This review of Grandia 3 actually makes it appealing...

[Zeus]

http://ps2.ign.com/articles/687/687732p3.html

Basically, they say it's short and not too many sidequests, but what's there is awesome, especially the battle system. That's not necessarily a bad thing IMO. Sounds like Panzer Saga

[Julius Seeker]

"Basically, they say it's short and not too many sidequests,"

That statement also accurately describes the last two Grandia games.

They mentioned how boss battles were more difficult, but with level up systems it is impossible to regulate boss battles to a good balance. There is always the ability to come into the battle under-powered or WAY over powered. This is especially true for games where boss battles are infrequent. The funny thing is that from my experience, I had somewhat more difficulty with Grandia 2's bosses than most other RPGs I have played from the last three generations of consoles. Obviously IGN had a different experience from Grandia 2 than I did in terms of boss battles; though it is possible that they decreased the difficulty in the PS2 version.

[Don]

Difficulty in Grandia almost always boils down to maxing out the fast cast abilities such as the instant cast interrupts and the fast casting heals. Without them the game is borderline impossible. With them you can kill most bosses without even needing to heal (and fast heals makes it impossible to mess up when you do need a heal).

[ShyGuy]

It looks awesome. I liked GrandiaII. The story was simple but appealing.

Can a fantastic combat engine and great visuals save an otherwise standard adventure?

Well yes, yes it can. Gameplay is important people.

[Zeus]

It looks awesome. I liked GrandiaII. The story was simple but appealing.

Can a fantastic combat engine and great visuals save an otherwise standard adventure?

Well yes, yes it can. Gameplay is important people.

Call me crazy, but I "play" video "games", thus, how these games play, commonly referred to as "gameplay", is the most important thing to me...

Take Guitar Hero for instance. I wouldn't be going through the madness that is Bark at the Moon and Cowboys From Hell if it wasn't for the gameplay :-)

[Julius Seeker]

If you consider the battle engine to be the only significant portion in RPGs, then we look at RPGs in very different ways. I do consider story, maps, towns, dungeons, puzzles, quests, exploration, and a lot of things as directly part of the gameplay, or at least tied into it. In fact, I prefer RPGs when they have much fewer battles.

[ShyGuy]

It's not that I said, or think, that the combat engine is the ONLY significant part of an RPG. The question was "Can it SAVE the game?" In other words will the game still be decent with just this one superior aspect of it. And yes, taking into account the previous Grandia games, I do believe this will be a good title. That's not to say I expect every other aspect of the game to be absolutely horrible. The character design is big; personalities of the characters as well as the visual make ups, including in game and cut scenes. In Grandia II I think they did a good job of this, so I won't assume they failed in this one. The graphics in this game seem to rock, and if that's not important I don't know what is. If I'm gonna be staring at a screen for 50+ hours, I better be looking at something beautiful.

It's not like this game will NOT have a story, it just won't have an in-depth one likely. But a simple storyline isn't always bad.

I do consider story, maps, towns, dungeons, puzzles, quests, exploration, and a lot of things as directly part of the gameplay, or at least tied into it.

Half the the stuff you just mentioned requires you to do battle with monsters in someway. Without a good battle engine a random battle RPG is impossible to play for me. The last thing I want to do is walk to a town to get healing items and get that twitch in my neck every 5 seconds cause the game decided to make a battle sound, flash the screen fuzzy, and conjure up some stupid level 2 snakes for me to fight. That's gotta be the most frusterating feeling in the world. What good is exploration when I'm being annoyed every 10 steps?

In fact, I prefer RPGs when they have much fewer battles.

I won't say the exact same thing, I'll change it a bit. I prefer MEANINGFUL battles. I like fighting battles that are meant to kill me or weaken me so I have a tough time against the boss.

The fact is that most RPGs make you pay the price of battle just to hear the story, get the new characters, equip yourself with the best weapons, and find the secrets. If the battle engine is good, I don't have to pay any price. I'm already enjoying the game just fighting. So anything else is just a bonus. I'm not gonna sit there and be like "Aww fuck, I've gotta battle through this entire dungeon just to figure out what happens next."

[Julius Seeker]

Well, I can pretty much agree with everything you said. Except the game Trace Memory has everything of what I mentioned above and no battles; Trace Memory is a fairly fun game. On meaningful battles, I do agree completely there, that is important. Most RPGs have the problem with just having battles in the game to slow things down; Final Fantasy II on SNES drove me nuts the first time I played it, turned me off of SNES RPGs until Final Fantasy III came out. Ironically, with Final Fantasy I and Dragon Warrior III and IV it didn't bother me nearly as much for some reason. Things on SNES turned toward non-random battles at the end: Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Mario RPG, LOVED those three games. Then on PSX Final Fantasy 7 goes right back to them; PISSED ME OFF, I was SO dissapointed, especially since random battles due to long animations and load times turned a 15 hour game into a 30-35 hour game.

I enjoy nice graphics too, but for me, but I have found very few RPGs that don't have graphics I like in them; Summoner is about the only one I can think of, perhaps Dragon Warrior I as well.

Music and sound are important, I find that they add a great deal to the experience. Even if there is no music, a good background sound effect, like dripping water, wind, or something like that, can REALLY add a nice bit of atmosphere to a location.

I'm not much for RPG battles personally though, that is the reason why there are no online RPGs I have ever been able to get into. I find enjoyment mainly out of exploration and puzzles/problems. I really like to explore towns in RPGs too. Rarely has a story impressed me though, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 8, Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem Advance, and Xenogears are the only games I can think of off hand where the story really made me think.

[Don]

Grandia is only about the gameplay and doesn't even try to pretend it has anything else, though they accidentally had some good plot in the Eye of Valmar arc, possibly Horn of Valmar arc is decent too (I call it an accident because there's no consistency on the Valmar parts in terms of story quality at all). Since I've yet to be impressed by any game's story or any other gimmicks they toss around, I rather they do the gameplay part right. In this case, it'd be the combat engine which the Grandia games have always beat all other RPGs hands down.

It's just like how Shining Force Neo doesn't really have a story, but it's got probably the best action RPG system out there, so it's a good game overall.

[ShyGuy]

FFT's storyline was the only one that made me want to replay the game JUST for the story. My intentions on any other RPG replay is to upgrade my characters, find new endings, and discover secrets.

Music definitely matters. However if you run into a game without good music you can just turn it down, find an appropriate CD, and improvise.