The Shrine

Anyone familiar with this series? I have not played the others, what system were they for? The third looks interesting and i may pick it up.

The first was Playstation and the second was Dreamcast. I felt they had a good battle system, but that the story and dungeon designs were far too generic. Everything else was poorly done: poor towns, poor characters, poor graphics style, poor music, etc.... They're not so bad that they're to be avoided completely, but only play them when there is nothing else to play.

I haven't looked into the third one at all. I have, however, heard that it actually looks fairly good.

Grandia 2 and Grandia Xtreme were also released on the PS2.

Not that it matters much, but Grandia was originally released for the Saturn in Japan. The only US release (I think) was the PS port.

The Seeker wrote:The first was Playstation and the second was Dreamcast. I felt they had a good battle system, but that the story and dungeon designs were far too generic. Everything else was poorly done: poor towns, poor characters, poor graphics style, poor music, etc.... They're not so bad that they're to be avoided completely, but only play them when there is nothing else to play.

I second that. The battle system was really good, but I stopped playing it halfway through. Actually, I'm beginning to think the same thing about Shadowhearts.

All the Grandia games boil down to whether you like the battle system. Anything else in the game is entirely secondary.

The Seeker wrote:The first was Playstation and the second was Dreamcast. I felt they had a good battle system, but that the story and dungeon designs were far too generic. Everything else was poorly done: poor towns, poor characters, poor graphics style, poor music, etc.... They're not so bad that they're to be avoided completely, but only play them when there is nothing else to play.

Thirding this.

I enjoyed Grandia but lost interest half-way through. I should note that this happened for *both* the original Grandia on the Saturn and Grandia III on the Dreamcast. You have to be a real hard-core gamer with a lot of free time on your hands to finish a Grandia game. [/code]

SineSwiper wrote:

The Seeker wrote:The first was Playstation and the second was Dreamcast. I felt they had a good battle system, but that the story and dungeon designs were far too generic. Everything else was poorly done: poor towns, poor characters, poor graphics style, poor music, etc.... They're not so bad that they're to be avoided completely, but only play them when there is nothing else to play.

I second that. The battle system was really good, but I stopped playing it halfway through. Actually, I'm beginning to think the same thing about Shadowhearts.

The second Shadowhearts game is the only major reason to finish the first one. Or so I found while playing the second one. The first one is a decent game as well, I found it to be a lot better than what the IGN review gave it credit for (IGN gave it a significantly lower review than anyone else), but the second one I found to be excellent and is probably my favourite PS2 RPG. The thrd one is out now too, but I haven't bought it yet.

The Seeker wrote:The second Shadowhearts game is the only major reason to finish the first one. Or so I found while playing the second one. The first one is a decent game as well, I found it to be a lot better than what the IGN review gave it credit for (IGN gave it a significantly lower review than anyone else), but the second one I found to be excellent and is probably my favourite PS2 RPG. The thrd one is out now too, but I haven't bought it yet.

Actually, I'm talking about the second one. I'm not exactly interested in the storyline, and the battles can be a bit repetitive.