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 mind because I never had a memory card for quite some time so I'd replay the opening hour or two over and over until it was time for dinner or bed.

Eventually I got a memory card and my next entry was Digimon World 2003 and I wonder to what extent that lead to me being interested in computers generally and ultimately becoming a developer as a day job.

To this day, I've still yet to finish Grandia. I picked up the HD Collection on Switch and I'm about halfway. Every time I go on vacation (or particularly during the Christmas holidays), I'll progress a bit. There's no real rush though in that once it's over, it's over. I don't really tend to replay titles, particularly long RPGs.

It's also kind of weird actually seeing the rest of the game too. For the longest time, I had no idea where the story was going. I've still mostly managed to avoid spoilers as well so I conceptually don't know where the story ends up which is nice, given years of reading Wikipedia synopsis only to regret it later.

> A total joy… but one that demands an intense time commitment. A player Justin’s age surely has the time

I found this part funny because I was Justin's age when I first played Grandia and never found the time then let alone now

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triwats 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Nice comment! How is the HD collection?

Hmm, I think the flaws are what generally make games.

I played thousands of hours on a bunch of Quake 3 engine games (Q3:A, RTCW, ET)...

If you moved your mouse in a certain way you would go faster, and as a result there were a class of players that were speed demons.

These flaws are often ground out now, and I think that limits community-driven creativity. Especially since most games are impossible to mod now.

Eventually we found ways to limit this (limit fps in competitive configs as an e.g.) to prevent those with the best PCs have an unfair advantage.

	▲	Izkata 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> Nice comment! How is the HD collection? I bought my Switch because I found out about the HD collection, so this is remembered from 6+ years ago and may be fixed now, but two problems stuck out with Grandia II: One video crossing the Granacliffs didn't play (with the flying ship), and several magics turn out to be multiple videos played on top of each other - and they messed up the aspect ratio in a few (stretch vs center) so the visuals don't line up. Other than that it was what I remember on Dreamcast. Oddly, even the snowy area lagged in the exact same way as on Dreamcast.
	▲	vikingerik 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I agree, on where the flaws often make the games. My example of that was Heroes of Might and Magic 2 vs 3. 3 is the legendary one that everybody remembers, but I actually liked 2 better. Sure, 3 is far superior for balance and AI and content... but for me, the unbalance of 2 was its charm. Trying to win with the underpowered knight castle, or against a far superior force with tactics like the blind spell that the AI wouldn't counter... that was the fun of the more primitive Heroes 2 and wasn't quite the same in the more developed 3. Less development in a game can actually make for more fun factor.

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layer8 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Did they ever fix the HD version? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UokSL_j7Ot8

	▲	throwaway613745 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		[dead]

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qingcharles 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It warms my heart knowing that there's others that enjoyed Grandia as much as I did. It always felt very underrated and forgotten.

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KolibriFly 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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