Game Arts latest role-playing game in the series, Grandia III, lands somewhere in between grand and average; At first glance you get the best role-playing game combat systems out there, a good opening plotline and a some unique character relationships that start the game out on what seems like a promising and non-standard path. But as the game heads into the second disc things start to fall in line with every other RPG on the market, offering the same "save the world" plotline, copious amounts of combat encounters and canned dialogue. If you evaluate the game as a whole you come to the conclusion that Grandia III is worth owning, despite falling into the trap of the usual RPG conventions. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves - let's divide the good from the average elements of this game and tell you why Grandia III is worth a purchase.

A Tale of Two Disc

Grandia III tells the story of a young pilot named Yuuki who aspires to be a great pilot like the legendary pilot Schmidt. As the game opens Yuuki is trying to get his plane design off the ground to fly off into the wild blue yonder, despite his mother's concerns that he is too young and that flying is too dangerous. But the story really begins when Yuuki takes a test flight with plane number 19 and crashes not far from his isolated village. With his mom in tow (she decides to stow away, which causes the plane to exceed the "safe" weight limit for flight - oops!), Yuuki stumbles upon a young elf (who turns out to be a very important person with mysterious powers) being pursued by soldiers. The girl, Alfina, is fleeing from her fate and Yuuki and his mom show up just in time to rescue her. After returning to the village, The trio head off into the world on an adventure that will lead them across oceans, take flight on wings of metal and dragon, and pit brother against sister in a struggle that embroils the world and the very gods they worship.

This is the basic story of Grandia III and it starts out great. Players will think that this game steps outside the usual conventions of the genre, and it does for awhile, but by the end of this 50 hour adventure it becomes apparent that only the first 20 hours of the story are truly compelling. The remainder follows the usual conventions, and while it's not completely awful, I guess I expected a little more. Even the characters of the first half are in stark contrast to each other. But where the story falls a little flat towards the latter half of the game, the combat engine truly shines.

Fight!

Grandia III's combat system is tight and probably one of the best you'll find on the market. Game developers at other companies would do well to look at this system because there isn't one out there that's more refined or as much fun. It shouldn't be any surprise to fans of the series that Grandia III's strongest point is its combat system - the series is known for putting a heavy focus on this aspect of the game. Of course that means not as much attention is paid to other aspects of the game, but that's just how it goes in the world of gaming.

The combat system uses a stop watch-style meter, which every character and every enemy on the field travels on like a horse track. This circular track has check points for preparation and for action ( combat, magic and skills), with a certain amount time in between to give the other side the chance to "interrupt" or "cancel an action and send you back to the preparation stage. During the selection stage for each player, the game pauses to allow you to make your decision (which also includes the ability to defend or use other special attacks). Simple attacks are usually initiated immediately but don't offer that same magical canceling affects you get from critical attacks and some skills. Simple attacks and defense don't use any point reserves, which is great when you need to fill up your reserves. Players can also use skill-based attacks, power attacks and elemental-based offensive and defensive magics.

Grandia III offers a skill and magic system that gives players a lot of variety. Players can purchase some of these special abilities at a variety of stores, gain skills by combining or extracting them at shops from books and eggs, and by using them frequently in battle to "learn" new ones. No matter how you get them, not all skills work as well for some characters - equipping the right books and eggs can help in further improving a character's performance.

Magic can also be purchased at Magic stores and equipped to your liking. Equipping certain items like rings can help further your affinity with certain types of elemental magics like earth, water, fire, wind, etc. Much like skills, magics can be extracted from items called mana eggs - which like books can also be equipped to further improve a school of magic. The game also offers the ability to combine multiple mana eggs to reveal even stronger magics.

Of course there are so many other cool aspects to combat like special ariel attacks that do massive amounts of damage on a single enemy. This happens when one team member attacks an enemy and sends it upward and another character initiates a devastating attack at that moment. While it can be tricky to time such an attack, doing so successfully is an awe inspiring experience because it does massive amounts of damage. The combat system is slightly similar to other games in the Grandia series but refines and fine-tunes it in such a way that makes it simply awesome.

It's Your World

Grandia III's world is beautiful, vibrant and animated. Much like Radiata Stories, Grandia III's environments are very narrow and almost path-like, with enough room to avoid monsters on the world map if that's your thing. This makes exploration limited and linear but also very straightforward and simple. Instead of the object kicking feature found in Radiata Stories, players use the circle button to push objects, break things etc. to uncover secrets and solve minor puzzles. Despite the narrow pathways there's plenty of world to explore that is diversified, beautiful and unique. In the early parts of the game this is the case, but disc 2 offers a lot of familiar scenes. It should also be noted that that is not the case in the big cities where there's plenty to explore and plenty of people to talk to and interact with.

As you progress through the game and Yuuki gets access to a plane (which we won't spoil for you) you'll be able to fly over the world map and explore a little more. The early parts of the game make exploration very linear, but players can return to previously visited areas to fight more or return to cities for purchases. The idea of using a plane as opposed to traversing a world map on foot is a novel idea that works pretty well and looks great - it's just a shame that the gameplay doesn't offer any branching from the plot at all or any side quests.