Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Joy of Playing Grandia, on Sega Saturn

segasaturnshiro.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 127 posts

Re: The Joy of Playing Grandia, on Sega Saturn

#91

Post by KolibriFly »

jerf wrote: post #50

I haven't played the first one but I played Grandia II on the Dreamcast and I think it's still my favorite battle system in a JRPG to date. Not only does it have the obvious details you can see on a YouTube playthrough, but higher-end play with it also requires managing positioning, which is easy to miss as an option at all in the menus, or to think it has no purpose. A low-level challenge run would probably be a lot…

When the core mechanics are that good, it's frustrating to see them undermined by soft balancing

Re: The Joy of Playing Grandia, on Sega Saturn

#92

Post by KolibriFly »

throwaway613745 wrote: post #37

I almost always try to play on original hardware on an appropriate display (CRT) whenever I can. The deluge of remasters and remakes we've been getting can be nice - but I find a lot of the time that they can be hit or miss. They often feel like they've lost a lot of the magic created when the developers of the era had to work with the limitations of the hardware of the era. Pixel art on those old CRT's vs pixel art…

There's something fundamentally different about playing these games on the hardware they were designed for

Re: The Joy of Playing Grandia, on Sega Saturn

#93

Post by KolibriFly »

spondyl wrote: post #7

I was just about to go to bed and what a surprise seeing Grandia trending #1 on Hacker News of all places. For myself, Grandia is one of those games that was part of my childhood so despite having flaws, it transcends ratings in a sense. It was the first game I ever got on the first home console I ever had, the PlayStation 1. I would only have been about 9 or 10(?) (31 now) and the intro to the game is burned into my…

It's kind of poetic that you've been slowly chipping away at it over holidays, bit by bit

Re: The Joy of Playing Grandia, on Sega Saturn

#95

Post by KolibriFly »

devinprater wrote: post #48

Thank goodness for emulation. With OCR, and now AI screenshot descriptions, I can know what menu I'm in, what menu option is selected, dialog on the screen, stuff like that. Case and point, Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3 for the Playstation 2. On original hardware, I had no idea what I was getting when I'd finish a battle in story mode. Now, with NetherSX2 on my phone, after a battle, I can have TalkBack describe…

Emulation isn't just about convenience or preservation, it can literally unlock experiences for people who were previously shut out

Re: The Joy of Playing Grandia, on Sega Saturn

#96

Post by jeppester »

I got my hands on Grandia because one of my friends' younger brother thought it was Digimon and begged their mom to buy it.

Being 10 years old or so and not knowing much English yet (being Danes), we were pretty clueless about how to progress, but eventually we succeeded and got pretty far into the game. The game is about a great adventure, but for us it was also an adventure into the English language and a new type of game that we'd never tried before. I miss those experiences!

Later I went back to it and completed it in my teens.

The timing of this article is a bit fun since I'm currently playing it for the third time with my son, translating it on the go. It's awesome to see my "friends" also becoming his friends, and the game is holding up quite well and keeping him interested.

Apart from the charming characters, the visual variety is really good with each town having it's own style. There's also hardly a boring moment (admittedly using fast forward for the battles, which otherwise otherwise a bit repetitive later on), there's a new story beat every half hour or so to keep everything fresh.

The combat is also quite good, although easy if you have a bit of slightest experience with these kinds of games.

Re: The Joy of Playing Grandia, on Sega Saturn

#97

Post by jccalhoun »

kouteiheika wrote: post #15
TavsiE9s wrote: post #4

I've tried so many times to play the classic JRPGs only to be met by loooooooong cutscenes before even allowing me to control the characters. Grandia is unfortunately no exception: 10-13 minutes if I remember correctly from booting the game to actually being able to do anything besides mash buttons to try and skip the cutscenes.

> 10-13 minutes if I remember correctly from booting the game to actually being able to do anything besides mash buttons to try and skip the cutscenes. Genuinely curious - if you don't care about the story then why play an RPG? When you're speedrunning - sure, skip all of the cutscenes, but when you're playing casually - why would you want to do that?

For me, it isn't about not liking the story, but about having to watch a movie when I want to play a game. Don't show it to me. Let me do it.

Re: The Joy of Playing Grandia, on Sega Saturn

#98

Post by jldugger »

jandrese wrote: post #82
jerf wrote: post #50

I haven't played the first one but I played Grandia II on the Dreamcast and I think it's still my favorite battle system in a JRPG to date. Not only does it have the obvious details you can see on a YouTube playthrough, but higher-end play with it also requires managing positioning, which is easy to miss as an option at all in the menus, or to think it has no purpose. A low-level challenge run would probably be a lot…

It's very common with RPGs of that era (and all eras really) that the developers don't test every edge case and end up leaving ultra-powered (and just as many or more close to useless) builds in the game. Every feature added increases the possibility of breakage by some quadratic factor. Once your battle system hits a certain level of complexity it's close to inevitable. Even carefully developed modern games like Bal…

IMO the way around that is to make breaking the game a requirement. If it's already an accidental part of the fun, might as well make it intentional!

Re: The Joy of Playing Grandia, on Sega Saturn

#99

Post by bigstrat2003 »

jldugger wrote: post #98
jandrese wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very common with RPGs of that era (and all eras really) that the developers don't test every edge case and end up leaving ultra-powered (and just as many or more close to useless) builds in the game. Every feature added increases the possibility of breakage by some quadratic factor. Once your battle system hits a certain level of complexity it's close to inevitable. Even carefully developed modern games like Bal…

IMO the way around that is to make breaking the game a requirement. If it's already an accidental part of the fun, might as well make it intentional!

That makes games that aren't fun unless you're a wizard with the systems. They have their place, but I'm not a fan.

Personally, I think devs should embrace some stuff being broken. It's a single player game, it doesn't need balance. One of my favorite RPGs is FF8 precisely because you can trivialize the game if you engage with the character building systems. It feels awesome to stomp things with your broken party.

Re: The Joy of Playing Grandia, on Sega Saturn

#100

Post by bigstrat2003 »

FieryMechanic wrote: post #53
TavsiE9s wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think at that point I'd call it and mark that one as "finished it".

I don't think I will ever play a JRPG again. In fact it was the last one. These days I want my games to be actual games.

Look, complaining about unskippable cutscenes is one thing. Everyone has that complaint about FFX, I even know what boss you're talking about because it's so infamous. But saying that JRPGs aren't "actual games" is ridiculous. They are games, whether or not you personally enjoy them.
Post reply on HN