I just don't know. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something about Apollo's character bothered me since DD, and others' reviews shed light on it, and I was like "yeah, he's like a different character every time". It's not something super obvious, but yeah.
Tired of all the retconning these games did, which end up making these later games feel so forced.

This game is absolutely my least favorite of the 6. I dislike the Kura'in monarchy and the STUPID law that the characters are forced under, it's almost comical how ridiculous it is. I also dislike Nahyuta; he's by far my least favorite prosecutor, BUT the last chapter did make me like him in the end.
The last chapter in general was insane, but kind of in a good way. I do like how it ended up, definitely the highlight of the game.
Rayfa is cute and I love her development. Some great designs from new characters. Some really fun twists.
I left this game on a pretty positive note, but I'm so glad it's over.

There's so much I like about this game, but I'll say the bottom line first, it's just WAY too damn long for what it is.
While the combat is possibly the best part of the game, the gameplay is essentially 80% battles. The grinding of skills is awful, especially when you can't skip spell animations.

I got up to Cafu but I can't go on anymore. The world is interesting, but the exploration is lacking. The world doesn't look the best (maybe the HD version makes it look muddier or something?) and the map and minimap orientation is terrible. This is one of my biggest complaints, I never know where I am, no matter which town or field I'm in.

I can definitely forgive the lack of an in-your-face story, it doesn't try to do anything crazy. It's about the exploration, the adventure. It nails that feeling, no doubt.
I wish it was voice acted more than just a few important story scenes, and I wish the dialogue was better. It feels extremely stilted sometimes.
Lots of complaints but I do love a lot about this game; maybe I'll enjoy Grandia 2 more.

The end of Kiryu's saga, part 2, revengeance. (until Y8, oh boy here we go again)
Lots of mixed feelings on this one, mostly negative but some strong positives.
The ending broke me, I got choked up. Some incredible voice acting from Kuroda Takaya, maybe his best performance as Kiryu. That, and the final fight (absolutely contrived as it was) was awesome. Fun and satisfying fight choreography.

The Agent style (spiderman mode) is a cool concept but it just doesn't mesh with Kiryu's fighting style and feels out of place and hamfisted in. The drones are awful, firefly isn't practical, and the grapple doesn't work on bosses. (but crowd control is admittedly fun with it sometimes)
I seem to be in the minority for some reason but I did love the jet boots, as dumb as it is. I would constantly use it on big crowds, it's hilarious and works really well to cull the herds.


This being basically a tie-in game, the addition of forced side content is at its most obvious. Akame is great, I kinda love her as a character, but her patrol missions are SO lame, and the official requests are an absolute snoozefest; they all felt like recycled content. And you sometimes are forced to do this side content. Normally this wouldn't bother me since I like to do side quests in games, but these just weren't it.

The Castle is wholly unnecessary and is pretty much a huge gambling den (and arena) that they tried to implement into the story but...why?
Speaking of the story, I won't get into it because I just don't care at this point, but as I mentioned, the ending was really good.