The first Grandia game had me from the get go and is still the Grandia game I consider the best. Part two is not all that far behind, as it is the Grandia that seems to get better the more I play through it. Then there is part three (never played Extreme). This game starts out in spectacular fashion and when I played through it the first time I thought it was going to be the best of the bunch, but after going through it I thought it was not up to par with the other two. I tried it again and once again I was loving it and then it just kind of gets weak near the end thus why I consider this one a tease. It is still very good, do not get me wrong. I enjoyed it more than Final Fantasy XII which was released around the same time this one was and part XIII as well. It just saddens me that the game just could not live up to such a strong start, but that is a lot of role playing games. Legendia II is like that as it starts out incredibly and then it becomes weak as it becomes fetch the crystals from the dungeons. Here, the same problem as once you visit the verse realm for the second time and visit the village there it becomes go to this temple, now that one and finally it is over in a blink of an eye! I was stunned I won it again and so quickly as I could have sworn there was more to it. Of course, in this day and age of games that seem to not want to end I guess it is refreshing to play one that does.
The story has a young man who wishes to be a pilot coming across a young girl fleeing strange men. He assists her and soon both he and his mother are trying to escort the young lady to the mainland. The young man meets his hero, a pilot who will design a couple of planes for Yuki (the pilot wannabe) and his quest to escort the young girl soon becomes a battle for the world as her brother has plans to use the power of a god to create the perfect world!
The characters in this game are pretty good as far as the heroes are concerned. It is nice seeing Yuki's mother accompany him during the first portion of their journey. The captain they run into is a nice character too, just wish they could have stayed around a bit more. Soon Yuki teams with a boy named Ulf and a leader of a desert tribe. You do not get to use Yuki's hero, but he is a good character too and plays a big role in the final battle. The problem is the villains as one of them a blond dude simply disappears at the end unless I missed something, a strange creature that summons the undead seems pivotal then is never really explained, the girl is in love with the leader and is probably the only one you know the reasons for being with the leader and then there is this one guy who seems to be the one to turn Emerious (the girl's brother and primary antagonist) onto the whole scheme, but they never really do much in explaining him at all! Only Emerious is explained in any detail and there are probably a fair number of things they do not really cover about him too.
So the game has the basic Grandia combat with some cool air finishers, the game has a very strong story to start and the game is a lot more fun than most role playing games these days thanks to the damnation of turn based role playing games. Just seems they got rushed with this one as they did not do the job with this one they did with the other two. I do not know if it is because Square was behind the game this time as I know they rushed the people who made Xenogears which is why Fei and Elly do the whole second disc telling the story thing, but it is a shame as this game could have been a masterpiece. The world is not as large, you do not get that many characters and it kind of ends quickly. Still, for the time it lasts it is good and worth a play through, just be prepared if you like a very heavily story driven role playing game as this one is going to tease you!
