Grandia: a hidden gem

I first came across this amazing game in a video preview contained on one of the official Playstation magazine demo disks. That's right back in the good old days where you bought a magazine for £5 and got a good 5-10 game demos to play and a fair few videos. I was around 12 and having only Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon as my anime influences, I found I was infatuated with the art style of this game.

Upon finally purchasing this game I was shocked when in the first 10 minutes of play I discovered voice acting! Not only was this incredibly rare for a PS1 game, but the voice acting wasn't bad either! A real treat for me to hear the first sentence uttered in the game to contain the word 'bastards' as well (swearing in a game - my word).

The icing on the cake for me was this game actually had an incredible combat system! I wish Iwas joking but the combat system alone kept me coming back for more with this game. It was a lot more fun and involved than the final fantasy 7 combat system that i had tried out previously. You have the ability to interrupt what ever your enemy is doing through the use of a well timed 'critical' or you could do more damage but let them attack by doing a 'combo' You are even able to combine your attacks with other party members for powerful combo moves!

All in all this game was an immense amount of fun and although I haven't mentioned it yet the story is truly heart warming and has some decent character development. I highly advise if you haven't played this game yet you go back and give it  ago.