The Granstream Saga

released on Nov 06, 1997

The Granstream Saga is an action game with strong RPG elements, and a spiritual successor to Gaia games. The player controls Eon as he explores overworld and dungeon locations, which are presented in overhead-viewed 3D. Battles are one-on-one; whenever an enemy is encountered, the view is zoomed on the combat participants who must fight each other until one of them emerges victorious. Eon can use swords, daggers, or axes against his enemies. He has a variety of attack moves at his disposal, including combos, shield-breaking abilities, etc.; he can also actively guard and cast magic spells. Leveling up, which increases Eon's attributes, occurs at set intervals throughout the game rather than from accumulating experience points.


Released on

Genres


More Info on IGDB


Reviews View More

Quintet's worst release, including their Inuyasha PS2 JRPG. I think that the setting for the game was really cool, with the closet comparison I could think of being Skies of Arcadia, and their combat system makes sense as a continuation of their previous ARPGs. The anime cutscenes also look nice for what they are.

Nothing else works in the game for me. I played this game for 20 hours and I couldn't tell you the main character's name. There's so much in this game that's either feels like an unenthusiastic adaptation of an existing property (that doesn't exist) or is outright frustrating like the input reading combat. There's bad music in a Quintet game! It's so hard to divorce this game from what their previous games managed to accomplish, but even when I do put those games out of my mind this still isn't a game I had a great time going through. Couldn't recommend even to diehards of the company, and it really sucks to say that.

A PS1 RPG made by Quintet, the same people that made ActRaiser, Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia and my beloved Terranigma, though unfortunately it doesn't really match their quality.

The combat’s interesting, when an enemy reaches you the camera shifts and you begin fighting it 1 on 1 as if it was a 3D fighter, but unfortunately the enemy variation is very limited and the game is extremely repetitive as a result. The story is also extremely boring up to the literal final dungeon, at which point it actually gets really interesting, but while I appreciate it it’s too little too late, and the game as a whole feels pretty forgettable.

I appreciate how some of the story beats are fully-voice acted anime cutscenes, that’s impressive for a PS1 game, especially since they look pretty decent. The voice acting isn’t great (despite having a couple of weirdly big names, like Steve Blum) but that adds to the charm.

Overall, though, you're probably not going to hate it but there just isn't that much here. Kind of a shame, given that this would be one of Quintet's last games, and sort of the last one that fits the themes of the unofficial series I listed at the beginning of this review.

There are a few reasons why this game might be interesting to you (The first fully 3D RPG! The game that knocked FF7 off the top of the Japanese sales charts! Maybe you're really into the Soul Blazer games!) but none of those reasons are "this game is good."

Good game buried under a lot of flaws like pacing issues, repetitive and unbalanced combat, trashy voice acting, whacky worldbuilding, and just generally weak story.
Despite all that though, the game is still fun enough to play, a bit tedious at times because of the puzzle and the repetitive combat.