Sony’s debut PlayStation will always be known as the RPG machine. With the greats of Final Fantasy 7, Parasite Eve, Star Ocean and many more, the scrappy little 3D console is renowned for its glorious role-playing library. As it turns out, the underrated Grandia and its sequel is one of the best of them.
Grandia and Grandia 2 were decent sellers back in the day, with the latter being ported to Dreamcast and even PS2 years after its release. However, in modern years, Game Arts’ lengthy, gorgeous RPG duology has been left dusty in comparison to the likes of the always-continuing Final Fantasy. (Check out our FF7 Rebirth review here.)
With Grandia HD, a new generation of gamers is now able to experience the wonderful world of Grandia with modern controls and a visual overhaul. It’s not a complete from-the-ground-up remake like Star Ocean: The Second Story or the upcoming Dragon Quest 3 HD, but it is sharper for those who want it. Personally, I feel a CRT filter would’ve been a good option to have.
Grandia HD is a package of two halves. The original Grandia follows Justin and his party of wannabe adventures as they search for the evidence of the missing Agelou civilisation. On the other hand, Grandia 2 is a largely unrelated story focusing on new protagonist Ryudo and his battle against the evil returning God Valmar.
Both games house pretty basic RPG premises, but they sprout off into sweeping adventures that have gone largely unappreciated over time. For those who’ve played Grandia before, you’ll know just how dense these worlds are with characters that you’ll fall in love with and others the game isn’t afraid to make you despise.
We haven’t spent too long playing the remastered versions of these games, but from what we’ve experienced the conversion of Grandia 1 and 2 is admirable if not underwhelming. The PS1/Saturn games’ 2D/3D hybrid style still looks great, although nice as nice as Star Ocean’s, and it certainly retains the same grandiose camera sweeps and cinematic feel as the originals. However, during larger moments such as city introductions or runs through an environment, the Grandia HD collection still suffers from stuttering issues that were present back in the 90s.
Furthermore, the graphical and audio bugs of both the original and the prior 2019 release of this HD collection are still present. In fact, we even experienced crashes in the earliest regions of the game. (On Xbox, we also experienced numerous issues with the game on Quick Resume with the title mostly just closing itself instead of staying in memory.)
Grandia 1’s 2D sprites on a 3D background fare fine in this remaster, but Grandia 2’s more 3D look does have the better presentation. Obviously, Grandia doesn’t have the same budget as some of Square Enix’s Star Ocean remakes, but it would’ve been amazing to see Grandia 1 or 2 get the full remaster treatment.
While far from perfect, Grandia HD is a fine way of playing these games. Unfortunately, we haven’t had anywhere near enough time to test these remasters from start to finish — each game is tens of hours long, after all — and there are already major issues early on.
However, if this is the only way you can play Grandia, you haven’t experienced the games on older consoles and you love classic RPGs, you owe it to yourself to give it a go. Maybe wait for a sale, though.
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