/vr/ - Retro Games

The Granstream Saga is a fairly unusual JRPG intended as a spiritual successor to the Soul Blazer/Illusion of Gaia/Terranigma trilogy of SNES action-RPGs. This is a top-down 3D adventure about a fairly cookie-cutter young hero who sets out to save his floating island world of evil. The downsides of The Granstream Saga are its ugly character models and totally by-the-numbers story which packs absolutely zero surprises for anyone who has played a JRPG before.

But on the other hand, gameplay aspects of the game make it stand out, such as the fact that combat is completely active-time, with a variety of useable weapons and spells, and while battles are always one-on-one and enemy variety leaves something to be desired, fights are generally very fun. Also, instead of buying new weapons or spells, the hero's magical artifact can "read" certain objects or metals and create new weapons or spells out of them, which encourages exploration instead of tedious grinding.

It was also developed partially by Production I.G., which means it has a lot of good-quality anime scenes for a game of its time.