Sorry, I know the other aspects are important as well. What I meant was the storyline and the gameplay are the most important aspects of an RPG, graphics and audio come second, but are important as well.
If it did have the Grandia battle system for ground battles the game would have such a slower pace, since those battles take a considerably longer time to complete unless you’re substantially leveled up. This is only from my experience with Grandia 2 however. The battle system in SoA allowed for much quicker random battles.
I think part of the point was that Grandia 2 didn’t have random battles, if you didn’t want them 
I agree with the Grandia thoughts. I think that Grandia 2 had a much superior battle system overall.
Grandia II was alright. It had a superior combat system, but it was way, way, way too easy and was never really taken advantage of. The only time the combat system was really involving was if you were underleveled or intentionally gimped yourself. Otherwise, it was more or less nothing beyond Skies of Arcadia, unleashing Burnflame and then picking off the survivors. If the enemy placement was randomized, it would have made things more interesting.
On another note, I went ahead and did a video clip of Rain of Swords from the Dreamcast release (just over 2 megs… and you get to hear Vyse’s Japanese voice). The lightning and those floating things look a bit different, and you’ll notice some slowdown in the latter half of the move. What’s key is that the sound effects were timed with that slowdown. After watching the clip, turn around and play the GameCube version, and you’ll notice that the animation is much faster on the GameCube since the VPU doesn’t struggle with rendering the graphics, which results in that “dive bomb” sound and the ensueing explosions cueing late on the GameCube version.
This is just a smaller example of the sound effect mistimings, and I’d show you Ramirez’s Destruction if I already had a save file at the end, but I don’t, heh. There is MAJOR slowdown with that move on the Dreamcast, and it really messes with the sound effect timings when you see the GameCube version.
Burnflame…thats all I used to do. The first time I played the game I avoided many enemies which made the game more interesting in battle. The second time through though I swept areas clean of monsters and about half way through was leveld up enough that I would just pick a spell and watch everyone die. 
I didn’t actually think that Grandia II’s battle system was all that much better than SoA’s. Sure, it had the bar system thing, which was good (and especially fun if you enjoyed being cruel to you enemies, and keep pushing them back along it so they never got a chance to attack), but I thougth that most of the rest of the battle system was pretty generic (this is your MP, you use it for spells, this is your SP, you use it for specials, this is you health, if you lose it you die, etc) SoA was much more interesting in that respect, as it had the spirit meter, so, unlike allot of RPGs, you tried to keep everyone in your party alive, even if they were next to useless against the enemy, so that they would continue to build up your spirit meter (I think SoA is the only RPG where i’ve ever used the “block” command). I thought that it was much more interesting to have to build up your spirit to use specials than simply blasting every enemy you see with the right at the start of eaach fight, then using items to regain SP afterwards.
For me, the best part of Grandia II was it’s bosses, while I only ever died once in it, the bosses alway felt like each turn was a struggle to survive, making you try to find a gap in it’s attack pattern in which to make a character use a special, rather than heal. I also liked Grandia II’s story, although I appear the be the only one 
(hey, it’s the only game where you can’t sum up the story by saying “the pope goes mad and flies to the moon”)
Arcadia’s engine is nothing more than the Phantasy Star IV engine with a pooled party focus meter thrown in for good measure. There’s nothing really special about it.
The fact that you found the bosses the best part of Grandia II is further proof that the game had a superior combat engine. You had to use some manner of tactics to win, where sometimes healing wasn’t the best choice at the moment, which isn’t the case in Arcadia where everyone’s commands are chosen from the beginning and decisions are very clearcut. Arcadia’s bosses pretty much have you focusing and healing until Vyse has points for Cutlass Fury/Pirates’ Wrath, and then you’d use that, and repeat the whole process until you’ve won. This is done from the very first boss, up until the very last.
Dammit, I want Phantasy Star IV so damn much!
ahem
Anyway, yeah, fair enough the bosses in Grandia II were more fun than in SoA, but I thought that Grandia II’s random battles weren’t as fun as SoA’s because they were simply a matter of blasting everything with a special move right at the start, where as SoA actually required you to charge up specials for every encounter. I think I just prefer the idea of charging your moves through the battle, rather than just having a set amount of MP or SP, but that might just be me.
Not to mention turns into a butterfly with an enormous head, Grandia II has the worst monster designs ever.
The monsters themselves weren’t bad and some were quite original but the bosses, especially near the end were horrific.
Saturn vs Dreamcast?
Well lets just put it this way…
On my shelf at the moment I have: My Saturn, my Dreamcast and my Gamecube.
I can’t get another console without selling a previous one.
If I were to sell one, it be the Dreamcast…
- No hope in hell I’d sell the Saturn.
- At least my Saturn can load games up in one shot without me having to vigoursly clean the lens and the game disc a couple of thousand times
- Had way too much fun with my GC to let it go and considering I can’t play much with my DC…
So I’d have to go for Saturn, for the sure brilliance of it, games, loading, HOW MUCH NOISE IT MAKES (The DC was SO loud…you couldn’t leave it on all night like I did with my Saturn 
ok ok, it was back when I couldn’t save Sonic 3D…kept my Saturn on continuesly for over a week and it survives to tell the tale till this very day)
Tales of Symphonia? That game lied to me! It said 80 hours +! I completed it in 40 
half the time…going through it again with all my stats and spells and etc (which was a nice touch) didn’t seem worth the effort.
The Saturn definitely gets my vote…it just had better games…plus it wasn’t backed up by that jerk Bernie Stohler…which is pretty much why it died, but he was a bad bad man anyway.
The Dreamcast was great, and I can only dream what the 3rd and 4th generation games on it would have been like…but as they say, it wasn’t meant to be.
I do hope that Sega goes back into hardware again soon though, considering this will be the last console war.
What makes you think it’s going to be the last? Sure graphics and all will be truly amazing but there’s always room for improvement and games still have a long way to go even with the power of the upcoming technologies in mind. Perhaps the new generation of consoles will last longer but certainly not forever or anywhere near close to that. Just take a look at game/graphics engines which are in development now for use in future games like the highily anticipated Unreal Engine 3. Certainly a big step forward from what we see today but with a lot of room for improvement too. And there’s always the handheld console wars.
Anyway, this reminded me of how people used to say things like “next gen consoles will be so good that even tho different specs in each the quality will be so great anyway that you won’t see much difference in the games themselves” a few years ago lol… Technology always races forward even if we think we’ve seen the best of it
Virtual Reality is going to make a HUGE entrance into the scene in about 4 more years…I don’t know if it will be in the home or not, but the Arcades will most likely come back to life when that happens. Nanotechnology and all of the other new technologies are going to make everything become centralized so that there are no more PCs, game consoles, etc…everything will be on one mainframe in the house or at work, and when upgrade time comes around, it will be an upgrade on the server side instead of the hardware side…kinda like a Starcraft: Broodwar patch (which comes out in a week…yay!)
I bet you can’t live without saying the word “nanotechnology” 
Anyways I’ve just been playing Dreamcast in a friend’s house these last 2 days.Some of the great games I missed like Soul Calibur ( i reckon it’s up there with the VF series) and also Skies of Arcadia.
From what I’ve played of SoA I think it’s a good game but then agehn I only killed Antonio (it’s awkward to kill a monster named after your father :P).
I’m sad to realize there is no voice acting.I never liked that on most RPG’s.
Eh, I just can’t picture a virtual reality system that is efficient and affordable for the common user to make its appearance anytime soon. Certainly not in four years… It’s even doubtful if the majority of arcade video games will use such a system since it’s not only too expensive but also cumbersome… Don’t forget that for most games you would not only need a visor but also gloves if not a full body suit for efficient gaming which is another thing that keeps virtual reality from becoming common… Hell, a lot of games wouldn’t really be possible even with a full body suit…
Maybe you could have a neat-ish fighting game for example (not so neatish really since it would not be really good or ‘realistic’ when the enemy is simply out of thin-air in real life thus cannot affect you in any way even if he keeps pounding you in the game?) but that wouldn’t mean a standard virtua fighter game would be obsolette since it allows you to execute martial arts moves that the avarage person can’t pull off… The same goes for RPGs, imagine a virtual reality PDS, how would they ever make you really feel that you are flying on a dragon or that you are on foot going from town to town or whatever? You will still need to use some kind of control system other than simply walking around which will cheapen the whole experience and show that Virtual Reality is very limiting in a lot of ways thus the only benefit you can get from it now (and within the next years as well) is the illusion of real 3D vision which is more of a useless gimmick for most kinds of games (but would be fairly cool for simplistic games in the style of Virtua Cop I guess)…
As for nanotechnology, well, lol 
Dreamcast had superior technology, but I had more fun with Saturn. It had the Panzer Dragoon games, Nights into Dreams, Dragon Force, Shining Force III, and Guardian Heroes. Plus only Saturn had Radiant Silvergun. Dreamcast had Sonic Adventure, Ecco the Dolphin, Chu Chu Rocket, Samba De Amigo, and Soul Calibur. All fun games, but the best games on the Dreamcast aren’t as good as the best games on the Saturn. Of course the worst games on the Saturn. . . .
[quote=“Al3xand3r”]Eh, I just can’t picture a virtual reality system that is efficient and affordable for the common user to make its appearance anytime soon. Certainly not in four years… It’s even doubtful if the majority of arcade video games will use such a system since it’s not only too expensive but also cumbersome… Don’t forget that for most games you would not only need a visor but also gloves if not a full body suit for efficient gaming which is another thing that keeps virtual reality from becoming common… Hell, a lot of games wouldn’t really be possible even with a full body suit…
Maybe you could have a neat-ish fighting game for example (not so neatish really since it would not be really good or ‘realistic’ when the enemy is simply out of thin-air in real life thus cannot affect you in any way even if he keeps pounding you in the game?) but that wouldn’t mean a standard virtua fighter game would be obsolette since it allows you to execute martial arts moves that the avarage person can’t pull off… The same goes for RPGs, imagine a virtual reality PDS, how would they ever make you really feel that you are flying on a dragon or that you are on foot going from town to town or whatever? You will still need to use some kind of control system other than simply walking around which will cheapen the whole experience and show that Virtual Reality is very limiting in a lot of ways thus the only benefit you can get from it now (and within the next years as well) is the illusion of real 3D vision which is more of a useless gimmick for most kinds of games (but would be fairly cool for simplistic games in the style of Virtua Cop I guess)…
As for nanotechnology, well, lol [/quote]
I was watching a documentry on sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming recently, and, appartently, during the REM phase of sleep, your brain administers some sort of drug that paralyses your body, but if you try to move a body part, you will still feel like you are moving it (this is a natural precaution to stop people from acting out there dreams). It also allows you to “feel” objects in your dream.
Now, I started think that If they could create technology that simulated this concept they could make a very convincing VR experience, so you would feel like you were walking, feel the object around you etc, but you would never actually move for the whole time. The only problem is, how exactly you would get out of the VR, considering that you are paralysed… oh well, it’s just a thought I had.
Edited due to really, really bad spelling. I should really proof read my posts.
Yeah,I’ve thought several times about someone making VR games where you could feel things.Problem is : what if they can inflict serious pain?
They should inflict serious pain, then we should send all prisoners into them to serve their sentences and see if they can survive…or we can not do that.