Grandia (video game)



After making the first two Lunar games, Game Arts developed Grandia. Being primarily aimed at children, the plot makes no efforts to be ground-breaking. Hot-Blooded protagonist with red hair and blue clothes? Check. Ancient civilization? Check. The girl? Take a guess. Tropes Are Not Bad, of course. Some enjoy the plot, as it makes interesting use of the Motif of the "End of the World" (no, not that one) and adventurers, the protagonist is a great example of an aversion of The Chosen One, and the whole cast of characters is a textbook example of good Character Development in action. It also does an unusually good job of making the world seem like it's actually planet-sized, whereas most RPGs have a world that comes off as barely above Baby Planet size.

It was released on the Sega Saturn, but only in Japan. The game was ported to the Sony PlayStation and localized to the US.


 * Accidental Pervert: Justin accidentally grabs a handful of Feena in Ghost Ship.
 * He also accidentally stumbles on Saki, Mio and Nana when they are changing clothes.
 * Action Girl: Feena is one when you meet her on your trip to New Parm. She's also on equal ground with Justin as a melee fighter and has fire magic to boot! She undergoes some Chickification by mid CD 2, but recovers towards the End Game, although she is surpassed as a melee fighter and her attributes grow towards magic, making her the second best mage in the game, maybe the best if you count her plot related spells.
 * Action Mom: It's also stated that Lily, Justin's mother, was a pirate who first met his father when they clashed swords.
 * Adam Smith Hates Your Guts
 * All in a Row
 * All Myths Are True: Justin's driving force for much of the game is his belief that Alent is a real place, and that he can get there somehow..
 * Ancient Astronauts:.
 * And Man Grew Proud: There are few cutscenes in the game, but most of them consist of Gaia ruining Angelo's collective shit.
 * Anticlimax Boss: Gaia's final form.
 * Appease the Volcano God
 * The Archer: Sue, Guido and Rapp all use bows and other projectile weapons.
 * Arc Words: "End of the World". Used as a physical location, a hypothetical event, and the name of the strongest spell in the game.
 * Armies Are Evil: Originally a security detachment for the Joule Foundation, the Garlyle Forces now control the excavations, hoard ancient technology, and even withhold the revelation about "The End of the World" being a myth.
 * Art Initiates Life: Liete's Magical Art spell.
 * Authority Equals Asskicking: General Baal and his son Mullen.
 * An Axe to Grind: Justin and Milda use them.
 * Babies Ever After: In the ending,
 * Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism: Milda's village where males are (barely) anthropomorphic cows and females are humanoids with pointy ears.
 * Bonus Boss: Lord's Ghost, Kung Fu Master and Leviathan.
 * Bonus Dungeon: Castle of Dreams, Soldier's Grave and Tower of Temptation.
 * Bratty Half-Pint: Sue.
 * Can't Drop the Hero: Justin is present in all of the game's battles.
 * Captain Ersatz: Nana, Saki and Mio share similarities with Hikaru, Umi and Fuu.
 * Chaste Hero:
 * Chronic Hero Syndrome: Justin, of which Feena disapproves a couple times.
 * Climbing the Cliffs of Insanity: The End of the World.
 * Cognizant Limbs: About 90 % of the bosses have these.
 * Combat Tentacles: This is what.
 * Cool Ship: The Grandeur. Almost makes you sad to see it explode.
 * Fortunately, Mullen has a duplicate airship of his own: the Lyonlot.
 * Cosmic Horror:
 * Crutch Character: Gadwin.
 * Milda, to a lesser extent.
 * Defensive Feint Trap: Thinking they've got Justin cornered, Nana, Saki & Mio pursue him into the engine cab of a runaway locomotive -- only to find that Justin backtracked into the opposite car and decoupled the engine. Also, the brake lever is broken.
 * Dem Bones
 * Disappeared Dad: Justin's father.
 * Disney Death:
 * Dronejam
 * Drop the Hammer: Hammers share the same weapon class as axes.
 * Drunk on the Dark Side:.
 * Duel Boss:
 * And the two fights against Gadwin
 * Easing Into the Adventure: Justin's first task is to win a scavenger hunt consisting of garbage around Parm. Funnily enough, the last item -- the Wooden Sword -- is dubbed the "Spirit Sword." This is the same name as Grandia's Infinity+1 Sword, which you acquire much later.
 * Eldritch Location: Warp Space.
 * The Empire: The Garlyle Forces.
 * Epic Flail: Share the same class with maces. Nana's yo-yo also turns into a truly Epic Flail as part of her ultimate attack ability.
 * Everything's Better with Cows: When the males of Laine come of age, they sprout horns of knowledge (sic) and take on a new form -- a walking, talking bovine.
 * Exact Eavesdropping: Justin stumbles on the three sergeants just as one of them is asking about the password she herself needs at that exact moment.
 * Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The so-called "End of the World" -- a Great Wall that cuts the planet in two, which stretches up for miles into the sky. For most people, it literally is the end of world, unless you have an airship that can fly over it or you're like Justin and you climb over the damn thing.
 * Fastball Special: Sue's Puffy Kick.
 * Fight Woosh: Extreme closeup on the characters and opponents before changing to the battlefield screen.
 * First Town / Port Town: Parm.
 * Five-Man Band
 * The Hero: Justin
 * The Lancer: Rapp
 * The Smart Guy: Feena
 * The Chick: Sue
 * The Big Guy: Gadwin
 * Sixth Ranger: Milda
 * Team Pet: Guido
 * Flunky Boss: Orc King.
 * Frothy Mugs of Water: The "Café" in New Parm, that's only open at night and has female dancers.
 * The localization actually goes out of its way to make this as blatantly obvious as it can, highlighting the presence of the word "Coffee" as much as possible, even to the point of changing the drunkard Jin into "Java" the coffee maniac.
 * Frying Pan of Doom: Lily uses her serving tray as a discipline tool on Justin's head.
 * Ghost Ship / Ship Level
 * Goldfish Poop Gang: Nana, Saki and Mio.
 * Good-Looking Privates: Ladies of the Garlyle Forces.
 * Good Morning, Crono: inverted: the story opens with its main villain, General Baal, awakening from a nightmare.
 * Gratuitous English: A lot of the battle chants in the PlayStation version, thanks to a very poor translation.
 * Great Wall: The so-called "End of the World".
 * Guest Star Party Member: Technically, everyone but Justin is Guest Star Party Member. A lot of the characters, like Gadwin, Guido, Milda, and even have lives outside of Justin's quest that they need to go back to, and they will leave the party when their part in the story is over. It's not really a case of So Long and Thanks For All the Gear, though, as everyone  comes back to help Justin storm the Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
 * Leen also shows up as a more traditional Guest Star Party Member for a very brief stretch of the game, though as a non-combatant.
 * Guide Dang It: Mana Eggs were the only way to teach characters elementals and there were only just enough for every character to have all the magic in the game. Combine this with the fact they are sellable and that you cannot return to many places after particular plot points and the eggs themselves are often well hidden; suddenly this becomes quite frustrating.
 * Hair Decorations: Sue, whose pet, Puffy, rests on her head as a giant hair bow.
 * Half-Human Hybrid: . It's a full stop Tomato Surprise when he starts speaking the Humanoid language, thus revealing his true nature.
 * Heel Face Turn: The entirety of the Garlyle Forces before the Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
 * Heroic BSOD: Justin gets one near the end.
 * Highly-Visible Ninja: Rapp.
 * Hopeless Boss Fight: First fight against Gadwin.
 * Hostage for McGuffin: Feena.
 * Hot Amazon: Milda.
 * Hot Mom: Lilly.
 * I Got You Covered: provide help during the final attack on Gaia.
 * Improbable Age: Pretty much the whole main cast, but Sue being only eight years old is the biggest offender.
 * Grandia at least tries to avert this trope by having the journey make Sue seriously ill due to sheer exhaustion and stress, a little shy of halfway into the story (when things are only just beginning to really get difficult for the heroes). She has to be sent back to Parm with the implication things could have become a lot worse, were it not for Justin and Feena sacrificing the safe way to the next continent in order to transport her home instantly. This is foreshadowed by her getting a stat-progression handicap that becomes noticeable around the time she should be getting ill.
 * Improbable Weapon User: Nana, whose primary weapon is a yo-yo. It can turn into a buzz saw the size of a small car, but still...
 * Incendiary Exponent: Justin's Lotus Cut and Feena's Flame Whip.
 * Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence
 * It's All Upstairs From Here: No shortage of these. We have Typhoon Tower, the Twin Towers, the Tower of Doom, and the (optional) Tower of Temptation.
 * Knife Nut: Feena, Guido and Rapp.
 * Konami Code: During the Exact Eavesdropping moment described above, Saki mistakenly thinks the password is Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right. The correct password is a reshuffled version of the code, switching every instance of Up for Right, Down for Left and vice-versa.
 * Lady of War: Leen.
 * Last-Disc Magic: "End of the World", ultimate ability and the strongest spell in the game. And good God, do you ever have to work for it.
 * Last of Her Kind:.
 * Level Grinding: Spells and attacks power up the more you use them, up to 99 times per element and weapon, per character.
 * Locomotive Level: Justin hijacks a Garlyle train while escaping Mullen's base.
 * Love At First Punch: How Justin's parents first met.
 * Mayincatec: The Icarians, though only with architecture, artwork and the occasional monster.
 * Mini Game: Deck swabbing aboard the ship to the New Continent.
 * Musical Assassin: Cactus Men enemies fight with guitars and one of their special moves is a guitar solo (that sadly, has no sound).
 * Mysterious Waif: Liete.
 * New Neo City: New Parm. Catchy name, but that's the only thing it has in common with its steampunk brethren.
 * Non-Linear Sequel: Of course, there's Grandia II, Grandia III, and Grandia Xtreme, but there's also Grandia: Parallel Trippers--a game for the Game Boy Color which stars a trio of kids who get pulled into the Grandia world and team up with Justin and his friends (and his enemies!) to Save Both Worlds. It never made it out of Japan.
 * Not So Harmless: Klepp King, who turns into the four-headed Serpent when confronted.
 * Palette Swap: Almost all enemies and bosses have these.
 * Peninsula of Power Leveling: Grinding your water magic at the poison puddles of Mt. Typhoon or any place where you take damage on foot.
 * Justin's Immortal Aura skill. It always gives you a lot of experience when used, and with the game's tendency to always have those handy healing save points near, you can easily grind Justin into epic Game Breaker levels.
 * Pirate Girl: Justin's mother Lilly is revealed to have been one in her youth.
 * Power Gives You Wings: Both Leen and whip these out from time to time.
 * Pretty in Mink: It's not seen but a mink coat is one of the armors available, at least in the US translation.
 * Prophetic Name: Java.
 * ...who is obviously named for the computer programming syntax.
 * Rare Candy
 * Retired Badass: Subverted(?) by Java, who insists that he's still an active adventurer. He's modeled from Don Quixote, complete with goofy-looking armor and lance.
 * Sinister Scythe: Klepps at Mt. Typhoon use them.
 * Someone's Touching My Butt: Justin gets up close and-- er, personal with Feena in a crawlspace after she halts too quickly.
 * Sprite Polygon Mix
 * Standard Female Grab Area: Feena in the Hostage for McGuffin scene.
 * Stat Grinding
 * Status Buff: Sue's Fight Cheer which is the same as WOW! but with cheerleading dance.
 * Steampunk: Parm.
 * Stripperific: Feena's Battle Bikini. One piece of official art even gives us booty cleavage.
 * Taken for Granite: Gaia inflicts this on everything it touches.
 * This Cannot Be!: Said by Nana and later General Baal when defeated.
 * The Unchosen One:
 * Unwilling Suspension
 * Violation of Common Sense: Mullen, the good son of the Big Bad, is willing to let his love, Leen, make a Heroic Sacrifice to stop the end of the world. When Leen sees that has a power to stop it without anyone dying, Mullen says they are to go through with the original plan anyway.
 * The Wall Around the World: An enormous wall about a mile high that divides an entire continent.
 * Weapon of Choice: All the characters can use at least two different weapon types in battle (i.e. Justin can use Swords, Maces and Axes).
 * The sole exception being, who only uses maces.
 * We Have Reserves: By triggering the Golems, Baal knowingly brings the entire town of Zil Padon.
 * What Happened to the Mouse?: Defeating results in him... turning into a small snake-like creature and slithering away, never to be seen again.
 * When Trees Attack: Gaia is a giant bug/tree hybrid.
 * Whip It Good: Feena's second weapon of choice. She is also the only character in the game who uses them.
 * Woman in White: Technically, she wears purple, but Liete fulfills this role in the storyline until.
 * You Are Not Alone: Guido snaps Justin from his Heroic BSOD by gathering all the past party members to encourage him.
 * ...which is a little weird, considering Sue's all the way over on the other side of the world and Gadwin had never gotten his boat back, but whatever, it's heartwarming.