Grandia Xtreme next please!

[Hylox, Bane of Titans]

as much as i love grandia 1 and 2, my favorite grandia game is xtreme by far. i admit that the story for xtreme isn't as good as 1 and 2's, but xtreme's gameplay is the grandia series' zenith. i just love giving Ulk triple attack + circle attack + line attack to smite all enemies 4 times with a critical attack mmmmm it's so good, also i love giving Jaid 6 quake blast chants and giving him the spell galactic bang and melting bosses just so much fun!

[the_randomizer1889]

Originally posted by Hylox, Bane of Titans:

first of all g3 battle system is a dumb-ed down version of xtreme, a lot of skills that are in GX were completely removed from g3 to simplify the battle system, GX has a very deep skill system that encourages experimentation to get the most of it; second following a character that his only ambition is to become a pilot is downright boring, solving an imminent threat of 4 major natural disasters [elemental disorders] is way more compelling in my book; third g3 forces you to do a difficult boss fight with a party of 2 characters and after that fight those characters are never used again and one of those characters literally joins like 10 mins b4 making that character pointless to the story, GX kinda does this by forcing you to take specific characters during certain story events but it teaches you to try out different party members and the mechanic is dropped after the final disorder is neutralized; fourth the game forces you to level grind to beat the final boss bcuz you can reach it by level 34 in which at that time 1 shots you, plus you don't need to be higher than 45 to beat it, GX you never have to level grind if you don't want to... you can beat the final boss at lvl 28 if you have the luck/skill to do so; fourth the final boss is a quanlee rip off that the game basically pulls out of its butt and seems to be w8ing patiently for the party to discover it, at least quanlee gives the player a reason to defeat him, quanlee is also built up during the story of the game if one pays attention to it; fifth xtreme has a procedural generated 100 floor bonus dungeon after you beat the game so you can get all the best skills and equipment in the game and take on the level 200 super boss in the darkness ruins, g3 has no bonus content after beating the game; sixth GX has a better sound track than g3; GX has Mark Hamil [luke skywalker, and the Joker from multiple batman related media] as a voice actor [he voices Colonel Croitz], g3 does not...

these are my top reasons why i think GX is superior to g3, but everybody is entitled to their own opinion, my opinion is GX is leagues above g3. i would suggest everyone replay both games to reevaluate their opinions on GX vs g3. Grandia Xtreme is a greatly underappreciated hidden gem and definitely deserves its time to shine.

Yeah but the story is super short, lame.

[davidb11]

Grandia Xtreme's story is most certainly not super short.

[the_randomizer1889]

Originally posted by davidb11:

Grandia Xtreme's story is most certainly not super short.

There were only like what, four dungeons?

[davidb11]

Uh. Actually there were six? I want to say.

BUt you went to the dungeons multiple times. How much of it did you play? Did you beat it? Did you unlock the 100 floor special dungeon that had like a very lame ending scene at the end?
Did you forget about the Super boss?

I'm just saying, the game's story isn't super short.
You're going to need like 20 hours.

The first trip through the dungeons might take like 5 for most players, but the dungeons change and become different.

Seriously, my time through the first trip through the dungeons wasn't short.

[Hylox, Bane of Titans]

the dungeons are... the land ruins, flame ruins, sea ruins, gale ruins, starry corridor floors 1-10, venom ruins, starry corridor floors 11-20, darkness ruins, starry corridor 21-30, caves and light ruins, final dungeon [can't remember what it's called it has 24 floors i think], 100 floor bonus dungeon.

the game is separated into 4 acts, after acts 1 2 and 3 the level of the monsters increase in the first 4 dungeons also possible treasure quality in those areas also increases. after act 1 concludes the land ruins true boss is fightable [keep in mind that croitz soloed this boss]. the four acts are the elemental disorder act followed by the army's true motive act followed by the "true peace" act aka end of the world followed by the aftermath act aka endgame/bonus content. [you must save your game after the credits roll and then load up your clear data to access act 4]

[Andar]

Xtreme was essentially a JRPG dungeon crawler, it was about enjoying the combat more than following a story.

I'd take it over Grandia 3 anyday, in fact I'd take Parallel Trippers over Grandia 3.

[Greyshm]

Grandia 3's Combat was like 2 steps back from Grandia X's

[BaronUnknown]

Grandia Xtreme was fun. I agree that the battle system can't be beat - like a refined version of Grandia II's system. Still, I can't say the world was all that interesting or developed. Still not quite sure what the final villain's motivation was...

I consider it a spin-off but would still love to have it remastered to play again.

[Hylox, Bane of Titans]

i wouldn't exactly call quanlee a villian, he was just misguided from a psychopath of a father figure. quanlee thought that everyone wanted world peace, but he went about it the wrong way by forcing world peace through mass hypnosis, he was also lonely so there's that.

if grandia 1 was defined by a single word it would be adventure, and grandia 2 would be either religion or worship, so xtreme i believe would be defined by the word understanding. understanding is central to the xtreme story because...

1) act 1 is about working with other races/nations to come together to solve a world crisis and accept each others differences and come to an understanding of one another.

2) act 2 is about the nortis army capitalizing on the previous act's coming to understanding and using it to attempt to take total control of the world by finding the "ultimate weapon."

3) act 3 is about a new contender misunderstanding what everyone wants and taking that to the xtreme and then coming to that realization after he is defeated.

and finally 4) act 4 is about evann and friends trying to come to a deeper understanding behind quanlee's misguided motives and a 100 floor bonus dungeon and a very unfun [unless you can cheese it through save states somehow] lottery ball minigame that justin lets you do that can get you some seriously overpowered items and equipment.

as far as grandia 3 goes, i think it was just trying to capitalize on the previous games' popularity so it takes elements from the previous games so i believe capitalism would best define g3. so g3 is a "jack of all trades" of sorts because it does an adequate job at all things but never is exceptionally good at one thing like the previous entries, but of course that is my opinion.

[BaronUnknown]

After playing the first two games, I felt like the central theme of Grandia was "The Greed of Man" - in both games, it has a human man attempting to remake the world by transforming themselves into gods. Then the heroes show them that humans have to make their own path and not steal power they cannot control without corrupting it.

Grandia Xtreme starts out in that vein with Kroitz attempting to achieve ultimate power under the guise of stopping the Elemental Disorder. However, as pointed out, the later game is more about that ultimate weapon misunderstanding human nature, rather than humanity's greed corrupting it.

Still, perhaps the thread is not "Human greed" but rather the "Paradox of human desire" - we want peace and yet achieve it through violence, we want everyone to be equal and yet want to celebrate our differences. Baal and Zera take that desire to the extreme/xtreme, but ultimately forget what they are sacrificing to achieve their perfect worlds.

Or perhaps there is no thread between the games, but it is sometimes fun to think about it.

[Hylox, Bane of Titans]

that it is

[snesmaster]

Grandia Extreme was the best Grandia game by far! I hope they remaster it!

[Hylox, Bane of Titans]

yeah me too! GX is constantly forgotten for some unknown reason when it's by far the best in the series [not counting the horrible justin color ball mini game in post-game... why not give him a shop you can upgrade or something that's not so masochistic]

[ShoGunOni]

grandia extreme is the only grandia game i sold after beating it

[davidb11]

Originally posted by ShoGunOni:

grandia extreme is the only grandia game i sold after beating it

I bet you regret that now as buying it again is a little expensive. :P