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.