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Grandia II Announced For PS2, New Grandia Game In The Works (June 4th, 2001)
Enix and Game Arts have announced today their collaboration (Enix invested in 15% of the capital of Game Arts) on upcoming releases and developments. They will be releasing Grandia II for the PS2 (which has been announced for a US release by Ubi Soft already!) and a new Grandia game on the PS2 as well, Grandia X (as in the letter 'X', not the roman figure), tentative title. More on this soon, hopefully.
Grandia II has been officially released earlier this year for the PC in... Korea! A Korean company named ST Media has released a PC version of the game in Korean. They durrently have no plans for an English language release. And I have no idea where to get the PC version... sorry ^^;  
Grandia II released in North America
Grandia II is now officially available in North America. An official site has opened and the American packaging has been added to the Products section ^^
Grandia II sales figures (September 7th, 2000)
A month after the release, it seems that Grandia II's sales in Japan are disappointing. Releasing it between FFIX and DQ7 wasn't such a good idea, it looks like... It's nonetheless one of the best-selling DC games lately, but it may not oversell its predecessor...
Europe will get Grandia II in english only (September 6th, 2000)
As it could be expected, Ubi Soft has plans to release Grandia II in Europe. However,
Grandia II will be released in English only -- a choice rarely seen for RPGs nowadays (Ubi Soft will provide localized packaging with fully-translated manuals, though). The very large amount of text in the game and more importantly, the quantity of dubbed dialogue is most likely the cause of this decision.
Grandia II became available in Japan today! This page is no longer a "preview" page ^^;
Game Arts had a booth at the Tokyo Character Show, held on July 22nd & 23rd. For the occasion, they presented a new lineup of Grandia II goods! The new products are a new series of Telephone Cards, a Caro Mousepad, a Poster, Postcards, and a Caro towel, along with figures of the three Grandia II heroines: Elena, Mileenia and Tio. The towel comes in five colors and costs 700 yen. You can check out pictures of these new products by going to our newly-opened Products section!
Ubi Soft will be publishing Grandia II in the US (and probably Europe) as you must already know. Fans disappointed by the US dub of the first Grandia will be more than pleased to hear that Ubi Soft has hired the same team that did Metal Gear Solid! The dub of MGS was said to be even better than the original Japanese dub! Ubi Soft commented that they have translated about 30 to 60 percent of the game already, and that the english version should be released for Christmas 2000.
[Source : IGNDC]
Grandia II, like most games lately, will have a limited edition, which will cost 7,800 yen. The limited edition will come with a CD-book entitled "Melodia", which contains a Grandia II Compendium (a booklet with various sketches and pictures of the world and characters of Grandia II and a Maxi Single (with the main themes from the game, remixed by Noriyuki Iwadare and others). The book will come with lyrics sheets. Here's the track list of the CD: With the names of Baal and Gadoin mentionned, one may wonder whether these musics will be remixes of Grandia or Grandia II. If this kind of item doesn't interest you though, remember you can purchase the regular edition for 6,800 yen.
First, a release date for Grandia II was finally announced today, and this date is August, 3rd 2000. In other words, we'll be able to play Grandia II in no less than 70 days! Hopefully Grandia II will not suffer too much from the competition of Final Fantasy IX and Dragon Quest VII, being released respectively on July 7th and August 26th.
Also, at the E3 two weeks ago, Ubi Soft revealed that they won the US publishing rights of Grandia II. This gives some hope for a good translation, as Ubi has shown in the past their strong interest for the series (they published Grandia in Europe). Also, the Ubi Soft booth at E3 had a Grandia II poster which you can see here (thanks to Chrono for the scan ^^). Note that the poster illustration has two new characters we don't know about yet.
Lats month's Tokyo Game Show had a relevent Grandia II corner at the Sega booth, like previoulsy announced.
Here are some pictures and impressions of TGS. (Taken from the report I wrote for RPGfan... laziness).
As reported earlier, Kaori Kawasumi, who previously sang the vocals to Grandia's Alent theme and will sing Elena's songs in Grandia II, held live vocal performances at the booth.
The Grandia II premium video, a video tape featuring gameplay footage and comments on the game, was given to booth visitors, who could also get their hands on exclusive Caro inflatable dolls! Another nice touch was the Grandia II data available for VMS owners to download. One example was a Grandia II VMS clock.
Most importantly, Grandia II gameplay footage was shown! A several-minute movie showed illustrations, background designs, battle footage, and presented the main characters. We also got to hear briefly the characters' dubbed voices in a battle extract.
Game Arts reveals new info for Tokyo Game Show ! New character, voice information and TGS stuff revealed ! (March 24th, 2000)
Game Arts unveils new info for the TGS ! Since I'm lazy I'll just moslty copy and paste what I wrote for RPGfan :P Game Arts' four upcoming titles will be represented on the Sega and Capcom booths. Those titles are Grandia II for the Dreamcast (Sega booth), Zhengwen no Sangokushi, Gungriffon Blaze, and Silpheed : The Lost Planet, all three titles published by Capcom for the Playstation 2 (Capcom booth). As for Grandia II, a new promotional video of the game will be shown at the Sega booth. A limited quantity of a promotional video tape known as "Grandia II premium video" will also be given to visitors. It was also mentioned that visitors will be able to download material from the booth with their VMS. The contents of this downloadable material is unknown, though. As for voice acting, it's been revealed that Kaori Kawasumi has been named the voice of Elena's songs ! She will have a live performance at TGS. Kaori Kawasumi previously sung the background chorales for Grandia's Alent theme and the (beautiful) ending theme of Langrisser V. We don't know yet if she will also be the actress of Elena but this is a possibility. More information on the game's voice actors has yet to be revealed, but this information seems to confirm that the game will be dubbed just like the first installment ! Game Arts also unveiled a new Grandia II character: a mascot pet known as Caro. The Sega booth will carry Caro plushes for the visitors ! Go to the Characters section for more info about Caro ! ^^
Lastly, I added pictures to the screens section : 2 from Game Arts' page and 20 captured from the Grandia II movie. Check them out here !
A 24-seconds exclusive movie has just been revealed ! (MPEG, 5.25 Meg).
 Click on the screenshots to download the movie ! This movie and its content is (c) Game Arts and is used only for demonstration purpose. 
10 new screenshots, a Character and a town illustrations !! (January 25th, 2000)Apparently, the girl on the left is Elena, the boy is Ryudo, and the girl on the right is Millenia. Source : GodMars Sky, The GIA
9 new screenshots !! (January 21th, 2000)
9 new screenshots of Grandia 2 have been revealed !
Grandia II © Game Arts / ESP, 2000 |
Grandia 2 at the Spring Tokyo Game Show 2000! (May 15th, 2000)
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