working out. But yeah, this Tuesday, I'm going to I'm going to be playing a lot of the next game. So that's great, because then that gives me Monday night. I beat grandiose and then Tuesday Tuesday, because technically I do stream Tuesday. But Tuesday, I am totally fine with like maybe starting the game in like the morning before I work.
02:09:32
Speaker
and then so that I get a little bit of a start on it because Wednesday is when I'll be able to play but then Wednesday you're streaming so it ends up working out that we're pretty well starting at the same time.
02:09:41
Speaker
Yeah, Wednesday and Thursday, you'll have time to do it. I'll catch up on Friday. I'll probably fall behind Wednesday, Thursday, and catch up on Friday. Yeah, exactly. And we have, because I think we'll do like, we haven't like set in stone. That was one thing I forgot to ask you before that, is when we'll do the next one. But I'm thinking probably like the, oh yeah, the 28th. Right?
02:10:05
Speaker
Or was it? Yeah, I think we did. I think we said the 28th. Yeah, because I'm visiting you that week. We either said the 21st or the 28th. I can't remember which one. Yeah, but either one is towards the end of the month, so we have a good chunk of time. Yeah, and like I said, I've heard it's a shorter game, so it shouldn't be too bad. I think it was like...
02:10:31
Speaker
I can check. Yeah. Any other thoughts for grandia one? Do you get any other things that we didn't touch base on or any other? I think we kind of hit everything. I think everything that we were. Everything I wanted to cover was definitely. Was definitely covered. I think.
02:10:59
Speaker
That's all I can say. It's funny because- It was worth the play for sure. Yeah. Peter's like, oh, a game cage I've never owned. I'll probably, I might, I think a game store close to me has it. I might go out and scoop it up today just to have it. Because it is a game. Yeah.
02:11:16
Speaker
Grandia I think is great to own in your collection by far. Now I have the digital copy of the remaster which is great. So I don't have to like really sweat about playing my copy of my game anymore and stuff like that and just kind of keep it in addition it isn't. And I think it's definitely a really solid JRPG. Highly recommend it for anybody who likes
02:11:38
Speaker
Honestly, even if you were like more of like an current age, like the battle system is a little bit more advanced than I found a lot of like JRPGs back then were.
02:11:51
Speaker
Pardon? I said it's not like a lot of Final Fantasy games, right? No, exactly. It's a little bit more of an actiony turn-based kind of idea, which is kind of a little bit fun. And I honestly...
02:12:08
Speaker
8 out of 10 for me right now, where I am in the game, it's probably going to be an 8.5 if the ending ends kind of the way I'm picturing it to end. And so like 8.56 or 7 or whatever for KJ, so like solid 8 for both of us, even though we play differently.
02:12:25
Speaker
uh and uh went into this game very differently that was kind of funny um uh yeah definitely definitely recommend it for anybody who's listening to this or watching this podcast uh definitely solid jrpg worth the play even worth the stream honestly like it's not a very long game you could probably beat it in like a month on stream if anybody wanted to stream it it's
02:12:51
Speaker
A couple people were streaming it for this. I know Rooku, who was in chat earlier, I think they had to run off. And also JackNotJack, they were both streaming it. And Jack's pretty far into it. Jack is, I think, a good portion through disk too, though.
02:13:14
Speaker
Um, but yeah, no, I agree. I think it would have been, it definitely was, it was definitely a good stream game and it's, it's definitely made me, like I have brandia for the, obviously in the collection, but also for the Dreamcast and I plan on playing it for the Dreamcast. Um, and it definitely has made me think like, Hey, this would be, this would be solid. So.
02:13:32
Speaker
I'm not excited. I think Grandia 2, because Grandia 2 is a little longer than Grandia 1, definitely. But I think it'll be a solid stream game for you. I think, given your reaction with Grandia 1, I think you'll really like Grandia.
02:13:48
Speaker
Grandia 3, I still can't really speak on because that is just maybe that'll be a game we play for a podcast at some point, maybe for this podcast. Because you have it, I have it. And then if you stream Grandia, you don't have to play them in order. Fun fact about the idea series. But if you do end up wanting to stream Grandia 2 before that, then we could even make three because I I only played a little bit of it. I didn't get very far. And I think Grandia 3 is two discs as well for the PS2.
02:14:17
Speaker
I think I remember correctly. I think it's two desks. I can't 100% remember. But I only played a little bit of it, so I can't really speak on it. Grandia 2, I got super into. And now playing Grandia 1, I can see some of the things that they carry over to it, but they still make it its own thing. And I think I'm more immersed in the story for Grandia 2 than Grandia 1.
02:14:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's the only like thing that I would say jumps out at me as being a bit stronger in the second game, but a lot of the other stuff is like solid from Grand U1 now that I've played it. All right.
02:15:04
Speaker
So with that, we're going to wrap up the Grandia talk about things. Again, we will talk a little bit about the ending and the end of the game and the like, spoilery character and like, like a 10 of 15 minute of the next podcast, just to kind of conclude that because like, KJ really wants to talk about things. And I'll probably want to do it too. Honestly, even just to see. I don't want to talk about it.
02:15:29
Speaker
Yeah, so so we'll save that because I'm like, just like four or five hours away from beating the game. So we'll save that for the beginning of our next podcast.
Next Episode Preview: Live Alive
02:15:38
Speaker
But KJ, why don't you tell our viewers what our next game and
02:15:48
Speaker
your stream, I'm deferring to you. All right. All right. Well, then, then, then that means when you host this, that's what you get the next one. All right. All right. Let's do it. So, uh, KJ and I've talked about it and we've picked our second game, uh, for our podcast. And so we are going to be starting live alive. Is it live alive or live alive?
02:16:09
Speaker
I think it's alive. Yeah, I think it's Live Alive. So Live Alive, we're going to be starting it this upcoming week. I know it just came out on Friday. So I know a lot of people are going to be playing it in the community. So if you get it beaten in a month, maybe that way, KJ, we'll put the podcast on the 28th of August, giving us the maximum amount of time of our viewers to also
02:16:37
Speaker
I'll have to check. I might have a convention that day. Okay, okay. There's a retro game convention a couple of states away, or a state away. So I might go to that.
02:16:50
Speaker
Yeah, we can figure that out. We're going to confirm it in both of our Discord, so we have like, we talk about our podcast and everything in our Discord. We'll confirm the date. It's either going to be the 21st of August or the 28th of August, depending on if KJ has a convention that day. Or if you're talking about your retro one that you went to last year,
02:17:12
Speaker
Yes, that's exactly. That's the weekend after. So that's the weekend of the third, second, third and fourth. It's the one before. Oh, is it? Okay. Okay. Okay. So that maybe because you're the one hosting it, we'll do it on the 21st.
02:17:28
Speaker
Okay, that works. Yeah, because that's also before I come visit. So I'm leaving the Monday morning to come visit you. So that works out. So maybe we'll do it on the 21st for the podcast. But anyway, we're gonna be playing.
02:17:44
Speaker
uh live alive uh i'm going in completely blind on this game so i think kj's seen a few things about it but i haven't seen any of it any of it all i literally bought the game for this podcast
02:18:00
Speaker
Um, and I got it on the switch. My copy will be in sometime tomorrow, so I'll be granted tomorrow's little workout that KJ and I will start on Tuesday. Uh, we might do some discord streams of it. We might not. Um, but we're definitely, that is the game for August. So if you guys have a copy of the game or you want to get the game and play it,
02:18:20
Speaker
And then we're going to talk about it during our podcast at the end of August. You are absolutely welcome to do so. It looks like I saw a little bit of it from when I bought it and it looks kind of interesting and I'm really excited about it. So very, very sorry, right into Keystone.
02:18:41
Speaker
last week, or this past week, and I saw PeaceDone was playing it. I saw very, very little bit of it, but I'm really excited. It looks like it's very much done in like the 2D, 3D Octopath style, so very, very excited for that. Yeah, I think it was like three days ago. So that'll be really cool. I'm really excited to dive into it. It should be good. And again, I've heard it's a pretty relatively short game, so I'll be the case that will have like
02:19:11
Speaker
It might be the case that we'll be able to kind of go through it and then plan things and kind of go from there. So maybe we'll get ahead of the game and we'll start the September game a little early. That also might be contingent on some other things, but we don't have to talk about that.
02:19:27
Speaker
We've already, like, KJ and I have already talked about it, and I think we have all the way to November picked. I think so. For days. Yeah. But we're making it so that we don't announce those until each podcast. So at the end of every podcast, we will announce which game is for the next month. And because we're definitely trying to do it within a month.
02:19:50
Speaker
Some games might be games that you guys have already played and beaten some of them like live alive are literally brand new that I don't think anybody in the community has beaten yet because it just came out on Friday and so but that if you beat it within the month feel free to join us with the podcast but just like grandia we will do like a whole segment like we did we break down things we talk about stuff and
02:20:12
Speaker
And then we'll have a segment at the end for spoiler like super spoiler stuff so like the end of the game if we want to talk about it if we get that far. It does sound like it's a shorter game so we should have no problem with it. And then also might be where we start bringing up some like images or maybe videos and then we would also save those for like towards the end of the stream.
02:20:34
Speaker
that way anybody who wants to like turn the volume down and like like off the stream for a little bit for that bit uh and then they're just you know like and then we announce the the next game anyway so yeah that's kind of where we're we're leaning at it but any of your thoughts for live live what you've seen so far or have you seen anybody play it yet i know pea stone's playing it that uh
02:21:00
Speaker
I saw a little bit of it when one piece done was playing it. I think it's gonna look I think it's gonna be cool I'm really excited. I think it's gonna be really cool. I'm It looks really interesting I saw like the pixel sprites and stuff like I'm very I'm very curious It's apparently is it like a remake of an older game or is it like yeah? So as as champ mentioned it was on the super Famicom
02:21:25
Speaker
It never made it to the US or got any like it never got an official English translation. Okay, so that's why I've never heard of it. Okay, never got an official English translation.
02:21:39
Speaker
A lot of those Japanese only games, a lot of them I haven't heard of, especially because a lot of my RPG knowledge and stuff like that was what came over here. So for like North America and everything. So that's why I'd never heard of it. So it is a remake or remaster of the one from like super family comic, a Super Nintendo.
02:22:02
Speaker
Very cool. I'm really excited to dive into something. I have absolutely no concept whatsoever. Yeah, it's going to be fun. It's going to be a lot of fun. All I see is trending on Twitter right now is that people who are playing Live Alive are comparing it to Chrono Trigger, which has- Yeah, and now Chrono Trigger is trending again as a topic on Twitter. And I'm like,
02:22:26
Speaker
Oh, really? I keep seeing Twitter posts about it. And I was talking to somebody on Twitter. I forgive me that I'm blanking on the username, but we were talking about it earlier this morning. And they're like, I love that because of Live Alive, Chrono Trigger's trending again. And I was like, I'm really excited about that. And I hope more people play Chrono Trigger as a result. But I'm very intrigued on how they compare and why that's happening.
02:22:56
Speaker
Yes, I do agree. Chrono Trigger should always be trending. But I mean, I've learned that life doesn't always go my way. And my goodness. That's why. But yeah, I think I think that wraps up everything we announced our new game. So we're either going to be on August 21st, which is going to be on KJ stream.
02:23:22
Speaker
Or depending on the situation with the con, August 28th, one of those two days. Um, and, uh, we're going to be reviewing the next book club RPG game we're doing. It's Little Live, a brand new one that came out just this Friday. So.
02:23:38
Speaker
I saw Matthew posting the chat being like interested in maybe grabbing it like anybody interested in grabbing it and playing it. Absolutely. We were going to be sharing like our experiences and stuff like that. I might do maybe at least one Discord stream where I stream a little bit of it in Discord because I'm not playing the whole game. So I don't want to like dedicate like a stream stream stream to it. But also because it's partly the whole thing is that we're doing this off stream.
02:24:06
Speaker
But I might stream a little bit of Discord, we'll see.
02:24:09
Speaker
Oh yeah, this looks beautiful. Like I'm, I'm seeing some of the, I'm looking at, I'm on Twitter and looking at some of the 3D, the HD, like the HD 2D. And it looks really good. I'm super excited. I heard they did like, uh, Matthew was mentioning they did a like a really great job at updating. I would love to like, I need to look like how it used to look and how it looks now. I need to look at that before I play for sure. Oh yeah, totally.
02:24:38
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. So it sounds like we'll be starting that probably tomorrow or Tuesday. So that's exciting. Yes. So exciting. I think this has been great.
02:24:49
Speaker
Yeah, thank you everybody in chat for, uh, putting us up hosting. I really appreciate those who gifted subs and biddies and everything. That was very kind of you all, um, and doing that as well. Uh, and I really appreciate everybody understanding that while the chat is going on, uh, cause we just literally did this back to back. I had a co-op stream yesterday too, where it's, it's hard to like read all the chat messages and super, super interact when you have like a bunch of people. And then for this.
02:25:15
Speaker
For like the podcast and everything we try to make it like nice and flowing because eventually KJ and I would love to Upload it to like maybe Spotify or something or YouTube and stuff or where we cut new transitions and stuff of them So we're we're already in the process of like starting to kind of set those up. So that's really exciting so we really appreciate everybody in chat who's been like
02:25:37
Speaker
you know commenting but like kind of with the flow of things and every now and then we'd like throw in that into the conversation but we're very understanding and patient and stuff that we are doing this kind of podcast segment of like all of you guys are amazing uh thank you everybody here who's lurking hosted all like we like thank you like kj and i really appreciate it because we we love this so how do we get that coming and everything i say champion
02:26:04
Speaker
Yeah, I have too many games to complete, but after finishing Bravely Default II, if one of us did, I probably will pick up Live Alive. Let's go. Yeah. That's how that's why we started this podcast partly is to start playing also games off stream because KJ and I realized our backlog is insanely long for our big games, especially even ones where we want to maybe even replay them like for myself. Like I want to replay Tales of Destiny and there's some games in there I want to replay and like
02:26:34
Speaker
be able to fit that in and all the new stuff that I haven't gotten to play yet. And that's why we started. This is exactly why I don't because our like thing is like a freaking mile long. Even even the ones we're not planning on streaming or not not in the streaming list yet is super long. So this lets us do one a month, get as far as we can and or trying really hard to beat it. That's kind of our point is that we're trying to beat it and and then talk about it with you guys.
02:27:03
Speaker
Yeah. And Polly says, tales of destiny and my wallet cries. Cause if I do go out, I might buy that. So it's so expensive. Good. It's honestly, I, I watching you play Valkyrie profile, I think you will actually, it's a similar kind of battle system. It doesn't usually take too much to, uh, I'm not that bad, big of a critic.
02:27:31
Speaker
Yeah, and honestly, it's one of those kind of games that JRPG scenario side of things, another tangent, but it's unique. It has a side-scrolling sort of battle system. The pixel graphics are different than what you'll see in other RPG games in that era.
02:27:52
Speaker
And the story was very unique and the concept of everything is really, really interesting. It was very different from other JRPGs of its time period. So I'm excited for you to give that a try at some point. I think that'll be exciting. Cool.
02:28:16
Speaker
What's next? What is next? What are we, are we- So yeah, I- Should we find somebody to read? I guess we look into rating and just kind of wrap up with the conversation and chat, I guess. Tales of Destiny 2 is more expensive. The funny thing about Tales of Destiny 2, it was only called Tales of Destiny 2 over here, but I think it's like Tales of like Turdia or something like that. KJ has it, which I'm super jealous about.
02:28:46
Speaker
He actually has it. I've never played the game, but I've heard that's really good. I've never had to play it.
02:28:54
Speaker
going to have to get a bucket to catch the tears of KJ's wallet. I mean, that's that's facts. You see that collection behind him? Like, I mean, there's still a lot of the ones that I'm missing out of mine. And of course, a lot of them are expensive, like Valkyrie profile. I might even just be complacent to have Valkyrie profile at this point, seeing how that Valkyrie profile game just keeps climbing. It's like Canadian at this point. But
02:29:23
Speaker
Not a big big of a critic. Awesome. So we're doing a side by side banjo stream with Polly. No, no. At some point to like do a side by side where we are playing a game. Yeah, I think there are a few like co-op games we could do that we could add to the podcast where we could do that.
02:29:42
Speaker
I think that would be really cool if we had a month where we both could stream together once a week or a couple times a week where we're actually doing that. Because there are a few like co-op RPG games I would be down. Or even something like Grandia where it's like
02:30:00
Speaker
It's going to be different with us playing it, but we can play it side by side. Where you have that customization, where you can make a little bit more unique. It's too, I mean, technically, one of our games that we're coming up, because I don't want to reveal it because it's spoiler for the chat, I mean. But one of the ones we are playing in September, KJ, that would work for that. Really? Oh, I get that it makes sense. Because it could be different. Based on what I know about that, I guess that would make sense. Yeah.
02:30:27
Speaker
But yes, Tales of Eternity, a room made for PSP. Yeah, that's it. That's what it's called in Japan. And then they called it Tales of Destiny 2 over here. But I heard it's really good. I've just never played it. But that's also a potential of either a stream game or a podcast game at some point, maybe. Side by side, Mega Man. There won't be any Mega Man. None of that.
02:30:52
Speaker
I mean, both of us have Mega Man RPG games on our backlog at this point, but... Secret of Mana. I mean, you can technically play that as co-op. You can play Final Fantasy IX co-op too, but like... I forgot you could do that where somebody controls one of the characters. We will figure it out. We will figure it out.
02:31:21
Speaker
But yeah, I've been poking around. Do we want to like, I guess, do we want to know somebody? Do we want to read somebody we know? Do we want to read somebody like there was one person in the grandia category, but it looks like they're like on an eating break. Oh, okay. So somebody potentially we want to wait a little bit longer chat a little bit more and then rate two or do we want to hit up a friend? We can also find somebody else is just playing a game. Um, like,
02:31:49
Speaker
I'll poke around in some game categories and see. Yeah, absolutely. If we want to try to give somebody new an experience, especially since we're kind of talking about a new game that we just played. I got a great idea. Post a YouTube video with both runs, one below the other, to compare your gameplay.
02:32:08
Speaker
That would be really, really cool too. If we were recording our runs of like, you think, I don't know if Live Alive is that different, like we thought we could do that. But if I find at the start that might end up being a possibility that will end up very different, I might record all of my Live Alive gameplay. That'd be really cool. I want to record. I could start recording it and kind of go from there. Yeah, I started with Grandia and then I was like, I like being at my couch.
02:32:37
Speaker
Yeah, that's the biggest problem. Or at least the boss fights. That's a good idea. That's actually a really good idea. See how we handle the bosses. Oh, I like that. I like that. That would be really fun. Yeah, so I guess I would assume we would want to avoid live-alive.
02:32:59
Speaker
Um, cause we wouldn't be able to like say really, yeah, there's only one person playing grandia one. There's somebody playing grandia two, but I think they're on a BRB. Um, let me see. Okay. I'll start poking around. Yeah. You, I'm going to leave this. Honestly, this will be back of force. So like when you're hosting, I'll look up stuff and then when you're, and I'll reach out right now. So.
02:33:29
Speaker
Herd-based tactics! Oh my gosh, Cherican. Cherican, I'm all for it. I'm all for tactics games. I feel like a tactics game would be a lot longer to play, but one I'm like looking at that might be really interesting, that Pokemon conquest game. There's some people playing, okay. There's some people playing Grandia 2. It's actually, it's like somebody that has a... Looks like they have somebody that's like a guest on the stream, but like... Okay.
02:33:58
Speaker
That could be cool. We could trade another grandi a game. It doesn't necessarily have to be. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Hold on. Let me send you over. I'll send you over the link and you can take a look at the stream and see how you're feeling about it. Obviously, it's hard to tell vibes without sound or anything. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's kind of going to be more or less a blind. Pokemon Conquest does have, yeah, that is a game. That could be an interesting one.
02:34:28
Speaker
who would have been interesting to see KJ's time freeze type things are falling into the world. Yeah, that's actually a really good point. Maybe we can actually have a video of the time freeze thing. So maybe we can actually put that together for next stream or for next podcast. And I have that you're ready. I have that ready to go. Like I have the video. I specifically took that video just in case I'll actually post it.
02:34:54
Speaker
Yeah, okay, for like the end sequence of Grandia. If I come to my computer and play the last little bit, maybe tomorrow night, I can literally record the last like few hours of the game and just stream it in Discord as well while I'm recording like I did when I first started. And yeah, we could literally put them side by side. Because we talked about that, you wanted to see how I react for that. Yes. Okay, yeah, that'd be perfect. Yeah, I like that.
02:35:22
Speaker
Um, yeah, it's so funny too, watching, I'm like in this person's stream for Grandia 2, this game, I've definitely watched my brother play this game. Like, it all looks, I watched my brother play this game, I tried to avoid it, because I know Mal was streaming it at one point, and I tried to avoid spoilers, but like, I have distinct memories of like, the background and everything watching my brother play this game, so.
02:35:45
Speaker
Yeah, this, I've definitely seen this before. I'm super excited. This seems okay. Like I've read the, uh, they have Legend of Zelda themed stuff. That's kind of interesting. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm cool to read them if you're good with it. I mean, they seem, they seem pretty, seem pretty chill.
02:36:02
Speaker
Yeah, they seem pretty chill and there's two of them and it doesn't say anything about not raiding. Sometimes you get those things and they have it in their tag. The only thing is there's no backseating and no spoilers, but I mean we have those tags too.
02:36:22
Speaker
Um, yeah, that sounds good. Let's, let's load that up. So, uh, yo, it's Polly, KJ dip. Hello, dip. Yep. How's it going? Yes. We are, we are wrapping up. So that is our grandiose one, like review overview of the game. Uh, we will have a little segment next time we do our podcast on KJ stream about the ending of grandiose because I'm just like, just shy of beating it.
02:36:46
Speaker
So I'll be beating it tomorrow. And if you guys are in my Discord, I'm probably going to stream the last little bit of it and record it. So feel free to hop in there. I'll do that Monday night. So because KJ thinks I'm about four or five hours, so I'm going to give myself six hours of like.
02:37:06
Speaker
opportunity to just just in case I take a little longer because that mountain I was stuck in there at the end where I was trying really hard to get to the end of the game uh took me a lot longer than I hoped for but don't be fine thank you everybody for hanging out thank you KJ for for also being here and uh and suggesting that we do this kind of book club sort of RPG thing for our podcast KJ and I have been wanting to do a podcast it's like
02:37:35
Speaker
i don't know what three months into our friendship something like that we haven't talked in a while but it's like coming up with an idea that's different and also just like i mean that the funny thing is is having the turn based tangents in our user day now for our podcast it's like we we do go off on tangents i'm so excited did you just thank yourself wait wait did kj thank himself i missed that no no
02:38:03
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, but thanks. Thanks, everybody. Appreciate y'all.