Hey guys, help me decide on a game.

The Core Video Games Forum
1

I recently purchased Grandia 2 after owning Grandia 1 for a good few months, and I’m looking into buying another RPG, since I haven’t for like 1-2 weeks.

My options are either Radiata Stories, Grandia 3, or Magna Carta: Tears of Blood.

So far I’ve heard great stuff from the former 2, and not so great stuff of the latter. I checked the rankings on Gamespot, and they are all in the 7’s, Grandia 3 being the highest, and Magna Carta being the lowest.

I looked at some screens of Grandia 3, and it looks much different than Grandia 2. In terms of graphics and battle system layout. It looks like they actually have a clock on the screen. :stuck_out_tongue:

I’ve heard so much good about Radiata Stories, too. It’s a long game, same creators as Valkyrie Profile (hell, Lenneth is a character, if I’m not mistaken, #177). However, I hear it’s pretty easy, and the ending sucked.

I’ve heard absolutely nothing good from Magna Carta, but I saw a trailer of it, and it looked decent. I then saw a gameplay footage movie, and it blew me away. This game is probably the least on my want list of the aforementioned games, but if you, RPGC, can say it’s pretty good, I’ll look into it.

I’m really leaning towards Grandia 3, being a huge fan of the series and all, but Radiata Stories is still up in the air.

What say you, RPGC?

edit; feel free to reccomend any other good RPG’s, prefferably common and for PS2.

2

Grandia 3. If you have the first two, you may as well complete the collection.

You might wanna try Xenosaga if you haven’t. A lot of people say it plays like a movie, but honestly… I’ve heard nothing but raving about it. I haven’t tried it personally, though, so get it at your own risk.

A game I have played is Wild Arms 3. I didn’t get very far, but what I did play was great.

This is almost too obvious to mention, but… If you’ve SOMEHOW overlooked Final Fantasy X for all these years, you’re a fucking idiot and you should make it your number one priority.

3

Magana Carta’s battle system stinks as you can only control one character at a time, and the loading times between attacks makes you want to throw it out the window. Add that with the need to button mash at exact times, I say the battle system fails terribly, although it does look pretty, that’s about all I can say about that.

Radatia Storis was fun for a while, but it gets boring fast after the intial fun wears off. It’s a shame, because if the game allowed you to control any other character in battle, or better yet have a multiplayer option, the game would have been decent.

I’ve never played any of the Grandia’s, but I’ve heard good things about them. Of the games you have mentioed, I would go with Grandia III, especially because you’ve played the other two.

4

Every review I’ve heard of Grandia III says it sucks. Or at least that it gets worse and worse as you go in. And no Grandia game will ever be as awesome without Ryudo >:(

Radiata Stories: I’ve already written an extensive review which summarized it’s good and bad points. Just so you don’t have to look at the spoiler tags, here is the non-spoiler version of the ending comment:

Some people may say that the game gets worse in the second half. That’s a lie, it doesn’t get worse, IT GOES STRAIGHT TO MOTHERFUCKING HELL. Everything that you may like about the first half gets wiped out and replaced by a terribly half-assed, quarter-assed actually, serious dark plot that doesn’t fit at all and you get two possible routes: One with good characters and a shitty ending, and one with shitty characters and a shitty ending.

Lenneth is a bonus character, but you can only use her in the bonus after-game dungeon. The recruitment scene is hilarious, but that’s all. Lezard’s appearance sucks even more. By the way, if you DO play it, remember that Ls and Rs are interchangeable in Japanese, so Vareth Institute can actually be “Valeth”.

5

I owned Xenosaga for a while, until I figured I’d rather another game, so I sold it for some other game. I deleted the file, and I don’t really want to go back into it. I didn’t really like it the first time around, anyways.

I have Wild ARMs 3, it’s an incredible game.

I had FFX since like it came out. ;c

SE, you make Radiata Stories sound pretty good. Where do you read your reviews?

6

Hades, you should really play Xenosaga before recomending it to other people. I loved it, but I seriously doubt you’d like it.

Like I said, awesome game that goes to hell.

What?

7

Every review I’ve heard of Grandia III says it sucks. Or at least that it gets worse and worse as you go in. And no Grandia game will ever be as awesome without Ryudo >:(

Where do you read said reviews?

8

facepalms

Setz, you never cease to amaze me.

9

Perhaps I could buy some other “lower priced” games. For the price of buying one of the three games I mentioned, I could get like 3 10$ games, such as Onimusha 1, 2, and 3. :stuck_out_tongue:

10

BahamutXero, don’t be a dickass. Straight up, you’re warned.

Setz, I generally read reviews for RPGs at RPGamer.com and RPGFan.com. Both of them gave Grandia 3 a great review, but everyone I talk to (and I myself share this opinion) thinks that Grandia 3 takes a huge nose dive after the first ten hours of play. Seriously, if you ONLY care about the gameplay, it’ll be nice…but if you want a really good story, I suggest you don’t play past the first ten hours or so, lol.

11

Grandia III’s storyline is still better than Grandia Xtreme… >_>

12

Setz: I read reviews in the same places as SG, but I generally get my info through individual conversations with people I know share my tastes. That, and the huge review RPT posted here a while ago.

Yeah, that’s in my list of “pretend they never happened” games.

13

If you’re looking at scores, I’d suggest you’d go to a site like Metacritic. They compile together scores and reviews from a huge number of different sources and review sites so you generally will get a more accurate score for the game/movie/book/music you’re looking into.

14

Well, pretty much what I am looking for is a solid battle system; something innovative (as Grandia was). Either way, the game I choose goes to hell. Radiata Stories pretty much goes to hell halfway through, right 180 degree turn, whilst people say Grandia 3 slowly goes to hell. :stuck_out_tongue:

edit; Epic, Metacritic came up with 0 results for Grandia 3. :stuck_out_tongue: I’ll look into the sources SG gave, however.

15

I agree about Grandia 3, it was doin great then the story gave me a horrible case of De Javu. It would’nt have been so bad if the characters had been more original like in Grandia 2 (Ryudo ROCKS). I love Grandia 1 and 2, there 2 of my all time favorites. I digress.

If your looking for good games here a list of games I recomend:

Baiten Kaitos (havent played but all I hear is good things)
Lunar 2
Chrono Cross
Arc the Lad: Twilight of the spirits
Wild Arms series
Phantasy Star 4
Tales of Phantasia
Star Ocean
Skies of Arcadia (dreamcast)

These are only a few I could think of on the spot.