Grandia HD Collection Asks a Question

If it ain't broke, does it need fixing?

I remember a project from middle school where I was tasked with writing and illustrating my own book.  Charged first with drafting and then revising the story, followed by drawing an illustration for each page, the loose pages were sent away and returned bound together in a hardcover book.  It’s been ages since I’ve seen the book, likely lost in one of the moves growing up or in college. Yet I still remember the story, which seemed to graft together plot elements and themes from a handful of games I was playing at the time. Chief among them were Final Fantasy, Breath of Fire, and a little game called Grandia.

Initially released in Japan for the Sega Saturn in 1997, Grandia was ported to the PlayStation in Japan and then released in the West in October 1999. The game has players control Justin, a youth from the town of Parm who wants to be an adventurer. With his friend and neighbor Sue, they take off on what is frankly a tropey but endearing quest to find out more about an ancient relic left behind by his father, known somewhat hilariously as the “Spirit Stone.” 

The story features ancient civilizations, a madman on a quest to become a God-like figure, a handful of zany, very anime-style evil subordinates, and more. The story is secondary to the combat, which imposes additional wrinkles on standard turn-based combat that is still influential today. A movement gauge allows players to anticipate enemy and character movement, as players can see each party member and enemy on a line. Players must factor in the physical distance of combatants when anticipating timing in order to delay or cancel attacks, resulting in some nail-biting during tense combat sequences. There’s lots to love about Grandia with its interesting take on turn-based combat, endearing characters, and lots of 1990s style.

The same applies with the sequel, Grandia II. This game sees players controlling Ryudo, a mercenary known as a "Geohound." He is hired to accompany a group of young women — including a priestess named Elena — on a religious mission trip. When completing a ritual, the group is slaughtered by a demonic entity, but Elena is spared. Turns out she is possessed by a minor demon named Milennia, who is a component piece of a greater demon, Valmar. The group then then take off to collect the pieces in order to stave off Valmar’s resurrection. 

Grandia II came out in the West in December 2000 for the Sega Dreamcast. It was one of my favorite games for the console, including Phantasy Star Online and a disc featuring a bunch of fan-translated Super Nintendo RPGs.  The graphics are arguably an improvement from those of the first game, while some graphical choices - character sprites out of combat, for example - are so 2000s with their character models and blank faces. It’s charming and nostalgic (for me, anyway). I find the story and tone of Grandia II to be significantly darker and more cynical than the first game, and the tinge of body horror elements makes the stakes feel higher.

These two games are a pair of fun, easy-to-play throwback RPGs, and have been readily available for some time across myriad platforms. While Grandia was previously sold on the PlayStation network during the PSP/PS3 era, both games have more or less since been ported to PC in 2015, Nintendo Switch in 2019, and in March 2024, for modern PlayStation and Xbox consoles. 

It’s great the titles are made available for gamers - all that’s missing are mobile ports, it seems. Yet this port of a port of a port boasts few, if any, improvements over the original releases with little to no quality-of-life improvements. It’s a shame, even if a small one.

Certainly, I am not calling for a Gemdrops-style remake of the game, like we saw with last year’s incredible Star Ocean The Second Story R, which touted gorgeous graphical and combat reinterpretations paired with a bombastic new soundtrack arrangement. That would be nice, but I am a realist. This Grandia collection just needs a bit more quality of life tweaks to elevate it and make it the must-play definitive experience it wants to be. 

Where are the options to skip the few cutscenes present? How are we still not able to speed up the gameplay? The inability to save anywhere chafes, while the user interface for both games could use a fresh coat of paint. A few simple tweaks would enhance the experience for players new and old alike, and finally give us definitive versions of these games. 

Speaking of fresh coat of paint, the game is proud of the graphical filtering used for a purported refresh, but the result is a super muddled, smeared filter that does the original graphics no justice. It’s mind boggling this cannot be turned off at will, especially when the recent Tomb Raider remaster collection allows players to toggle between the original and remastered graphics with the click of a button. Perhaps more perplexing, even, is the original PlayStation version of Grandia is available for purchase for a handful of dollars on the same platform: that version does not have any of the framerate dips I encountered while playing these games on Switch or PlayStation 5, nor does it hoist a Vaseline smear filter with no reprieve in sight. 

That’s the exquisite agony of this package. The games are great, but the presentation and empty slate of extras holds it back.  It’s been nearly five years since this game was last ported to a console - the Nintendo Switch, and no quality-of-life improvements have been added to that version, the PC version, or this new port. Without these improvements, this collection is an acceptable port of two great JRPG experiences from the turn of the century. 

This HD collection would fare better if it let players customize their experience with togglable QOL improvements and tweaks to the graphics and audio. Instead, players are forced to contend with decade-old improvements. These classics deserve a little bit more love in order for these versions to be considered “definitive,” and could turn to the many examples of other RPGs from this area that have been lovingly remastered or even remade, to critical and commercial success. 

It’s a missed opportunity that diminishes, if only slightly, a great combo package that runs reasonably well enough. That hardbound book I wrote and illustrated in middle school might be lost to time, but the Grandia HD Collection dutifully, if not exceptionally, makes sure these games don’t suffer the same fate. 

Disclosure: This review is based on a free copy of the game provided by the publisher.