Grandia HD Collection

NPCs are assets, not obstacles in the Grandia HD Collection. The music is beautiful but used as a backdrop, allowing you to focus on the game's diverse worlds. Characters from each game are charming, with the first game having a better protagonist, and the second having a superior supporting cast. The battle systems are still unique to this day, and these games are now fully democratized to all of the major home gaming markets. It's timeless for connoisseurs of the classics, and essential for those seeking a truly unique JRPG.

The first entries in one of the greatest JRPG series have finally been compiled in a brand new collection for Switch. Let's check it out!

But besides that, there’s a fair bit of features that I’ve grown accustomed to from other rereleases of old titles that are missing here. You cannot set the game to render in its original resolution, loading and saving relies on a clunky menu, a lack of fast forwarding for battles, no auto function for text, so on and so forth. At the very least I would have appreciated save states as this title doesn’t even support Quick Resume on Xbox Series consoles (and I’ve bumbled my way into a good hours worth of time lost thanks to that). I found the sprites in GRANDIA to look rather blotted, no thanks...

For quite some time now, the Nintendo Switch has become my go-to machine whenever I need to scratch that nostalgic itch. I’m not just talking classic NES games either, but it’s been wonderful revisiting updated ports like Final Fantasy X/X-2, Okami HD, and both Mega Man X Legacy Collections. And while all of those games can be played on other platforms, the Switch has the added benefit of being portable. And so when I heard that Sega’s classic JRPG franchise Grandia was getting an HD collection just for Switch, I could hardly contain my excitement. Not only are these two criminally underrated ...

The Grandia HD Collection is a solid, albeit, late entry to the PS4 and Xbox One’s library.

The highly anticipated remaster of the first two Grandia games is finally out, but did it live up to expectations?

Grandia HD Collection is a wonderful entry point into a criminally under-discussed JRPG series. Both games are absolute classics, featuring wonderful characters, inventive gameplay and really astounding writing. Die-hard fans might take issue with the updated nature of the sprites in Grandia 1. Every player out there, meanwhile, is likely to be turned off by the constant performance issues of Grandia 2. This isn't a perfect release, but the pros still far outweigh the cons when it comes to having an accessible way to play these old-school gems.