Grandia was one of the games I played during the Dark Ages of my life, and there is only more game (that I remember) from this era that I'll get to one day. I don't recall anything about it except the main character's name was Justin. His "sister" was named Sue, and you can't go back to places in previous chapters. There's something about a wall or a cliff and a water dungeon. That's it. I enjoyed it back then, so let's see if super depressed me had good taste.
The opening cinematic/credit role is backed behind human evolution; From the early starts of life and ends with winged humanoids in their advanced cloud cities. I can't make hide nor hair of it, but I'm sure it's important.
The next scene has a King on his throne waking up from a nap. He asks a nearby soldier how long he was sleeping, and the soldier says for thirty minutes. The King asks the soldier, Mullen, to simply call him dad when there's no one else around. Mullen tells Lord Ball that there is someone else. Leen is here. Baal doesn't give her much thought other than acknowledging her as someone important to the Sult Mines...
MIDI Bagpipes play as the camera pans around an early industrial revolutionizing city. Chimneys bellow black smoke into the air, and there's an aura of mild steampunk around. It zooms in on a small girl with purple hair and a ribbon frantically searching for someone. She hears a commotion in the distance and runs towards it to find a boy named Justin getting thrown out of someone's shed. Justin tells the man that he's searching for treasure, but the adult knows nothing of value in his shed. This seems to be a reoccurring event in the town of Parm. The girl, Sue, walks up to Justin because she has something for him. It's The Legendary Armor. At level one? Why is it an old apron? Her ribbon turns into a bird at this point to remind Sue that it was her, Puffy, who aided in finding the apron. The two then discuss why we need such an item, and it's because Justin made a bet with a rival of his, Gantz, that he could find all pieces of the Legendary Armor in North Parm in one day. The two boys had such a wager to find out who's the best adventurer. Should Justin lose, Sue will also have to marry Gantz, which makes her upset. With the "Armor" in hand, we should return to Gantz. He and Justin have at it for a moment before we head off to find everything else. We now have to go on an item hunt as the first quest of the game. I'll admit, I've never started an RPG off like this. I don't know if it's good, but it's a thing. While we do this, we can get a lay of the greater world around us. We're in the Port Town of Parm, a boomtown because of the nearby ancient ruins. A big, technological conglomerate that may be a cahoots with the military made this possible when it built all the factories around town. The citizens find the soot from the factories intrusive, but they welcome their new lifestyles and jobs. It's also home to people with dreams about the new world across the ocean. The port has piqued the interest of many a young adventurer. Justin, for example, but he's always lived in Parm.
Find the "Helmet" (a banged-up Pot) is on the banks of the canal and the western bridge, and the "Shield" (pot lid) is in the port to the north. When we head back to Gantz, he'll outright tell us that the Sword of Light is in a treasure chest in this house, but he's hid the key! Find Gantz' younger brother, Tentz, near the cafe. He's crying because he dropped the key his brother gave him to keep safe. If we promise not to tell (this game needs some editing), we'll help him find it. It's an easy task, and Tentz lets us keep the key because he doesn't hand to have debts to people. Find Gantz' house, talk to his mom if you want, and open the chest. Inside is the Sword of Light...a wooden sword, which is better than Justin's Wooden Pole.
When we return to our rival, we'll see him being yelled at by an adult. Gantz blocked the bridge for some reason, and it's the only way across town since the other is blocked by soldiers protecting Lord Baal. Justin and Sue try to sneak past, but the adult knows we're often in league with Gantz. At this point, Justin, Sue, and Puffy cheese it to Justin's house. Inside is Lilly, Justin's mom and Sue's aunt. When we talk to her, she hits her son with a pot because he's tracking dirt into the kitchen restaurant. There are no customers to see the child abuse, but this is a pretty good place to get a meal later on. Before talking to mom again, search around the house. We'll see a map Justin's dad got of the new world and pictures of his ancestors. All of them are famous adventures, which explains Justin's fervor. Dig through some stuff in Justin's room while we're here. Lilly will ask us what we've been up two, and we have three ways to answer. All three will lead to more physical trauma for Justin, and one leads to some emotional abuse, as well. I kinda hate my mom, guys. The last one advances the plot. Lilly invites Sue to stay for dinner again, and they sit down to a nice meal. Eventually, the topic of discussion turns to the fancy technologies Justin's dad found, the Spirit Stone, and how he and Lilly met. One night, Justin's dad was on a cruise ship. Before long, it was attacked by pirates! The captain saw the Stone around Papa's neck and demanded it, but Papa adamantly refused. This caused a surge of emotions in the captain that they instantly changed their ways. The two of them later got married because the pirate captain was Lilly! How romantic! Lilly informs the two that the museum curator is done examining the Spirit Stone and wants to return it to us, so that's the plan for tomorrow. After dinner, they hit the hay.
Sue wakes us up, and we can explore South Parm. In the restaurant are a bunch of creeps who try to hit on Lilly. One is a casual pedophile who can't wait for the eight-year-old Sue to grow up. I kinda looked around town, and it's much of the same from North Parm. I didn't see if anything new happened to Gantz, though. There is a nice fountain if you want to chill around it. The museum is in the southeast, and the guy at the desk lets us in. In the only exhibit room in the place is the curator. He's impressed at the ancient relic, an Icarian Statue, he rebuilt. After he and Justin gush over the thought of finding new ruins in the new world, he heads off to find the Spirit Stone for us. He leaves two unattended children in the room, so, wouldn't you know it, Justin breaks the statue! He tries to fix it, but it's not good. We leave and go to the curator's office. It turns out the Stone was in his pocket the whole time! Along with the Stone, he also hands us a Letter of Introduction that we can use to get into the Sult Ruins to the north. Without telling anyone what we did, we leave the premises. A commotion is heard, but we decide not to go back in to confess. If you're feeling guilty, there was a diary in the curator's office that says he's broken it three times already, so don't feel too bad.
The Sult Ruins are to the north, past the Marna Road. Finally, we can try some combat! It's a turn based type of thing where you can see everyone's turn order on a timeline at the bottom of the screen. Faster characters zoom on it, while slower ones do less so. There are three stages on the timeline: standby, ???, and action. If you attack someone as they're about to perform their action, they lose their turn. I'm sure I'll be able to take advantage of that more often than my opponents. Otherwise, you slightly delay them. Some parameters are strengthened by use. We don't have any magic abilities yet, so I got Justin's sword skill to level three and Sue's bow-and-arrow (throw) near there as well. Battles aren't random, and we can see what we're about to get in a fight with when we come into contact with a monster on the field. In between turns, characters randomly run around trying to avoid getting too close to mobs, which makes sense. I can dig it! Anyway, explore around Marna Road to get an understanding and some experience. The EXP is painfully low, but I got all the treasures (I think), and pretty close to level four.
Afterwards, we can gain access to the Sult Ruins. The camera pans around what looks like a mine with soldiers around it. Near the human head entrances are three high ranking female commanders and their soldiers. The commanders tell everyone their duties, and they head in. The three women hang back to discuss the tardiness of one of the squads and the terrible punishment6s each other would have given them. They're all S&M femdoms, and I get the feeling they'll be bosses down the line. After we walk around topside, meeting Gantz' older brother, Gontz, who's nothing like his sibling, we head down to the head. The commanders are still there and wonder why two kids are down here. When Justin shows one of them their letter, they destroy it. We're told they'll be merciful this once if we return to town, and they proceed down to the ruins. Sue asks Justin what we're going to do, and he says they're going in anyway!
But that'll happen tomorrow!
The game looks pretty so far, and combat seems solid. I'm hoping to get some new moves soon as we can only combo and critical right now, meaning it's kinda boring. But we're at level three, so what do you expect? Also, I looked this up, and Justin's dad doesn't have a name. I'm gonna call him Mortimer.
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