Grandia III
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"All you've got to do is break through, to make your wishes all come true! AMAZING" |
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Grandia III is so far[when?] the last game in the Grandia series. Another world saving and globe trotting adventure, but this game introduces a bit more Magitek, especially old fashioned planes.
The main character is a kid called Yuki, an amateur mechanic and pilot. He idolizes the famous hero Sky Captain Schmidt, and wishes to replicate his achievement of crossing the ocean on a plane of his own design. Unfortunately, his Hot Mom Miranda causes his latest attempt to fail (when she sneaks on board, thereby adding too much weight to achieve the required height) and while he's recovering from this, Yuki notices a young girl being chased by Bad Guys. Being the RPG hero he is, Yuki immediately saves her. The girl is named Alfina, one of the last Communicators: a tribe that can converse with the god-like Sacred Beasts, protectors of the planet. Oh, and she's looking for her missing brother (and Communicator) Emelious, who was last spotted hanging out with some incredibly suspicious characters. Cue adventure!
Released on the PlayStation 2, and also published by Square Enix, but still developed by Game Arts. It should be noted that this game was rushed through its development, and it shows.
Tropes used in Grandia III include:
- Action Girl: Miranda.
- Apocalypse How: Turned to glass.
- Apocalypse Wow: It's already happened to the Verse Realm.
- Babies Ever After: The brief Distant Finale shows Yuki and Alfina with their child.
- Big Damn Heroes: Yuki and Miranda protecting Alfina from Raven.
- Cain and Abel: Alfina and Emelious.
- Captain Crash: Rookie Pilot Yuki has crashed eighteen planes before the start of the game. 'No. 19' crashes into the ground after your Hot Shounen Mom hides inside the plane. 'No. 20' is given to you by Schmidt. You crash it into a dragon on the way to Arcriff while trying to get a closer look at its rider, Emelious.. It's later revealed by Schmidt that none of Yuki's original 19 planes were ever going to fly anyway, due to his unsophisticated designs. Yuki also crashes a hastily made glider when the Flight Units are rendered inoperable.
- Death Dealer: Dahna.
- Distress Call: While flying around the world, your on-board radio allows you to intercept distress calls from other pilots in trouble. You can't help them, though.
- Expy: Pretty much the entire major cast is recycled from earlier Grandia games. Yuki is halfway between Justin and Ryudo, Alfina is an elven-eared Elena, Ulf is basically Rapp 2.0, Emilious is WAY too similar to Melfice etc etc...
- Gadgeteer Genius: Yuki and Rotts have built 19 magic planes by themselves. Yuki's starting weapon is a wrench.
- Guest Star Party Member: Hect, of the Verse Realm.
- Hair of Gold: Alfina
- Heroic BSOD: Alfina gets one pretty much whenever a Guardian dies. Yuki gets one when the red roots cause all the Flight Units to stop working, meaning that he'll never fly a plane again.
- Hey, It's That Voice!: Rukia is Ichigo's mom?
- Hot-Blooded: Miranda, Ulf.
- Hot Mom: Miranda is an exaggeration of the trope, not much on terms of curviness but of youthfulness. She barely looks any older than her own son.
- Kudzu Plot: Yuki's lifelong dreams are twofold: build a plane that can cross the ocean to the mainland, and meet his hero Schmidt, a living legend in aviation. You do both of those half way through the first disc. After acquiring the plane, the speed in which the plot drops Yuki's obsession makes it seem like an Aborted Arc. (It's possible that he's just so satified with his plane that he doesn't bring it up ever again).
- Lady in Red: Dahna
- Loveable Rogue: Alonso.
- Magitek: Bi-planes are powered by magic engines.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: With her burning desire to reason with her brother Emelious, Alfina works as her own MacGuffin Delivery Service, as she's necessary for the completion of Emelious' incomplete Communicator Mark, which would allow him to summon Xorn.
- Obvious Beta: Many locations that were meant to be used for sidequests are sloppily Dummied Out.
- Older Than They Look: Miranda really does not look old enough to be Yuki's mother.
- Phlebotinum Breakdown: The Flight Unit, a large orange spherical gem essential to the working of any modern aircraft, does not work when red roots obscure the sky.
- Pimped-Out Dress: Alfina's communicator dress.
- Plot Armor: Over the course of the story, Yuki survives two plane crashes.
- 18 of them were pre-story. He could have broken bones and recovered by the time the story starts.
- Plot-Driven Breakdown: Alfina is kidnapped by Emelious and taken aboard his dragon. You quickly board your own plane and give chase, until... your plane loses power due to Phlebotinum Breakdown..
- Pretty in Mink: Yuki and Ulf's outfits.
- Redheaded Hero: Dahna
- Roma: Dahna, a fantasy counterpart.
- Slap-On-The-Wrist Nuke: Certain spells involve supernovas and meteor strikes, which naturally do not affect the world in any way. In fact, one wonders how they're only able to hit one enemy at a time.
- Space Whale: Just in the sky. One of the guardians in that game is also a giant dolphin.
- This Cannot Be!: Alfina says this after Emelious kills the first Guardian, the second Guardian, the third Guardian, the fourth Guardian, and finally when Xorn kills Emelious.
- Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Surmania, a floating fortress wrapped in Xorn's red roots.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The game begins with the main character Yuki and childhood best bud Rotts building a plane to cross the ocean. With the plane complete, Yuki flies off, having agreed to meet up with Rotts on the mainland after the flight. Rotts is never mentioned again. except right at the end of the game. What he did isn't gone into in very much detail, but at least Yuki is understandably happy to see him.
- After your first test flight in Plane No. 19, you'll be accompanied by your mom, Miranda. She's afraid of losing Yuki, so she snuck aboard. She agrees to go as far as Mendi to accompany Alfina. You meet up with Alonso, a Loveable Rogue, who owns a boat who can get you there. When Yuki agrees to press ahead beyond Mendi, you part ways with them both. They are then never mentioned ever again in the story.
- Actually, a nameless NPC at one point mentions seeing Alonso with "his new woman" if you talk to them. They also show up in the ending sequence, riding on a boat together.
- There's also a recurring minor boss that vanishes from the story altogether after a certain point. Unlike the previous two examples, he's never referred to again, even at the end.
- If you're referring to Kornell, it becomes pretty obvious what happened to him once Violetta succumbs to Xorn.
- After your first test flight in Plane No. 19, you'll be accompanied by your mom, Miranda. She's afraid of losing Yuki, so she snuck aboard. She agrees to go as far as Mendi to accompany Alfina. You meet up with Alonso, a Loveable Rogue, who owns a boat who can get you there. When Yuki agrees to press ahead beyond Mendi, you part ways with them both. They are then never mentioned ever again in the story.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle: With all of the Guardians accounted for, you head to Surmania to face Big Bad Emelious once and for all. When beaten, he kidnaps Alfina and gets away on a dragon. D'oh.