[[2026 Games#^e571c6|2026 Games]]  ## 2026-08-25 **Grandia Xtreme** is a game that was unairly maligned by [[JRPG]] fans who are dumb and always have bad opinions. Rather than approach the game on its terms, it was received poorly at its release, and still gets shit on to this day. I'm here to provide a case in its defense, because **Grandia Xtreme** actually fucking rules. It isn’t without its issues, and I’ll get into those, but I feel the need to defend **Xtreme** because it gets criticized outside of the context of the developers’ intent. By this I mean it’s not meant to be a story-heavy game like its predecessors. Rather, it’s a grind-heavy dungeon-crawler that barely has any plot until you get into its deeply extensive post-game. The fact that it’s not a numbered title should be the big clue here. Getting mad it doesn’t have **Final Fantasy**-aah cutscenes feels like criticizing **Gran Turismo** because it has a bad loot pool. So taking that context into account, what are we left with? Effectively a game that’s literally just hours and hours and hours of **Grandia**’s combat system. Which is perfect, because ***Grandia's** combat system fucking owns*. It’s so good that I've been chasing its high for two decades in other games and been left sorely wanting.[^1] The main mechanic of manipulating the timeline, preventing enemies from being able to attack and defending at just the right moment, is unmatched. It's fucking fire. I don’t give a shit about any of the plots in the **Grandia** series, including **Grandia III**, which also owns when you skip all the cutscenes. In fact, that I don’t have to skip cutscenes makes **Xtreme** the superior game, and arguably the best in the series. The things that make **Xtreme** weak isn't the lack of plot, it’s the things that make a lot of [[PlayStation 2]] games hard to get back to. You can go upwards of an hour without seeing a save point, which might have been fine when I was 10, but now I just abuse the hell out of save states. The skill books and magic eggs were perfected in **Grandia II** — fusing magic eggs for new skills is awesome, but the RNG around the whole system is annoying (and can also be abused by save states 😎). But that's basically it. In my mind it’s a perfect experience otherwise. Check it out if you aren’t a coward and love yourself some [[Goopy Goblin Gamer Brain|goop]]. [^1]: indie devs, stop imitating **Mario RPG**'s stupid-ass timed hits and start imitating **Grandia**!!!