It may not have the graphics of Final Fantasy VIII, but it makes up for that with charm, personality, and good gameplay.
Gameplay, 10. Like many other RPGs of the Playstation era in Grandia your characters journey around the world in hopes of trying to achieve so-and-so goal. Unlike some other RPGs Grandia doesn't throw you in random battles, instead, you actually see the enemies in the world. When you go into a battle you will see an IP bar at the bottom-right. When one of your characters gets to the end of the Com part of the IP bar you will be able to input a command. There are seven things you can do: Combo, Critical, Moves/Magic, Item, Defend, Search, and Retreat. A Combo is simply where your character attacks an enemy with two hits. A Critical attack makes your character hit once, but if the enemy's icon is between the Com and Act on the bar when the Critical attack hits then the enemy's attack is cancelled. Retreat lets you retreat from a battle, but only when your fighting normal enemies. You can't run from bosses. I don't think any of these other commands really needs explanations.
Despite how simple compared to Final Fantasy the action is, this game implements it perfectly. The fighting is a little more slow paced than other RPGs because you can't be attacked when choosing a command but the game isn't too easy though. This game just generally plays perfectly.
Presentation, 7. The graphics aren't the best for it's genre. However, the game makes up for that by having so much charm and personality in the world and its citizens that you won't even care about the graphics.
The sound effects are good. The music is pretty good as well. There's voice acting which is always nice to have.
Value, 10. This is a pretty long RPG, about 40 hours which is fantastic for a game this old.
PROS
Fun gameplay
Lots of personality and charm
It will take a while to go through
CONS
Not so awesome graphics
Anyone who likes RPGs should at least give Grandia a shot. While it gets overshadowed by Final Fantasy VIII that hardly makes it inferior. I would argue that this is a superior game but that's an argument for another day. My point is that Grandia is a fantastic RPG and as I said just a moment ago, anyone who likes RPGs, even remotely, should like Grandia.