Short and Almost Sweet.

Grandia III could have been one of the greats, but it falls short in quite a few areas. The graphics are great and the ideas of the game are great, but details seperate the great games from the potentially great games. Ultimately this game turns out to be one of the most unsatisfying games ever played, despite its good qualities. Though the graphics were good, one would think that something as obvious as changing the looks of the weapons would be a no brainer. The world map looks good, and movements of the characters are realistic enough. They don't run in place after you let go of the direction button. The skills ability and the action during a fight are innovative and a neat way to try to bring the fighting as close to real time as possible. However, the number of short comings quickly outweighs the good. Grandia III's story line is interesting. But the whole thing over with more loose ends than any game I've ever play, unless they must be tied up in miniquests. Alonso and Yuki's mother don't resurface in the regular course of the game. Only in the ending does the game give some clue as to what happened to them. All the cool characters die off: Raven and Emelious, leaving the player with the same four he or she aquired in the first half of the second CD. The game on the whole is a minimal experiece. Fly here take care of this and then fly here and take care of that aaaand you're done! Literally. It's like the quest is made up of a couple of drawn out errands that have to be run, and the errands just happen to result in saving the world. The preaching on love is as ineloquent as this here article and suffocates the game, as well as unrealistically changes Emelious's intentions and attitude. The graphics and battle system are good, but the developers must have decided to wrap the game up quickly after the first CD. And I don't want to know where they got the music. Square can do better than this and they know it. But ever since FF VII all they have to do is crap in the form of a CD, box it up and put it on the shelves and poeple eat it up. I would like just one chance to direct the making of a video game, but I'm sure many others think the same. I could show'em how it's done . . . The game is a good rent, but that's it.