Grandia 2 Low Level Game BOSS: Durham Minotaur [Part 1 of 2]

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MoogleBoss

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Published on March 12, 2009 8:16:45 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvk7p64uF9I

Game:

Grandia II (2000)

Duration: 5:38

1,025 views

8

I've been meaning to attempt a low level game in Grandia II for a while now. A normal playthrough in the game is too easy, with most encounters being killed in 1-2 spell castings and every boss battle being an exhibition of the most powerful moves and spells you'd learnt and not much involvement of the actual boss.

Without clear insight into the game's mechanics, I had to experiment a bit to find out how levels are actually calculated when characters join you. In Grandia 2, playable characters often leave the party just to come back shortly after with a new level. I initially supposed that I could take a character about to leave and grind for skill and magic points, as well as money, with everybody else killed off. That didn't quite work, as it appears that the party members not present in the party gain all the experience acquired in their absence.

And that makes things a lot more fun. No grinding, just the bare minimum of battles fought to advance in the game, so we're pretty much limited in every regard: levels, skills, magic, equipment (though quite a lot of good stuff is found in chests later on as well as won in boss battles).

Levels at this point:

Ryudo - 10
Millenia - 12 (levels up to lv. 14 after beating the boss alone)
Roan - 8

During inescapable compulsory battles, the character who is about to leave absorbs the experience. In escapable encounters that are mandatory to reach the boss in dungeons, all foes but one are killed and then the party runs away. The battle is fought another time, this time against the single enemy; once again, with one party member absorbing the experience. It was quite frustrating doing all that with Millenia knowing her tendency to go berserk when damaged, but constant use of the save points helped a bit.

The first boss isn't too hard, even without any skill and magic augments (I'm still not quite sure towards which skills and spells I should direct gained points; I'll decide when I have trouble progressing further, I guess).

He starts the battle with two allies which attack with regular physicals and can put your characters to sleep (and we have no protection from that because you need to fight a skippable battle in the dungeon to get the accessory that protects from sleep). That's why we start by using Millenia's strongest attack which hits everybody for impressive damage regardless of location.

The next objective is to dispose of the boss's minions by tossing random items at them. I just noticed that the items never actually do the damage the game claims they're supposed to do, but far less. Seems to be the case even with non-elemental ones, too. I don't know how to explain this because the numbers aren't even a rough estimate.

In the end, it's Millenia's Burn spell that takes care of the enemies.

When the boss is alone, we take note who he's about to attack next (this information is known when you target enemies during your turns) and act accordingly by defending with the victim and interrupting the boss's turn with the other guys.

All in all, it is manipulation of space and time that makes this game fun, and the added difficulty should make this a fun challenge.

To be continued in the next vid (the recording was 12 or so minutes)... I'll upload it tomorrow seeing how Vegas keeps freezing for me today.

Oh, and if anyone knows why the sound is so distorted when I connect the console to the computer and how I can fix this, I will very much appreciate it.

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