This and Skies of Arcadia WERE the JRPG pillars of the Dreamcast. Amazing classic.

Grandia 2 was my very first JRPG and RPG overall. What a great way to start my lifelong hobby.

I literally played this game for 26 hours straight and beat it. Fucking gem of a game.

Grandia will always be one of my favorite series! I've beaten them all, even the terrible Japan only Grandia: Parallel Trippers. We need another one. :P

My first RPG. It set an extremely high bar as far as combat goes in an RPG. It's impossible nowadays to find RPGs like this, and makes me want to seek out a dreamcast and this game just to play it again.

You have outstanding taste in RPGs, I must say. Grandia 2 is such a fantastic and terribly under appreciated title (like most of GameArts work). I haven't played it in years myself, and this review has definitely made me want to dust off the Dreamcast and give it another go.

Just here in 2019 watching Grandia reviews to get hyped for the Switch release

I'm so happy you finally got around to reviewing this game! Grandia II happens to be my favorite rpg of all time!

I enjoy watching your videos because of your earnest joy at playing RPGs. The reviews are succinct, fairly spoiler-free aside from opening plot points, and delivered with a calm demeanor that makes them very fun! Thanks SuperDerek!

I dare say, this is my favorite rpg ever. So beautifully crafted

Great RPG. The timing system was brilliant. Aw the memories.

I've only played like one third of the games you review but I love your style, and your voice is very relaxing.

That was smooth how you pulled out the game case in the beginning after introducing yourself man. Long live the Dreamcast!

You made me want to play Grandia 2 again!! Loved it so much when I first played it on the DC years ago! 😊

loved this game. worked all summer, got the dreamcast at age 14 . this game, and skies of arcadia really stand out. among a few others

Nice Super Derek - loved the review. I grew up with this game as my father gave this to me as my 13th birthday present - on a platform starved rpg, this and skies of Arcadia were amazing adventures for my childhood that felt like the evolution of the classic psone and snes rpgs.

Ryudo's voice actor was also Liquid Snake in Metal Gear Solid

One of the all-time greats! So impressive that they were pretty much able to match the greatness of the first game with the sequel. I personally still prefer the first one for it's amazing innocent sense of adventure, but the more mature take of Grandia II works so damn well too. Brilliant games, both of them. Good job on the video! ^^

Glad your back Super Derek! I like your well researched reviews, I use them to decide what games I try next sometimes, they're really top notch!

good review. you never disappoint and always remind me why a fan of jrpgs can always listen to your reviews and get a distinct taste of a game and know whether its worthwhile.

This game was something I always saw my uncle play along with other gba games like golden sun now as an adult I'm playing all of these glad I found the name from the old memory banks haha 😀

So many great voice actors: Ryudo - Cam Clarke AKA Jimmy Flinders (MGS) Sky - Paul Eiding (MGS) Elena - Jennifer Hale (MGS) Mareg - forgot his name but he's Vulcan Raven from Metal Gear Freakin Solid. Kim Mai Guest also voiced a char.

Oh my gosh, you floored me in the first two minutes. I had no idea what to expect when I clicked on this video, but your personality made my day. Subscribed.

i have this game for DREAMCAST and the PS2, the PS2 is LOADED with amazing RPGS, and the DREAMCAST has far less, I was so happy for this port, give some beautifull RPGS to the DREAMCASTS library

I'm loving all your reviews Derek. Keep up the great work.

Wow, talk about a glowing review. The Grandia series has been on my RPG bucket list for quite a while now. Some day I'll get around to it.

loved the combat here, would probably more if i gave everyone jobs. back when i first played this i didnt know about the importance of tanking in RPGS so i just made everyone dps. curious to go back and see how that works out. awesome review of an awesome game

So cool watching this since I just bought a dreamcast and this game! As always, great content Super Derek!

That Dreamcast logo! Pure nostalgia for me. Wish I still had it 😢

This game had the best battle system I've ever played in a turned based rpg. The way you have to factor in your timing and the movement of your players works amazingly.

The dinner discussions remind me of legaia 2, since it's the game that introduced it to me (although no one even knows this game exists lol). But I can never get enough if these discussions in grandia 1 and 2. These have some of my favorite parts if the games. Great review! Love seeing someone with the same enthusiasm over older games :D

Hello, I love your vids. Do a review of Valkyrie Profile 2!!

Love all your reviews Derek! This comes in handy in terms of knowing if it’s worth giving the Switch version a go. ✌🏻

I remember Grandia II. First the origional PC port, then the PS2 port I picked up at a pawn shop and never bothered to play, and then finally the PC release.

It's your birthday? Well happy birthday, dooood! Weirdly, I haven't ever gotten a chance to try Grandia II, even though I would love to play it. I also find it a bit odd that Grandia I and III are on PSN for PS3 and this game is not. But I'm loving these reviews of this classic series! Keep up the good work!

I went from 1 right to 3 back in the day. I'll have to pick up 2 now. You made it sound fantastic.

Wow. The two main vocal pieces on the soundtrack are in Portuguese. How cool!

It's funny that nobody stops the Dreamcast beep by replacing the battery in the controller. It's a cr2032 and you can find it at your local pharmacy.

Thanks for mentioning the other suggestions on other platforms

I guarantee that if this game got remake, it would be very good! The character development, the story are well written. I was curious what would be like if this game got remake.

Excellent video, you express genuine affection for this game. Very good

GREAT JOB with this and all ur videos. ur gonna be huge i can feel it. just remember your subs

Fantastic review Derek. Also I really like your take on this. Over the past few years I've been completing retro JRPGs at a pretty decent pace and Grandia II on the Dreamcast is one of the absolute standouts. I was kind of surprised just how good this game was because at the time reviews were lukewarm. It's an excellent game that really needs to get more love.

I legit got chills hearing that battle music, man. It's so goooood.

Grandia II was the very first jrpg I ever completed. The genre has been my favorite since. Fantastic game.

I love your reviews! Even when I disagree with a point, I easily see what you're saying and it makes me think.

Great review I've actually always seen this game floating around for PS2 and occasionally for Dreamcast and never bought it. After seeing this review I'm going to grab it on Steam first, looks like it would be fun to play with the enhanced graphics. Great review as always!

Been putting off playing this. You have convinced me to give it a try.

Solid review. I just finished Grandia 2 HD remastered, last time playing it was on thr Dreamcast back when it first released.

Another excellent review Derek!

Loved me some Grandia II back in the day on the Dreamcast ...

This was an amazing game that I still enjoyed despite playing the inferior PS2 version back in the day (the freezing and slowdown, ugh). I really ought to do it justice by tracking down and playing the Dreamcast version. Anyways, great review on a fantastic game.

I have so much nostalgia towards this game. Even the most formulaic plot can be entertaining enough with a cast of enjoyable characters & bits of lore. And of course, the battle system is another reason for me to revisit every now and then.

Great review. Convinced me to grab it off the shelf and replay it... I'm also thinking of buying an extra copy for a friend who is unconvinced that great RPG's were on Sega consoles, and not made by Square

Man, the dinner scenes are the best

i watched your live streams of this. i loved this game for dreamcast! i also just pre ordered the akura dreamcast hdmi box. i am so excited to see how good my dreamcast games can look!

Have this for the PS2 and never finished it. Not because I didn't like it or because it was hard (which is was in some cases), but because it KEPT FREEZING!!!? My god the bugs in the PS2 version. I wished I could of finished it. Anyway I am hoping to see Wild Arms 3 review one day. More people need to know about it and with it being on PS4's PSN more people can get it now.

I personally liked the first more even though I played the second first. I don't feel the world-building at all in Grandia 2, the atmospheric adventure, the lively cities..it's not as good as it is in the first one or maybe it's just me. But I still love the battle system!

another great video your a hidden gem can't wait to play this for the first time myself still got to beat 1 first just got to disk 2 today

Derek, if possible, turn the music a little bit down for your next videos.. It´s just a suggestion, due to the difficulty I had in listening to what you were saying.. Other than that, your channel is great! Congratulations for such an amazing work!

Thank you Derek for all your videos. You really brings joy to my boring life :p :) Have a great day!! :)

Love your stuff Derek!

Great review Derek. I played both Grandia 1 and 2 on playstation back in the days, but where i still have fond memories of the exploration journey of Justin in Grandia 1, i remember almost nothing about this game. Not the characters, the bosses or the plot and i usually have a very good memory when it comes to rpg's. Must not have made a very lasting impression i guess. In fact the only thing i do remember about this game, is that it had some broken equipment combination of an accesory (some sort of ring i believe) that made the last few hours of the game way too easy. This review makes me want to play it again though. I'll wait for the switch version coming at the end of this year i guess.

Oh, we sang this vocal song at Tokyo GameTakt during the Grandia medley. Fun times.

Its a small thing but i love the game's attempt at soft shadows during the battles. In addition, the game is a textbook example of how to make appealing low poly characters through great art design and texture work that play to the Dreamcast's strengths.

I own them both and I bought the Grandia compilation for the Switch. I finished running through the first game last weekend. I am now paying through Grandia 2. Now, what's interesting is, even though I have owned the second Grandia title on the Dreamcast, I have never played it. I truly love the second game more than I do the first Grandia title, Lunar Silver Star, Lunar Eternal Blue, and any other Game Art title I simply cannot remember. I noticed you said the second game carries the same syatem...not entirely. The magic is far more nuanced than the first. It really reminds me of the amazing trend setting FF7. I live being able to equip anyone with anything I want. Further, I love the skill book system even more. I have only made it roughly 11 hours in and I would give Grandia 2 a solid 9.5 on the Switch and a 10 on the Dreamcast. The Switch version has quite a bit if slowdown in cluttered areas that run smoothly on the Dreamcast. Is it me or do some of the music tracks sound like Blue Dragon? Ryuda reminds me of Fei from Zenosaga especially when Fei went crazy. "Hey, you threw a ship at me. Take it back" -Fei picks up a ship and throws it....classic.

Didn't Grandia 2 get a PC release before the remastered version? I'm pretty sure I played it on PC years ago, and it wasn't on an emulator on anything of the sort.

I have all 3, but the one I played and beat when I was a kid (well, 16 to be exact back in the year 2000) was this exact one. It's in my top 5 rpg's of all time. I love that you can talk to everyone 2 or 3 times before and after events. The dialogue to me at the time was well executed. I recently downloaded Grandia 3 on the PS3. Never played the PS2 version. I have to say it's also excellent! Grandia 1 for me is better than 3, but the entire series impresses me. I hope they make a 4th installment.

enthusiast points for the trinitron. man knows his CRTs

I was a newly-introduced RPG fan back then and I asked the clerk what were some good RPGs on the Dreamcast. He told me this game and Skies of Arcadia I walked out with both. Best decision I ever made.

I remember when I got a Dreamcast after Sega dropped out of the console market. It was dirt cheap at Gametop, so I picked it up with Grandia 2. Damn, Grandia 2 was such an awesome game, the best that I personally played on the dreamcast

Grandia 2 Is one of my Top 5 All Time Favorite Video Games, also was one of my first video games ever when I was really young

Great Review, loved Grandia & Grandia 2. A real shame that we didn't get Grandia 3 in the UK 😔

This was a great game that I was looking forward to after playing Grandia back then. This would come out around the same time as FF9 and I played them back to back...was such a great time to be an rpg fan. I didn't think it was as good as the original, but it was definitely a top notch game. REPLY

dude i loved this game, it has a near perfect battle system, great review!

Please SuperDerek, review Grandia 3. Greetings from Germany:-)

Love the grandia series. The mechanics and 3D environment in grandia 3 looks great too(which is my first game on this series),but i wish they polish more on story line

I'm playing through Grandia right now, I hope to get Grandia 2 on DC very soon!

I loved Grandia (1) when I played it a couple of years ago on my Vita. So I just checked my Steam library and saw that I already had Grandia 2 there ^^

Definitely need to pick this up on steam!

I never played the second one because it wasn't a continuation of the first one, which was the best RPG ever made.

The battle system would be so dope in todays games

0:23 Ahh the dreamcast, sooo Young

@SuperDerek RPGs I just discovered, subscribed & love this channel! I think you may have reviewed almost all my top 10 JRPGs. Grandia 2 is on my list. I'm about to head off and watch your Shenmue review, another one in my top 10 RPGs. If you haven't already, maybe checkout Skies of Arcadia & the Mega Man Legends series.

Nice review. I also realized that most voice acting in modern JRPG's is actually worse than what Grandia 2 had. I'd also like to recommend a very overlooked JRPG that came out on Steam a few years ago. That's Half-Minute Hero: The Second Coming. The first game is pretty well known for it's charm, but most people don't even realize that it ever got a sequel (which is a shame, because I think it's better than the original in every way).

I'm currently playing Grandia 3. I haven't played II yet but I'm planning on getting the Anniversary Edition on Steam. The 3rd game is pretty good!

The voice actor for Ryudo is also Liquid Snakes voice.

I regret selling my Dreamcast and Grandia II almost 10 years ago. Grandia II was so awesome and has some of the best voice acting in localized games. Jodi Benson brought Millenia to life!

Great job SuperDerek!

It's a darn shame you didn't wait a few more years until the 20th Anniversary collection came out in the PS Store lol. Anyway, like others this was also my first JRPG, but I was an adult when this came out. At the time I was interested in JRPGs, but didn't want to play any of the FF games at the time because I wanted to look at something more 'underrated' and I saw an ad for this game in Nintendo Power's magazine. My brother had just recently got the Dreamcast because he wanted to play Shemue and he got the game also. I didn't watch him play it too much (I only saw his 2nd fight with Melfice, even then not all of the way through). This game, it made me into a better person, it had that much of an impact on me. I can't think of any other game to do that. It made me question my own sense of morality and that not everything was 'black and white'. It's still my 2nd fav game of all time, only beaten out by XBox 360's version of Eternal Sonata (story is better in PS3, but the gameplay is better and more balanced in 360). My only major critique of this game is there are a few difficulty spikes in the game. Thankfully I don't have to grind too much to overcome them. Sadly the difficulty spikes are worse in Grandia 3 (and they changed the level up system for the worse) and that's why I feel Grandia 3 really dropped the ball, plus I feel the cast isn't as strong either, even though I enjoyed the story. Like with Grandia 3, I get the final boss is supposed to be the hardest, but the boss prior to it was a great challenge, but I feel the difficulty got spiked up dramatically and it took a miracle for me to beat the game. The level up system is different is the amount of experience you need to level up is doubled. I decided to grind to level 70 before entering the point where the world map is cut off and the final boss still clobbered me. So the third and final time I played the game I decided to max out my char levels. Let me tell you how long it took. From start of the game to the cutoff point, it took me 2 months to get up to level 70. It took me ANOTHER 2 months to get to lvl 99 and I was pretty burnt out by that point. So I haven't played the game sense. FYI, at lvl 99, all minor and major foes were a cakewalk to be and even though the final boss was still a bit of a challenge (but manageable), so yeah, horrible difficulty spikes.

I just started playing grandia 2 on dreamcast and I'm loving it! Duno why I didn't buy this years ago.

And Derik couldn't have said better, such a good RPG, that even with the small mistake/nitpicks, it can make you remember why RPG's are sooo good.

I have Grandia 1, but haven't had the chance to get to it yet. I really want to, but being an adult and playing through my backlog makes things really complicated all while keeping up with new releases. #FirstWorldProblems Great review! I can't wait to get to this some day!

I played the PS2 version and I can emulate the Dreamcast but it's glitchy so I am stuck playing grandia 1 on my phone not to bad but I loved grandia 2 it was my first grandia and I'll never forget how it totally changed my life masterpiece of a game its more art than a game

Great video !

one of my favorites. Not enough people have played this one.

I really need to give this one a try. May have to try out the HD remaster soon

Just subbed I love this channel

I played Grandia I back in the day on the PS1 but I didn't own a Dreamcast until the very end of its life and I never owned Grandia II. I wish I had. I think I'm going to pick up the HD remaster on Steam per your recommendation......IN THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUTURE!

Yo aa a young kid I spent hours and hours on this game beat it multiple times. Loved this game wish they would remake the game