The main menu chime gets me every single time. And that is enough for me to love this game.

The opening song is still my favorite videogame song of all time.

The dropped characters and side plots of this game reminds of when live action TV shows have characters drop into a void never to be seen and in some cases never mentioned again. Does anybody remember Tori from Saved By The bell? She was that one girl who came into the show halfway through the final season when Kelly and Jesse temporarily left the show. She leaves the show from the third to the last episode of the series it is never mentioned again including The 2020 reboot.

A minotaur boss in a JRPG that tests your knowledge of the game's mechanics, where have i heard that before

I had this game roughly when it came out. I remember wanting to like it but I dropped it right away for the explosion of better games that came out around that time. I would like to give the game a fair chance now that I'm not a restless teen. Back then the jrpg industry hadn't yet gone thru its 7th gen dark age. Grandia is underwhelming in a lot of ways but its still a time capsule worth peering into, especially for the voice talent.

Wow that was a very accurate description of everything about the game. You do a good job sir.

RE: the final boss' Death Knell Move. You CAN move your characters in a limited way. by using the guard command you can select one of many areas on the field to send your character to defend. Its not really explained if you dont experiment with the command but there IS an in-battle way to move your characters. It has limited applications but its there.

I love grandia 3 so much, literally made my childhood so much happier

This is going to be an amazing series. So glad you’re going to cover many games that are hardly talked about anymore (like this one and Stella Deus). We always always see videos about FFX and Kingdom Hearts but there were so many RPGs during that time that came and went on a whimper. Can’t wait to see more. Subbed.

I just noticed that the music when Yuki calls Miranda mom is the same music when Justin reads the letter his mom wrote to Gauss in Grandia I. It's a shame that I can clearly remember the scene in Grandia I, but I totally forgot the scene in Grandia III.

I haven't gotten fully into this series but picked up the grandia collection. Hopefully one day I can get through them.

I'm playing this game for the first time, and there's another dropped side character. Gladys, the screaming woman from the scene where Kornell shows up start of the game. If you return to Anfog Village after getting a plane, the townspeople all mention she went missing in the forest. But if you go into the forest, there's nobody to find. Spooky.

I'm playing the game right now as of this writing I'm in the 6 hour mark. Let me tell you that I completely agree even without getting further into the game that Miranda and Alfonso were the best thing to happen in this game. I honestly couldn't care less about Yuki and Alfina as I find that the chemistry of Ryudo, Elena and Millenia that their goals, motivations and development are much more enjoyable. Like homeboy was already head over heels for this Elf Chick the moment she was introduced. I also prefer the battle and magic system from 2. It was concise and the UI was simple

I thought I'd watched all these videos of yours, and just realised I hadn't watched this one. What was I thinking? Anyway, it's a shame that this game doesn't look to be as fun as the first or second games. Seems like both Grandia and the Lunar series fizzled out, sadly. :( Anyway, great video, as always!

Whew..... you've got your work cut out for you. BUT we're rooting for you! As for Grandia 3, it would have been an EXCELLENT game if the story wasn't so damn goofy and nonsensical. Also, I get they only wanted 4 main party members to focus on, but I feel like if they managed to write around Alonso and Miranda STAYING in the party, the story, and bad as it is, would've been astronomically better!

I remember actually really liking this game. The gameplay was good but it was a bit short and it didn't give me the feeling of going on some grand adventure compared to the first 2. I think that's what it's main problem is, comparing it to the first 2 games. Grandia 1 and 2 kinda set a standard of what Grandia was and this game didn't fully meet those expectations. So more disappointment rather than people objectively thinking this is a bad game. Maybe I'm just defending it cos I actually liked it

I had assumed Miranda was Yuki's adoptive mother hence why he had trouble calling her "mom".

I'm down for this journey!

A game called chained echoes just released and it seems like it would be right up your alley.

I agree with you, the game becomes excessively difficult towards the end. I didn't finish the game because I knew all the elements of the story. A game should be fun and not stressful. Grandia 2 is better (I don't know 1) because the story has much more depth and is truly touching.

There is in fact only one thing to find while flying the airplane, and that's the whale that's in the sky. It's always flying around somewhere and he has some dialogue as well. A lot of the side plot is also only discussed by NPCs in town who have consistent plot points each one follows as the story progresses, and they change in every town after just about every cutscene, requiring a lot of backtracking, such as Bianca introducing new and interesting items to the people of Baccula as well as effecting the look of the market stall that's there. Even the dragon in the canyon has dialogue that consistently changes, they clearly put too much into making up story with the NPCs. I do agree that it's ridiculous the plot completely forgets about Miranda and Alonso, dropping a lot of plot on the way. It feels like some things were cut and are missing.

the game have a really rough development. Alfonso and Miranda suppose to come back but didn't. If I remember correctly, someone did died during the development of the game. They tried to do a lot of stuff, and it ended to big of a project. I think the game was to early for its time, but I still enjoy it.

This was the last rpg I played on PS2

Granida games don't get rid of the best characters challenge: difficulty impossible

I honestly had no idea there was a Grandia 3

Grandia 3 had heavy Story issues. Everything feels rushed and pushed. It didn't feel as natural as Grandia 1 or 2. Gameplay wise it was still great tbh only the Story was lacking and the music was weird at some points. Graphically for a PS2 game it was fine.

Hey so you're gonna do star ocean till the end of time and Dark cloud 1 and 2 also ? Great games recently replayed them.

Grandia 3; the very definition of strong start and bad finish. The final game seemed incomplete. Can I make a recommendation for this series? Radiata Stories and Atelier Iris 2 were two obscure PS2 JRPGs that I remember liking

Baccla was absolutely awful. Pretty sure I muted my TV when I got there.

Will you be doing Xtreme too? I understand that game might be the priciest of them all but eh XD Also I think it might really be Online which killed it, probably more than 6 killed the BOF series (that one was so much later than the others). I dunno really.

Grandia was sick an amazing franchise. Part III was a let down, but it’s still dear to my heart.

I had Grandia 2 on ps2 back in the day, and really ejoyed it! Grandia 3 I have on my ps3's hdd and tried it out for the first time today. it's ok. prefer Grandia 2 imo. when i first loaded up Grandia 3 and saw the opening movie and theme song, i had questions lol. moved through so many different scenes in such a hurry, I was not sure what game I was going to play. I may finish 3 before I buy 1 and 2 again and the others.

I get this is a year old, but Grandia 3's main issue, outside of story related stuff, is being bad at teaching the player the things they need to learn in order to have fun. I'll preface this with saying that you aren't wrong about how you experienced these things, but the game had things to fix/expand on those things that you didn't know about. As an example, Desert Lord is usually beatable at the level you encounter him at, although it is very boring and it overlevels you if done that early (just cancel it a million times, I've seen it done at 16 by abusing status effects and items (and luck), but you can do it somewhat consistently at anything over 25ish (without items)). Excise is avoidable on the overworld, or at least the ones on that long bridge before the boss (you want to stun the roaming ones to pass, and the last group you can just walk around). Their auto cancel can be dealt with in multiple ways because they can only do it when they are actionable and it isn't on cooldown (I think it has a 100% chance to trigger outside those conditions but it has been a while). There is nothing to tell you that is how it works, and nothing explains how hitstun works so you wouldn't know how to cause it (it's whenever your crit would launch without counter hitting I think, but it's only important to understand in that fight since IP damage/stalling is a different mechanic). There is actually a detective side quest in the town where the parents leave you (it's just text, but it lasts most of the game). Final boss is terrible, but you can move your characters manually (select guard then select a place to move to), plus how your characters move after attacks is decently predictable. My strat for the final boss is to abuse skill seeds and feathers I stocked up on from earlier, but on my first playthrough I had more than enough MP/SP regen off skills to last forever with the normal setup of Alfina dedicated healer / water damage user, Yuki as dps/backup healer, Ulf as pure dps, and Dahna as magic dps (abusing her free spells special). Just slap enough skills on them to refill MP from whatever and you are set. The battle itself still took I think 1.5 hours, which is why I abuse items now. You did make a factual error too though, the last 30 hours do have new things in the combat system. You even pointed multiple things out, like the new character and the unique enemy abilities like auto cancel. What enemies are doing and what your characters are best at shifts throughout the whole game too. Your HP in the failed final boss attempt is a bit higher than my first run's (had to bust out the old brick to check this), so I'm guessing you were overleveled and you unlocked stuff a while before it was supposed to. That being said, and I know this is a year old and I didn't watch any new stuff, you need to review a game for what it is, not what you want it to be. Grandia 3 has a distinct lack of builds and a preset party, that is not a bad quality of the game, it is just a quality. It also has terrible multiplayer and the town building mechanics aren't even close to sim city 2000's, but those are obviously hollow complaints. Grandia 3's lack of customization is probably a good thing, it allows for fine tuning of the combat which in turn lets them crank up the difficulty in order to engage players who enjoy mastering complex systems. Grandia 3 has a terrible story, so does super mario Bros, the difference is that G3's bad story gets in the way of the good parts of the game and kills the pacing, whereas SMB's doesn't matter because it is easily ignored. I'm not saying you should like Grandia 3, your preferences are your own, it is just that there is nothing to be gained from telling me them.

Wait dude you do know you can move your characters in their turn right? It's in the defense icon and it will give you options for what spot you want to move them for that turn. It's an evasion tactic. It's been in the series since G1

I'll admit when I was a kid I did not know Miranda was Yuki's mom until that cutscene. He treats her more like some older woman he knows from his village that takes care of him because he is the traditional anime main character aka. no parents and no ability to actually take care of themselves beyond their main character interest. Which is even weirder now that I think back on the game. Yuki is not really a good pilot. That was so weird to me as a wee lad. You just leave your mom like that and she never comes back into the story.

i love your concept but...... why 720?

While the game does have glaring shortcomings, dropped characters and the story is meh at best, I still don’t think that it’s a bad game. Flawed, but not bad.

It would be nice of this playlist was in release order, its reversed by default

Well in Japan Dragon quest arc lad popular but not on west.Whats pop on Japan not on west.

I really, really wanted to enjoy Grandia 3, but as soon as miranda and elazo where removed the story went downhill from there, and I really hated the obsession with trying to redeem emilios 😬

With how some of the characters were handled, i think this game might have been rushed

listen, theres at least two people on here that really like 3. avalanche reviews is the culprit. The fool says its better than one and two combined!

Who is best Grandia 3 now!

I beat the game at level 39 average. I did not remember the final boss being hard. I was expecting u to say the boss was too easy. I was just canceling the attack of the boss and preparing cancel attack before the boss even declared an attack.

My favorite combat system in RPGs, but just the worst story and characters.

Did u skip grandia 2..……?

I couldn’t stand Alonso. I skipped through all of the scenes with him in it.

Heh, the best grandia in visual design, but the worst overall, even xTreme as a dungeon crawler with trash story is a better game.

the combat system was great but the story and characters sucked really, really bad.

Glad you started with that awful song

Amazing gameplay, rubbish plot. I swear if I hear emilios one. more. time!!!!!

After watching this vid i kind of disliked the game a little bit now...I still like the combat system tho, i always find that engaging and the fact u can cancel the enemy's attack and send them flying was fascinating to see for me. I also never liked Dahna, Ulf, and Hect and i can't say i like Alfonso and Miranda either...No offense but i couldn't care less about Alfonso and Miranda's love affair i don't need that, only romance i need is the MC's romance (Yuki and Alfina)...For me i think they could've made other characters that look interesting. The only character that i like tbh is Alfina because she's an Elf. I've always liked Female Elf characters be it in games or anime... Guess u can say Female Elf/Elves is my fetish 😅 I also don't like the lack of aftermath in the ending, they could've done better. Almost everything u said in the video i think i can agree with, just not the romance between Alfonso and Miranda...If this game were to get a reboot i hope it'll be better and the flight-exploration system should be revamped. Replace Dahna, Ulf, and Hect with more interesting characters and give Alfina more relevance to the plot/more role instead of always just being a Damsel in Distress.

Too bad that we cannot use miranda at the end 🥲