The sphere grid shouldn' t even be mentioned in the argument. No one mentioned the differences in the way both games level up. I love the sphere grid and kudos to Square for thinking it up but that' s not the issue. Square DID take the ideas that were implemented into Grandia' s battle system and made it the same thing in a different package. So the bar is vertical rather than horizontal, and every character has their own bar. That' s the only differences in the combat system. There both still on one long bar, with character icons lined up to show who' s turn it is...the enemy' s attacks are also on the bar...the game freezes when it' s that characters turn to fight. The only really different thing about the two games is that Grandia had more strategy than FFX.

Real Time Fighting is fun.Unlike turn-based where u dont even fight all u do is pick commands.

fathoms " Mindless hacking and slashing gets boring after a while; the strategy required in most turn-based games adds an entirely new dimension of depth to the game"

LOL Turn-based is boring from the start.

Russian, I think by now everyone here knows who and what you are. A clueless kid who only cares about graphics. I' ve said it before and I' ll say it again: GET AWAY FROM ME. You' re so ignorant when it comes to games, it' s SCARY.

Yoshi: Let me see if I can understand this- placing icons of the character on a bar means something? What does that have to do with the actual gameplay? That' s entirely cosmetic! You don' t believe that Grandia came up with the ATB idea, do you? Now I' m really confused. What about the actual gameplay did FF X " copy" ? By the way, the development timelines for FF X do predate Grandia II by several months.

And seeing as FF X had about three times as many possible spells and abilities to learn, ALL at any given character' s disposal if you' ve learned them, I think it' s really funny that you say Grandia II " required more strategy."

I remember not having to think hardly at ALL in that game.

So gaining more spells is more strategic than placement of your party? Honestly, did you even play Grandia or Grandia II? Spells in the game only have a certain area that they are effective, meaning the placement of the spells determines which monsters you actually attack. So you are facing 3 cactus creatures and one wolf beast...you want to take out the cactus creatures first so you pick your most powerful fire spell, Fire Pillar or something, and you place it on the middle cactus, thus letting the area of the spell encircle all the cacti. Also there is actually uses for the Critical Strikes, which cancel the enemies special moves for 1 turn.

The Grandia series is by no means a strategy RPG, but it does have more elements of that type of game than FFX has.

And to be perfectly clear the ATB gauge isn' t the same as what Grandia did in it' s games. Squaresoft added their ATB gauges to every character icon to make it look a little different than Grandia' s bar. And no that' s not about the battles, but then again neither is the sphere grid...but they are both related to the battles themselves.

As to not thinking at all in a game, well all I can say is that if you had to think your way through Final Fantasy X then you have issues. That was the easiest RPG I' ve ever played. I was never even challenged in the game, which is sad because an RPG should be challenging. The most challenging part in that whole game was earning the Sun Sigil for Titus, and maybe having to jump the lightening strikes. I love the game to death but I' m not going to have you tell everyone in here that just because you didn' t play Grandia the way it was meant to be played that FFX is a more stategic game, which it' s not.

Of course, thinking has never been your strong point...

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