I played a bit more Grandia but I think I am going to abandon it; if I were more than 1/3 through it I might tough it out to the end, but I just don’t like dealing with the 3D maps. In addition to that I find the battle system often feels sluggish, having to wait for all these spell and move animations to finish before you can keep playing.
So it’s back to Shining Force, then I rolled more random games. The first one I had already played so that will be the next old game (Seiken Psycho Calibur), the second one was a game called Jade Cocoon for the PS1, which I guess did come out in English.
Too bad you didn’t like it, thought you probably aren’t missing much tbh, Grandia 1 is wayyy to long for its own good, the game feels like it last forever , what I like about it is it exploration and combat system both aspect that you didn’t like, Grandia 2 is definitely a much better game but I doubt you will like that one either, and Grandia 3 is definitely the worst game of the trilogy.